PIX4Dcloud vs PIX4Dmapper pricing, credits and processing for drone survey teams
PIX4Dmapper is Pix4D's Windows desktop software at $3,990 a year for one device at a time, with unlimited processing on your own workstation. PIX4Dcloud processes in Pix4D's cloud and shares results in a browser, at $1,290 a year for 500 credits (Starter) or $4,490 a year for 2,500 credits (Pro), with unlimited users. Buy Mapper if one analyst processes a lot of imagery and wants full control. Buy Cloud if the team mostly shares maps and the image count is small. If three people measure every week, DroneMapping Team is $1,488 a year with 10 seats and 15,000 images a month.
net volume
net volume
Side by side
PIX4Dcloud vs PIX4Dmapper vs DroneMapping on price, limits and survey outputs
Pix4D figures come from Pix4D's own pricing pages and support articles on yearly billing, checked in October 2026 in USD. The two Pix4D products are separate subscriptions: a PIX4Dmapper license does not include PIX4Dcloud processing, and PIX4Dcloud does not include the desktop app.
| What you compare | PIX4Dmapper | PIX4Dcloud | DroneMapping |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly price | $3,990 | Starter $1,290, Pro $4,490, Enterprise quoted | Starter $588, Team $1,488, Business $3,588 |
| Month to month | $399 | $129 Starter, $449 Pro | $99 Starter, $249 Team, $599 Business |
| Where processing runs | Your Windows workstation | Pix4D's servers | Our servers |
| How much you can process | Unlimited on the desktop | 500 credits a year on Starter, 2,500 on Pro, top-ups sold separately | 3,000 images a month on Starter, 15,000 on Team, 50,000 on Business |
| Largest single job | Limited by your PC | 4,000 images per project | 500 photos per flight, larger sites split into flights |
| Who can use it | One device at a time, floating license | Unlimited users | 3 seats on Starter, 10 on Team, 25 on Business |
| Ground control | Full manual GCP and checkpoint workflow with a quality report | Auto GCPs listed on Pro | GCPs and checkpoints with an RMSE report on Team |
| Volumes and change over time | Volume tool | Volumes on Starter, volume comparison and progress tracking on Pro | Volumes on every plan, cut and fill on Team, timeline on Business |
| Design overlay | Not built in | DXF and IFC overlay on Pro | Cut and fill against a design surface on Team |
| Client sharing | Export files, or add PIX4Dcloud | Share links in the browser | View links on every plan |
| Thermal and multispectral | Yes, documented templates | Not the main use | Multispectral indices on Business |
| Trial | 15-day desktop trial | Ask Pix4D sales | Interactive demo in the browser, no account |
The short version: PIX4Dmapper is the cheapest way to process a lot of imagery if you own the workstation and one person does the work. PIX4Dcloud is the easiest way to share and compare sites, but credits run out fast on a busy survey schedule. DroneMapping prices by images per month with seats included, so a team of three to ten people knows the bill before the year starts.
How credits work
How many photos PIX4Dcloud credits actually cover
Pix4D charges cloud processing in credits: megapixels times the number of images, divided by 100. Credits are spent on failed jobs too, and they are deleted 60 days after a license lapses. Turning the yearly allowance into photos:
| Camera | Credits per image | Starter, 500 credits | Pro, 2,500 credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 MP, such as a Mavic 3 Enterprise | 0.20 | about 2,500 images a year | about 12,500 images a year |
| 45 MP, such as a Zenmuse P1 | 0.45 | about 1,100 images a year | about 5,500 images a year |
| 61 MP full-frame mapping camera | 0.61 | about 820 images a year | about 4,100 images a year |
A firm that flies 3,000 images a month with a 20 MP drone needs about 7,200 credits a year, nearly three Pro allowances, and Pix4D does not publish the USD price of top-up packs. That is the main reason survey teams keep PIX4Dmapper on a workstation and use PIX4Dcloud only to share results: Pix4D's support pages say uploading results that were already processed on the desktop uses no credits.
Worked example
What a 3-person survey team pays for PIX4Dcloud, PIX4Dmapper and DroneMapping over 3 years
Take a US survey and civil firm with a pilot, a CAD technician and a project surveyor. They fly 3,000 images a month with a 20 MP drone, deliver orthomosaics, surfaces and contours, and send contractors monthly stockpile volumes through a link.
| Cost over 3 years | PIX4Dmapper plus Cloud Starter | PIX4Dcloud Pro only | DroneMapping Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processing | $11,970, one license on one PC at a time | $13,470, but 2,500 credits cover about 12,500 of the 36,000 images flown each year | $4,464, 15,000 images a month |
| Extra processing | None, desktop is unlimited | Top-up credits for about 23,500 images a year, price on quote | None at this volume |
| Sharing with clients | Cloud Starter $3,870, desktop results upload without credits | Included | Included |
| People who can process | One at a time | Everyone | 10 seats |
| Workstation | One Windows PC with an NVIDIA card, priced by you | Not needed | Not needed |
| Total before hardware and top-ups | $15,840 | $13,470 plus top-ups | $4,464 |
Where each one wins, honestly: a single analyst who processes big jobs and already owns a strong PC gets the most imagery per dollar from PIX4Dmapper. A firm that flies a few small sites a month and wants unlimited client users gets a lot from PIX4Dcloud Starter. DroneMapping wins when two or more people share the work and the image count is in the thousands every month.
Honest fit
When PIX4Dmapper is the better choice than PIX4Dcloud
PIX4Dmapper suits firms where one experienced person does the processing:
- You fly a lot of imagery, because desktop processing has no credit meter.
- You need the full GCP and checkpoint workflow and the quality report clients and reviewers know.
- You process thermal or multispectral imagery with Pix4D's documented templates.
- Single projects are larger than 4,000 images, which is the PIX4Dcloud project limit.
- You already own a Windows workstation with an NVIDIA card and someone to keep it running.
The trade is access. One license runs on one device at a time, and sharing results with a client means exporting files or paying for PIX4Dcloud as well.
Honest fit
When PIX4Dcloud is the better choice than PIX4Dmapper
PIX4Dcloud suits firms that share more than they process:
- You fly a handful of small sites a month, so 500 or 2,500 credits a year is enough.
- Clients, superintendents and owners need to open maps in a browser with no software.
- You want progress tracking, volume comparison and a DXF or IFC design overlay, which Pix4D lists on Pro.
- Nobody in the office wants to buy and maintain a GPU workstation.
- You already process in PIX4Dmapper and only need to upload finished results, which uses no credits.
The trade is the meter. Credits are spent on failed jobs too, and the cost of top-ups is not published in USD.
The third option
Why survey teams pick DroneMapping over PIX4Dcloud and PIX4Dmapper
Pix4D splits the job in two: a desktop license for processing and a cloud subscription for sharing. Most small survey and construction firms end up paying for both.
- One price covers processing and sharing: maps, surfaces, volumes and client links are in the same plan.
- Images, not credits: Team processes 15,000 images a month whatever the camera's megapixels, so a 45 MP payload does not burn the allowance twice as fast.
- Seats inside the plan: the pilot, the CAD tech and the project surveyor measure the same surface at once.
- Survey outputs on a printed plan: GCP and checkpoint reports in X, Y and Z, DXF and SHP contours, stockpile PDFs and cut and fill are on Team at $249 per month or $124 per month billed yearly.
What we do not do: one flight takes up to 500 photos, so a large corridor goes up as several flights, and we do not process LiDAR or thermal. Keep PIX4Dmapper for those jobs and run the routine site surveys through us.
Switching
How to test PIX4Dcloud, PIX4Dmapper and DroneMapping on the same flight
A fair test runs one real flight through each option with the same control.
- Pick a known site: use a flight with a checked elevation or a surveyed stockpile volume.
- Keep the same control: load one GCP file everywhere and hold two or three points back as checkpoints.
- Count the credits: note how many PIX4Dcloud credits the job used and multiply by a normal month of flights.
- Compare numbers, not looks: read checkpoint RMSE in X, Y and Z and the stockpile volume.
- Price the real team: count everyone who must measure and price three years for that number.
Try it on a real surface
Measure a surface before you create an account
The demo loads a sample stockpile yard, an earthworks pad and a field. Toggle contours, draw a volume and read an elevation profile in the browser, with no signup.
Pricing
What DroneMapping costs next to PIX4Dcloud and PIX4Dmapper
Starter is $99 per month or $588 per year: orthomosaic, DSM and DTM, measurements and volumes, view links, 3 seats and 3,000 processed images a month. Team is $249 per month or $1,488 per year and adds the 3D textured model, the dense point cloud as LAS or LAZ, GCP and checkpoint reports, DXF and SHP contours, stockpile PDFs and cut and fill, with 10 seats and 15,000 images. Business is $599 per month or $3,588 per year for 50,000 images, 25 seats, multispectral indices, the progress timeline and the API.
Questions
PIX4Dcloud vs PIX4Dmapper FAQ
No. PIX4Dmapper and PIX4Dcloud are separate subscriptions. PIX4Dmapper is $3,990 a year for the desktop app, and PIX4Dcloud starts at $1,290 a year for Starter with 500 credits. Pix4D's pricing FAQ says subscribers can add PIX4Dcloud to their plan, while owners of one-time licenses go through Pix4D sales.
Only for small image counts. PIX4Dcloud Starter costs $1,290 a year against $3,990 for PIX4Dmapper, but its 500 credits cover about 2,500 photos a year from a 20 MP drone. PIX4Dmapper processes without limit on your own workstation, so a firm flying thousands of images a month pays less per image on the desktop.
PIX4Dcloud accepts up to 4,000 images per project, and the yearly volume depends on credits. One credit covers 100 megapixels, so Starter's 500 credits process about 2,500 images from a 20 MP camera or about 1,100 from a 45 MP camera, and Pro's 2,500 credits process five times that.
Yes. You can send a PIX4Dmapper project to PIX4Dcloud either for processing, which spends credits, or as finished results, which Pix4D says uses no credits. Pix4D staff note that projects set up in the cloud use a different processing pipeline from PIX4Dmapper, so results can differ slightly between the two.
Both can reach survey accuracy when you use ground control. PIX4Dmapper gives the analyst manual control over GCP marking, calibration and a detailed quality report, while PIX4Dcloud automates more of the job and lists Auto GCPs on its Pro plan. Check accuracy the same way in both: hold back checkpoints and compare the RMSE in X, Y and Z.
Yes, when several people process and share. DroneMapping Team costs $1,488 a year with 10 seats, 15,000 images a month, GCP and checkpoint reports, contours, stockpile PDFs and cut and fill, and needs no workstation. Over three years that is $4,464, against $15,840 for PIX4Dmapper plus PIX4Dcloud Starter.
Related pages
More on choosing Pix4D or another option
- PIX4Dcloud pricing with credits turned into photos per camera
- Pix4D alternative with a Pix4D price breakdown for a 3-person team
- Pix4Dmapper vs PIX4Dmatic pricing if you stay on the desktop
- PIX4Dmatic pricing with the Analyst, Standard and Pro split
- Pix4D vs DroneDeploy for firms holding two cloud quotes
- Photogrammetry software for Mac when the office has no Windows PC
- Drone survey software with GCPs, checkpoints and contours
Run your next flight through a third option
Upload a flight you already processed in PIX4Dmapper or PIX4Dcloud and compare the checkpoint error and the volume side by side.