How money moves

Payment protection.

Both sides protected, by design — not by promises.

The one rule

No flight happens before a job is funded. When a business books, payment is captured up front and held in escrow by Stripe — Dronely never holds your money. A job can start once it's at least 40% funded, and a pilot can require the full amount before flying. Either way, a pilot on site already knows the work is funded.

How every job flows

Book & fund. Booked
The business books a pilot and funds the job through Stripe — either the full amount or a deposit of at least 40%, depending on what the pilot requires. Stripe holds the funds in escrow; Dronely never touches your money. The pilot can see the job is funded, but no money moves yet. The price, deliverables, shoot date, and cancellation rules are agreed on this screen before payment.
Fly & deliver. Delivered
The pilot flies the job and uploads the deliverables directly to Dronely — photos, video, maps, and flight logs. Delivering through the platform is what protects you: it's timestamped proof the work was done.
Review — 72 hours. Accepted
The business has 72 hours to accept or request one round of revisions. If they don't respond, the job auto-accepts — a pilot's payment can never be held hostage by silence.
Clearing. Clearing
On acceptance, the pilot's share (the job price minus Dronely's platform fee) is released from escrow to the pilot's payout account and clears for a few business days. Any remaining balance beyond the deposit is captured at this point.
Paid out. Paid out
The money lands in the pilot's bank account automatically. Every payment and payout is visible in the pilot's private earnings dashboard — only you can see your numbers.

Weather & cancellations

Weather: if conditions are unsafe or unflyable, the shoot reschedules once for free. If it still can't fly, the business is refunded in full. Weather is nobody's fault.
Business cancels less than 48 hours before the shoot: the pilot keeps a cancellation fee — their day was blocked for you.
Pilot no-show or unusable work: the business is refunded in full, and the pilot's account takes a strike.

Disputes

If something goes wrong before acceptance, the funds stay frozen in escrow exactly where they are and Dronely arbitrates using the in-platform deliverables and flight logs. Because the money never moves until acceptance, resolving a dispute just means deciding which way Stripe releases it — nobody ever has to claw funds back from anyone's bank account.

What Dronely never does

Never asks a pilot to fly before a job is funded.
Never holds your money itself — funds sit in Stripe's escrow, not a Dronely account.
Never releases funds to a pilot before acceptance (or auto-accept).
Never shows your earnings to anyone but you — they're protected at the database level, not just hidden.
Never touches your bank details — payouts and identity checks are handled end-to-end by Stripe.

The fine print behind these rules lives in our Terms & Conditions.