Drone progress monitoring software for drone progress tracking on construction sites
DroneMapping is drone progress monitoring software for contractors, owners' reps and CM firms that fly their sites every week or month. Upload the drone photos after each flight and get an orthomosaic and surface model the same day. The progress timeline lines up every flight of the site by date, change detection marks where the ground or structure moved since the last visit, and cut and fill reports the cubic yards placed or removed. The owner and the subs see it on a link, with no seat.
net volume
net volume
How it works
How drone progress monitoring works in four steps
Progress monitoring with a drone is a habit more than a feature: the same grid, flown on a fixed schedule, compared flight to flight. The software does the processing and the comparison, so the person flying is not also the person building maps at night.
- Fly the same mission each time: save the grid in DJI Pilot 2 or your planner and fly it weekly, biweekly or before each pay application.
- Upload the photos: geotagged JPEGs from the SD card, and the project gets a new orthomosaic, DSM and bare-earth DTM, usually the same day.
- Step through the timeline: every finished flight of the site sits on one timeline, so you open this week next to last month in two clicks.
- Report the change: draw the area that matters, read cut, fill and net volume, and send the owner a link or a PDF for the OAC meeting.
What you get
Drone progress tracking a project manager can act on
- Progress timeline: all flights of the same site in date order, with the orthomosaic and elevation layers for each.
- Change detection: a change map between any two flights that colors where the surface went up or down beyond your threshold, with the changed area in square feet.
- Cut and fill between flights: cut, fill and net cubic yards for the whole site or one pad, pond or trench you draw.
- Cut and fill against design: upload the design surface as a GeoTIFF and see how far the grade is from finished.
- Measurements on every flight: distance, area, elevation profiles and stockpile volumes.
- View links: owners, lenders, inspectors and subs open the current map in a browser without a license, and each link can expire.
- PDF reports: volumes and comparisons in a file you attach to the pay application or the weekly report.
- Roles and an audit log on Business: each client sees only their own projects, and you can see who opened or downloaded what.
Side by side
Drone progress monitoring software compared
Prices are what each vendor prints on its own site, checked in October 2026 in USD. Where a vendor quotes, we say so.
| What you compare | DroneDeploy | Propeller | Fixed site cameras (for example Evercam) | DroneMapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How progress is captured | Drone flights, plus 360 walk captures on construction plans | Drone flights | Fixed time-lapse cameras, drone on some plans | Drone flights |
| Price you can see before a call | Flight & Analysis $4,188 per year for one user, construction plans quoted | Platform quoted, AeroPoint $1,000 each | Quoted | Business $599 per month or $3,588 per year |
| Timeline of flights | Yes | Yes | Camera timeline | Yes, on Business |
| Change between two dates | Yes | Yes | Visual only | Change map and cut and fill |
| Cut and fill against design | On the quoted Advanced plan | Yes | No | Team and Business |
| Interior and BIM progress | 360 walks and BIM overlay on higher plans | No | No | No |
| People who can measure | Set by plan or quote | Set by quote | Set by quote | 25 seats on Business |
| Owner access | Share links | Share links | Viewer accounts | View links, no seat |
The honest read: if you need interior progress against a BIM model, DroneDeploy's 360 walk captures do something we do not. If your progress questions are about the site itself, earthwork, pads, paving, stockpiles and building footprints, a drone timeline with a printed price covers it.
Who it is for
Who buys drone progress monitoring software
- General contractors: show the owner what moved this week without a site visit, and settle disputes with a dated map.
- Site and grading contractors: prove placed and removed yards on a change order or pay application.
- Owners' reps and CM firms: check the contractor's schedule claims with your own flight before you approve a draw.
- Developers and lenders: follow several projects from the office on links, with no software to install.
- Solar, utility and pipeline builders: track long linear sites flight by flight where a walk-through takes a full day.
Accuracy
How accurate is drone progress monitoring?
For the picture, any consistent flight works. For numbers, use ground control or an RTK drone: drone surfaces then usually land within about 1 to 3 centimeters horizontally and 2 to 5 centimeters vertically of a ground survey. Fly at the same altitude and overlap each time, because a change in flight settings shows up as false change between dates. Our ground control points for drone mapping guide covers the setup.
Try it on a real site
See an earthworks site before you create an account
The demo loads a sample earthworks pad, a stockpile yard and a field. Draw a volume, toggle contours and read an elevation profile in the browser, with no signup.
Pricing
What drone progress monitoring costs on DroneMapping
The progress timeline and change detection are on Business, at $599 per month or $3,588 per year, with 50,000 processed images a month, 25 seats, roles, the audit log and the API. Team at $249 per month or $1,488 per year already compares a flight with an earlier flight or the design and reports cut and fill, so a single-site contractor often starts there. Starter at $99 per month covers maps and measurements on each flight.
Questions
Drone progress monitoring FAQ
Drone progress monitoring is flying the same mapping mission over a construction site on a schedule and comparing the results. Each flight becomes an orthomosaic and a surface model, and software lines them up by date to show what was built, placed or excavated between visits, with volumes where it matters.
Most contractors fly weekly during earthwork and every two to four weeks during vertical construction, plus once before each pay application. Busy earthwork sites sometimes fly twice a week. Pick a fixed day so the timeline reads cleanly, and keep the same altitude and overlap so changes between flights are real.
Yes, for work you can see from above. Earthwork, utilities before backfill, foundations, paving, steel and roofing all show on an orthomosaic and a surface model. The timeline gives a dated record for each schedule activity. Interior work needs ground capture, such as 360 cameras, instead of a drone.
For interior and BIM progress, DroneDeploy's construction plans with 360 walks lead. For earthworks volumes, Propeller is strong. For a site timeline, change maps and cut and fill at a printed price with 25 seats, DroneMapping Business at $599 a month fits contractors who want to start without a sales call.
Software ranges from a few hundred dollars a month to quoted enterprise contracts. DroneMapping prints its price: Team at $249 a month compares flights and reports cut and fill, and Business at $599 a month adds the progress timeline and change maps. Paying a drone service provider per flight usually costs more than flying in-house once you fly weekly.
No. Every DroneMapping plan includes view links that open in any current browser without a seat or a login. You can set an expiry date on each link, and on Business each client can be limited to their own projects.
Related pages
More on construction drone mapping
- Construction drone software for earthworks, reporting and owner links
- Cut and fill software for earthwork volumes against the design grade
- DroneDeploy vs Propeller compared for earthworks teams
- DroneDeploy alternative with the price on the page
- SkyeBrowse alternative when per-model pricing gets expensive on weekly flights
- Stockpile inventory software for month-end material counts
Start a progress timeline with your next site flight
Upload this week's flight, add last month's, and see what changed before the next owner meeting.