Soar now lets users price their own drone image
By: Eric Van Rees
Tags: GIS, Maps, Stock Photos, Drones, Blockchain Technology

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It is now possible to set your own price when uploading drone imagery to the Soar platform. However, before uploading your imagery you want to make sure your imagery has value for a large group of users so that they’re willing to pay your going rate.

The Soar platform is an open marketplace where drone image producers can sell their content. Until now, users who uploaded drone imagery to the platform weren’t able to specify the cost of a single image, but with the official launch of the platform in May 2019, users can now select a price when they’re in the process of uploading their imagery to the platform.

How does it work?

Soar offers six different pricing categories from which users can choose when uploading their content. The first category is “free”, which means the imagery is offered to be downloaded for free. However, the default setting is $10, which is also the lowest price offered. The other price values are $25, $50, $75 and $100. With each price range come fees and commission, leaving the uploader with a part of the going rate. For example, when a price of $100 is set, the user is returned $70 when the image is sold, after paying fees and commission. All this information is displayed in a form that is provided to the user when uploading imagery.

How to choose the right price for your imagery?

Soar users are encouraged to upload imagery with the highest quality available to the platform. High-quality imagery not only raises the value of the Soar platform as a whole, but will result in higher prices being paid to uploaders. To help users upload and improve the quality of their imagery, we’ve put together a blog post that helps you focus on what we think is important when uploading drone imagery to the platform.

It goes without saying that colorful, eye-catching drone photos that follow stock photos trends will be in high demand. However, the value of a drone image goes beyond its appearance: what is being displayed is equally important and valuable. For example, if a drone operator has captured data from an area of which little or no data exists, it can be very valuable to a large group of users. Its price is then defined by its scarcity; the same can be said about the moment data is captured: if a drone is able to capture a rare animal species or a defining moment in a sports event of which little other imagery exists, the imagery will be very valuable. The same goes for information that can be mapped inside a GIS application.

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Don’t judge a book by its cover

We hope this blog post has inspired you to help you price your imagery accordingly when it is uploaded to the Soar platform. What makes this platform unique is that it lets its users define the prices of their own imagery; only time can tell if buyers will acknowledge their value or not. Again, it’s important to state that the value is not defined only by its appearance, just as you shouldn’t judge a book that by its cover: it might contain a wealth of information that’s waiting to be explored by large groups of users.