Pilot Payout Policy

This policy is part of your Pilot Independent Contractor Agreement. Together with the Pilot Payout Schedule, it tells you what you are paid, when you earn it, when it reaches you, and the only situations in which a payout can be held, adjusted or recovered. Every amount is fixed when the customer pays for the Mission, and a later price change never alters a Mission already paid for.

1. Definitions

• Complete. Send a Drone's quality review has approved the Mission under the Deliverables Standard: every critical item is a usable file or an accepted unable-to-capture item; at least 75% of the required items are accounted for; and you recorded your airworthiness determination. Items outside the Mission boundary are not required items.
• Recorded travel. You tapped "Start travel" in the app, which is possible only within 24 hours before the scheduled window.
• Business day. Monday through Friday, excluding U.S. federal holidays, in U.S. Central Time.
• Pilot Payout Schedule. The list of fixed payouts, the minimum payout and the trip amount. It is shown in the pilot dashboard to every pilot login with a confirmed email address, before you apply or accept this policy, and stays available while your application is under review, approved, active or suspended. It forms part of this policy. Before you accept this policy, or a new version of it, the platform asks you to review the current schedule and records the version you reviewed. Every offer also shows its exact payout before you accept.
• Trip amount. The fixed amount stated in the Pilot Payout Schedule, paid for a trip to a property when a Mission is not completed for a reason this policy names.

2. At a glance

• Mission complete. You receive: The full fixed payout in section 3. Paid by: Send a Drone.
• Customer cancels after your recorded travel. You receive: The trip amount. Paid by: Customer's payment.
• Customer access failure after recorded travel, usable majority captured. You receive: Full payout once complete. Paid by: Send a Drone.
• Customer access failure after recorded travel, usable majority not captured. You receive: The trip amount. Paid by: Customer's payment.
• Consent withdrawn or objected to, or the Mission is declined after review, after recorded travel. You receive: The trip amount. Paid by: Customer's payment.
• Weather, airspace (including an FAA authorization that could not be obtained) or safety no-go after recorded travel. You receive: The trip amount (Mission rescheduled). Paid by: Send a Drone.
• Any of the above before recorded travel. You receive: Nothing. Paid by: —.
• You withdraw or do not show. You receive: Nothing, except a trip amount already earned. Paid by: —.
• Mission fails only because of a confirmed platform failure. You receive: Full payout, if section 8 applies. Paid by: Send a Drone.

3. Fixed payouts

Every offer and hold request shows a fixed dollar payout before you accept. That payout is your entire compensation for the Mission, including all travel. It is not a percentage of the customer price, it does not change with distance, and it is never reduced in proportion to the number of photographs delivered.

The fixed payout for each service, including the amount for each additional building purchased and the amount for each completed visit of a package, is listed in the Pilot Payout Schedule.

No Mission pays less than the minimum payout stated in the Pilot Payout Schedule. You receive offers only inside the service radius you declare. Send a Drone may occasionally offer a Mission outside it; that offer shows its own fixed payout, and you may decline it.

No charges to you. Send a Drone charges you no platform, sign-up, listing, subscription or processing fee, takes no percentage of your payout, and imposes no fine or penalty for any withdrawal, no-show, late upload or failed Mission. No new-pilot reserve or holdback applies.

4. When a payout is earned

The Mission payout is earned when the Mission is complete. The 75% line is a completion threshold, not a payout percentage: a complete Mission earns the full payout. Privacy blurring, cropping or deletion of imagery after completion never reduces or recovers a payout.

5. Trip amounts

The trip amount is earned only when you recorded travel and the Mission then cannot be completed for one of these reasons:

• the customer cancels;
• a customer-side access failure (for example a locked gate, wrong address or missing permission) leaves you unable to capture a usable majority, meaning the completion standard is not met;
• an owner, occupant or principal withdraws consent or objects, including on site, and the Mission is cancelled, or Send a Drone declines the Mission after a review;
• you make a weather, airspace (including an FAA authorization that could not be obtained) or safety no-go, in which case the Mission is rescheduled and Send a Drone pays the trip amount itself.

An access problem does not by itself make an item unable to capture. If you captured a usable majority despite an access problem, the Mission continues through normal review and earns the full payout when complete. If a Mission is reassigned before capture, the original Pilot keeps only a trip amount already earned.

6. When you are paid

A payout or trip amount becomes eligible 3 business days after the Mission is complete (or, for a trip amount, after the event that earned it), with no open recapture. Send a Drone then releases it to your Stripe Connect account. Payouts are never same-day or instant. Payment pauses only while a recapture is open, while the customer's payment is under dispute, or while your payout account cannot receive funds, and resumes when the pause ends.

7. Construction Progress 4-Pack

Each of the four visits is a separate Mission for dispatch, review and payout, and each completed visit pays the per-visit payout in the Pilot Payout Schedule. A visit that is cancelled, not reconfirmed by the customer, or never flown pays only a trip amount earned under section 5. Send a Drone prefers to offer later visits to the same Pilot when practical, but does not require it and does not promise it.

8. Recaptures and recovery

Recapture before you are paid. If a recapture is opened before your payout is released, the payout pauses and resumes, keeping its original eligibility date, once the recaptured deliverables are approved.

Recapture after you are paid. Send a Drone records a contingent recovery obligation for that payout. It is released if the recapture is completed or withdrawn. It becomes due only if the recapture fails because of your error. A due obligation is recovered by your repayment or by offset against your future payouts, as your Agreement permits, and further payouts pause until it is recovered. Send a Drone never debits your bank account. Your Earnings page shows each obligation and whether it is contingent, due or recovered.

Failed recapture. A customer's report does not by itself create a recapture or an obligation. If a recapture fails, Send a Drone records one outcome under the Cancellation, Refund & Recapture Policy: completion, one final recapture, a partial refund or a full refund. A refund caused by Send a Drone is Send a Drone's cost and never reduces a payout you earned.

Platform-fault exception. If a Mission never reaches completion solely because of a confirmed Send a Drone or platform failure, and you otherwise performed the required work timely and properly, Send a Drone records a platform-fault finding and pays your normal payout, and it bears the customer refund. The exception never applies to pilot fault; weather, safety or access issues; equipment failure; incomplete work; an invalid unable-to-capture claim; wrong-property or out-of-boundary capture; or cases where proper performance cannot be established.

9. Holds and adjustments

Send a Drone may hold or adjust a payout only when:

1. files are missing, unreadable, of the wrong property or outside the Mission boundary;
2. a required recapture is not completed;
3. the customer's payment is charged back because of your breach or fraud;
4. you breached confidentiality, customer non-solicitation, insurance or credential terms;
5. there is a credible injury, damage, privacy or unlawful-operation claim arising from your conduct, and only until it is resolved; or
6. Send a Drone must correct an overpayment.

Send a Drone tells you the reason for any hold or adjustment in the app. These never reduce or recover your pay: a chargeback you did not cause; a weather, airspace or safety no-go without customer fault; a refund made for Send a Drone's convenience or caused by Send a Drone; or a later privacy action on imagery.

10. Payout disputes

To dispute a payout, a hold, an adjustment or a recovery obligation, email support@sendadrone.us with the subject line "Payout dispute — [Mission ID]" within 30 calendar days after the payout or after the decision you dispute.

1. Send a Drone reviews the Mission's records (quality review and unable-to-capture decisions, timestamps, recaptures and payout history) and sends you a written decision with its reason within 20 business days after receiving your dispute.
2. If you disagree, reply within 15 business days asking for owner review. An owner of Send a Drone who did not make the first decision sends a final written decision within 15 business days.
3. After the final decision, or if a decision is not sent on time, you may pursue any remedy under your Agreement.

Filing a dispute does not by itself release, stop or reverse a payout, remove a recovery obligation, charge or refund a customer, or debit you.

11. Payout account and taxes

Payouts go to your own Stripe Connect account, set up from your Earnings page. Stripe verifies your identity and bank details; Send a Drone does not see your bank credentials. Send a Drone pays you as its contractor from its own funds; it does not hold or transmit customer money on your behalf. You are responsible for your payout account and tax information. Form 1099 information returns are issued when legally required. Missing or invalid tax information may pause payouts until corrected.

12. Changes to amounts

Send a Drone may change payout or trip amounts for the future by publishing a new version of this policy or of the Pilot Payout Schedule. A change applies only to offers made after it takes effect; every offer you have already accepted keeps the amount it showed. You must review the current Pilot Payout Schedule and accept a new version before receiving further offers, and you may decline it and stop accepting Missions at any time.