Perceptovs
DroneDeploy
DroneDeploy: If you fly your own drones on demand and want mapping and reporting software rather than autonomous infrastructure
Percepto
Drone-in-a-box inspection with the AIM software that runs the missions and reads the results
As of 1 September 2026, Percepto's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. Autonomous drones living in a weatherproof base at industrial sites, flying scheduled inspections without a pilot on site. Softwr lists it under Field Service. Percepto is available on Web.
Overview
What Percepto does
Percepto sells an autonomous inspection system for heavy industrial sites: refineries, power stations, mines, ports and utility corridors. A drone lives in a ruggedised base station on site, launches on a schedule or in response to an alarm, flies a defined route, and returns to charge. The AIM software layer plans missions, manages the regulatory envelope, ingests the imagery including thermal and optical gas imaging, runs change detection and anomaly analysis, and stores the results as a georeferenced record over time. The commercially decisive element is not the analytics. It is that flying an uncrewed aircraft beyond visual line of sight without an on-site pilot requires regulatory approval, and Percepto has built its business around holding those approvals, notably nationwide BVLOS waivers in the United States. A competing system with better computer vision that cannot legally fly unattended over your plant is not a competing system. Buyers should verify approval status in their own jurisdiction before anything else, because it varies enormously between the US, the EU under the SORA framework, and everywhere else. Buyers are energy, mining, utility and heavy process operators replacing manual inspection rounds and, increasingly, methane leak detection duty. Percepto does not publish pricing; deals are annual programmes covering the base station, the aircraft, the AIM subscription and site integration. The trade-off is lock-in: AIM is built around Percepto aircraft, so this is a hardware commitment with software attached rather than a software purchase you can move.
What people use it for
- A refinery replacing manual methane leak detection rounds with scheduled optical gas imaging flights
- A remote mine site that cannot economically station inspection crews and needs weekly stockpile and infrastructure surveys
- A utility substation network needing thermal inspection of switchgear on a fixed cycle with an auditable record
- A port or tailings facility that wants an automatic aerial response when an alarm fires at three in the morning
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Percepto.
- AIM is built for Percepto aircraft and base stations, so buying the software is buying the fleet, and a site that already owns DJI or other drones cannot bring them into it.
- Everything depends on beyond-visual-line-of-sight regulatory approval, which is strong in the United States and patchy elsewhere, so a European or Asian site may face a materially different operating envelope for the same money.
- Pricing is a per-site annual programme covering hardware, software and support, with no published rates, so comparing it against hiring an inspection contractor requires a full proposal.
- The base station is fixed infrastructure requiring power, connectivity and a site survey, which means a linear asset such as a pipeline needs several installations rather than one system.
- Weather, wind limits and airspace restrictions still ground flights, so the inspection schedule an operator plans around is a best case, and manual fallback procedures still have to exist.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Percepto
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- PerceptovsEsri ArcGIS
Esri ArcGIS: If the requirement is asset and inspection data management rather than the flying itself
- PerceptovsTrimble
Trimble: If the inspection need is survey and volumetrics rather than continuous autonomous monitoring
Pricing
What Percepto costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Percepto AIM programme
On request
- Base station and aircraft
- AIM software subscription
- Site survey, installation and regulatory support
- Priced per site and per aircraft
- No published rate card
Capabilities
Features
Drone-in-a-box base station
Weatherproof docking station that houses, charges and launches the aircraft
Autonomous scheduled missions
Repeatable inspection routes flown without an on-site pilot
AIM mission management
Plans, authorises and logs flights within the regulatory envelope
Optical gas imaging payload
Detects hydrocarbon and methane emissions from the air
Thermal and visual inspection
Captures thermal and high resolution imagery of assets
Change detection
Compares successive flights to flag new anomalies
Alarm-triggered response
Launches on an event from site control systems
Georeferenced asset history
Stores inspection results against asset locations over time
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Can I use Percepto AIM with drones I already own?
No. The system is designed around Percepto's own aircraft and base station.
Do I need a pilot on site?
Not in jurisdictions where beyond-visual-line-of-sight operation is approved. Confirm the approval position for your country before committing.
What does it cost?
Percepto does not publish pricing. Expect an annual per-site programme covering hardware, the AIM subscription and support.
Can it detect gas leaks?
Yes, with an optical gas imaging payload, which is one of the main reasons oil and gas operators buy it.
Keep looking
Where to go from Percepto
- Percepto alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Percepto pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Percepto badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Field Service softwareThe full category
- Best Field Service softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Percepto, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Percepto
Percepto alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Percepto pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Percepto
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Percepto badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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