How much does aerial photography cost in Melbourne?
A residential real estate package is $250. A half-day commercial shoot is $800, a full day $1,600. Those are my rates across Melbourne and Victoria, with airspace checks included and edited images delivered in three to five business days. Most Melbourne operators quote above those numbers; the ranges further down show by how much.
| Shoot | Price | What's included | Turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real estate package | $250 | One visit to a house or small property. Airspace check at the address, exteriors, land boundaries and neighbourhood context, edited stills licensed for the listing. | 3–5 business days |
| Commercial half day | $800 | One shoot window, usually a morning or an evening for the light. Airspace check and any approvals flagged before the day, stills or video or both, usage agreed upfront. | 3–5 business days for stills, longer for video |
| Commercial full day | $1,600 | The same scope across a full day: several locations in one booking, or a complete documentation pass of a single site. | 3–5 business days for stills, longer for video |
Recurring work is the one thing not on that table. Monthly construction progress shot from a fixed position is quoted as a series rather than per visit, because the value is the consistency across the set and the schedule is what makes it efficient to fly.
What does a half-day shoot include?
The flight is the cheap part. A typical property shoot has the drone in the air for twenty minutes, and what the $800 covers is everything wrapped around those twenty minutes.
Airspace comes first, before a date is even offered. Melbourne is genuinely awkward for drones: the CBD sits under controlled airspace, helicopters run the Yarra corridor, and Essendon and Moorabbin both push control zones over suburbs where clients want photos. Checking what is legal at your address, and arranging approvals where they are needed, happens before the booking is confirmed. A site in Werribee is a different job from a site in Southbank even when the brief is identical.
Then the shoot window itself, which is normally one clear morning or evening, because that is when the light is worth flying in. Then editing, which is where most of the remaining time goes. Raw drone files look flat and grey; the difference between a real estate shot that sells and one that sits is mostly made at the desk afterwards.
Licensing is agreed before the shoot rather than after. Photos for a single property listing are one thing and the same photos on a billboard are another, and settling that upfront is cheap where discovering it later is not.
What do other Melbourne operators charge?
Worth knowing before you compare quotes, including mine. Across Melbourne operators generally, a single-location drone shoot runs somewhere between $350 and $800 for edited stills, and $600 to $1,500 if you add video. A half-day commercial booking usually lands between $900 and $2,000.
Real estate is the most standardised of them. Agents typically order 8 to 15 edited aerial stills of a listing, shot in one visit, and most Melbourne operators price that between $350 and $600 — with dusk shoots at the top of the range, because the usable light lasts about fifteen minutes and books out fast in winter.
Construction progress work is priced per visit but sold as a series, usually between $300 and $500 per visit once a schedule is locked in. Corporate and brand work varies the most: a single hero image of a headquarters might be a two-hour job, while a brand film with aerial sequences is a production, and quotes there run from $800 into five figures.
Is a drone or a helicopter cheaper in Melbourne?
A drone, in almost every case, and the gap is wide enough that it usually decides the platform before anyone talks about image quality. Helicopter aerial photography means chartering an aircraft — well over $1,000 per flight hour before the photographer is paid — plus positioning time from Moorabbin or Essendon, which is billed too. Every rate I publish sits below one hour of that.
| The brief | By drone | By helicopter |
|---|---|---|
| One house or small property | $250 | Not realistically offered. Charter minimums start above $1,000 an hour, so a single listing costs several times the whole drone shoot. |
| Half-day commercial shoot | $800 | $1,000+ per flight hour for the aircraft, plus the photographer and positioning time from Moorabbin or Essendon. |
| Several sites in one morning | $1,600 | Competitive here, and sometimes the better buy. One aircraft covers greater Melbourne in a session where a drone needs a separate visit per site. |
| Whole-of-city vista from above 400ft | Not available. Drones are held to 120 metres above ground without a specific CASA approval, and that ceiling is the whole constraint. | The only option, and worth the charter. Above 1,000 feet the city fits in one frame with room around it. |
The pattern is that the helicopter is not competing for the same jobs. It wins on altitude and on ground covered per hour, and loses everything else on cost. If your brief is one address and the image needs detail rather than sweep, the platform question answers itself — and the rates at the top of this page are what it costs. See coverage areas and how to book a drone photographer in Melbourne.
Why do aerial photography quotes vary so much?
Three things move a price, and none of them is the drone.
Airspace work differs by site, as above. Weather is the second: Melbourne's is famous for a reason, and a quote that looks high often includes the cost of the operator coming back when the first attempt gets blown out. A quote that looks low often does not, and you find that out on the day, when 30-knot gusts turn your booking into a reschedule with a fee attached. The third is editing time, which scales with how many finished images you have ordered.
None of that is visible in a number on a page, which is why comparing two quotes line by line tells you more than comparing their totals.
What makes an aerial photography quote more expensive?
Location is the big one. Anything near the CBD, an airport, a helipad, or a public event needs airspace work, and sometimes a formal CASA approval that takes weeks and carries its own cost. Tight deadlines cost more for the same reason rush anything costs more. So does flying over or near people, which is heavily restricted and sometimes needs the shot replanned entirely.
Broad usage licensing is the other, and clients rarely think to ask about it. A listing licence and a national campaign licence are different products even when the file is identical.
What should you ask before booking an aerial photographer?
Ask whether the operator holds CASA certification appropriate to the job and carries public liability insurance. Both answers should be immediate and specific. Ask what happens if weather kills the shoot date, and get the reshoot terms in writing. Ask how many edited images the price includes and what an extra image costs. And ask who owns the files, because "we keep the raws" is standard but should never be a surprise.
Price alone will not tell you any of that. The barrier to entry is a $2,000 drone, so a low number can mean an efficient operator or an uninsured one, and the two look identical until something goes wrong. On a routine job in open suburbia you might never see the difference. Next to a control zone, you will. That is the reason to ask the questions rather than to assume the dearest quote is the safest.
What these terms mean
- Usage licensing
- Usage licensing is the agreement covering where and for how long a commissioned image may be published. The same file is a different product on a single property listing than it is on a billboard, which is why usage is agreed before a shoot rather than after: settled upfront it costs nothing, and discovered later it is a renegotiation.
- CASA accreditation
- CASA accreditation is the credential the Civil Aviation Safety Authority requires before a drone can be flown commercially in Australia. Every print and commission here is flown under CASA’s standard operating conditions: a maximum of 120 metres above ground level, 30 metres clear of people not involved in the operation, within visual line of sight, and in daylight.
Common questions
How much does drone photography cost in Melbourne?
A residential real estate package is $250, a half-day commercial shoot is $800, and a full day is $1,600, anywhere in Melbourne and Victoria. The airspace check is included, and edited stills are delivered three to five business days after the shoot. Most Melbourne operators quote above those numbers.
Do you offer helicopter aerial photography?
No. This is a drone-only operation. For the overwhelming majority of Melbourne jobs a drone produces the same image for a fraction of the cost, and the few briefs that genuinely need a helicopter — very high altitude, or long distances covered in one flight — are better placed with a charter operator. The drone versus helicopter comparison covers where the line falls.
Is a drone cheaper than a helicopter?
Substantially. Helicopter photography in Melbourne means chartering an aircraft, typically well over $1,000 per flight hour before the photographer is paid, plus positioning time from Moorabbin or Essendon. Every rate on this page sits below one hour of that.
Do you charge per edited image?
No. Work is priced as a package rather than per image, so the number of finished shots is agreed in the brief instead of becoming a line item afterwards. It means you know the total before the drone leaves the case.
What areas around Melbourne do you cover?
Melbourne and Victoria, at the rates above — travel inside that area is not a surcharge. For jobs outside Victoria, get in touch and I will tell you whether it is workable rather than quoting blind.
Rates above, no quote required. Email the location and what you need and I'll confirm availability within one business day.
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