Propeller Aero

Drone survey processing and earthworks volume measurement for sites that measure stockpiles weekly

As of 1 September 2026, Propeller Aero's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A cloud platform that turns drone imagery into survey-grade site models and cut-and-fill volumes, sold with its own AeroPoints ground control hardware. Softwr lists it under Construction. Propeller Aero is made by Propeller Aerobotics Pty Ltd, available on Web, iOS, Android.

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Overview

What Propeller Aero does

Propeller processes drone photography into orthomosaics, digital surface models and point clouds, then provides the measurement tools that a site engineer actually uses: stockpile volumes, cut and fill against a design surface, cross sections, and progress comparison between surveys. It is aimed at earthworks rather than at general mapping, so the interface is built around volume and grade questions rather than around GIS layers. The hardware is the distinguishing part. AeroPoints are solar-powered ground control markers that log their own GNSS positions and upload them, removing the need for a surveyor to set and shoot control targets before each flight. A single AeroPoint is 1,000 US dollars and includes a twelve month subscription to the Propeller Corrections Network; after that the network subscription is 1,000 dollars a year per AeroPoint group, but it is included at no charge if you hold a current Propeller Platform licence. That interaction matters when you are budgeting, because dropping the platform subscription silently reintroduces a hardware subscription cost that was previously bundled. Buyers are earthmoving contractors, quarries, mines and large civil sites that need to know volumes weekly rather than monthly and cannot justify a surveyor on site every week. The trade-off is that Propeller is a measurement platform, not a design or GIS tool, and the platform price is never published, so the real annual cost is only visible after a quote covering sites, users and processing volume.

What people use it for

A quarry that reconciles stockpile inventory monthly for its accounts and wants the volume evidence to survive an audit
An earthworks contractor claiming progress payments on cubic metres moved who needs an independent measurement the client will accept
A civil site checking whether a subgrade is within tolerance of the design before the surfacing crew arrives
A mine that wants weekly volume reporting without a survey crew on the ground every week

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 Propeller Aero.

Platform pricing is not published and is scoped by sites and users, so a contractor with many short-lived sites can be quoted very differently from one with a few long ones, and neither can benchmark against a list price
The corrections network is free only while you hold a current platform licence, so cancelling the platform subscription reintroduces a 1,000 dollar per year per group hardware cost that many buyers do not model
AeroPoints are a hardware purchase at 1,000 dollars each and most sites need several, so the true entry cost includes several thousand dollars of equipment on top of a subscription
It measures rather than designs, so a contractor still needs Civil 3D, Trimble Business Center or an equivalent to produce and revise the design surfaces the measurement is compared against
Accuracy depends on flight planning, ground control placement and weather, and a poorly flown survey produces a confident wrong volume, so an organisation still needs someone who understands survey error rather than only a drone pilot

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Propeller Aero

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.

Propeller Aerovs
DroneDeploy
DroneDeploy: If you want a broader drone data platform covering interior capture and inspection as well as earthworks
Propeller Aerovs
Pix4D
Pix4D: If you want to own the photogrammetry processing outright rather than subscribe to a cloud measurement platform
Propeller Aerovs
Trimble
Trimble: If your site already runs Trimble machine control and you want survey and design in the same ecosystem

Pricing

What Propeller Aero costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

AeroPoint ground control unit

$1,000 /one-time

Single solar-powered GNSS ground control marker
Includes 12 months of the Propeller Corrections Network
Network renewal 1,000 USD per year per AeroPoint group
Network included at no cost while you hold a Propeller Platform licence

Propeller Platform

On request

Quoted by number of sites, users and survey volume
Not published
Processing turnaround and support level vary by agreement
Includes the corrections network subscription

Capabilities

Features

Photogrammetric processing
Drone imagery processed to orthomosaic, surface model and point cloud in the cloud
AeroPoints ground control
Solar GNSS markers that self-log position, removing manual control target survey
Volume measurement
Stockpile and cut-and-fill volumes measured against a base or design surface
Design surface comparison
As-built surfaces compared to the design to show grade over and under
Progress timeline
Successive surveys compared to show movement of material between dates
Machine telemetry
Data from graded machine control merged with drone surveys for between-flight visibility
Corrections network
Propeller Corrections Network provides the GNSS base correction for AeroPoints

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.

How much does Propeller cost?

The platform is quoted and not published. AeroPoints are 1,000 US dollars each, with the corrections network included for twelve months and thereafter free while a platform licence is current, otherwise 1,000 dollars a year per group.

Do I need AeroPoints?

No, you can use conventional surveyed ground control, but the AeroPoints workflow is the main reason contractors choose Propeller over generic photogrammetry.

Is it survey grade?

Propeller states centimetre-level accuracy with correct ground control. Whether that satisfies a contract depends on your specification and on how the survey was flown, not on the software alone.

Who owns the data?

You retain your survey data and can export surfaces and point clouds, but check the export formats and retention terms in your contract before closeout, because bulk historical export is not a self-service one-click operation.

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Propeller Aero, 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.

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