If you’re hiring a drone photographer for a Salt Lake or Utah County project, the stakes are higher than people realize. An uncertified, uninsured pilot crashing into a roof or a power line isn’t just the pilot’s problem — it can become a liability for the property owner, the listing agent, the GC, or whoever invited them onto the site. Spending an extra five minutes on the questions below is worth it.
Here are the five things I’d check before booking anyone, in order of importance.
1. FAA Part 107 certification — not optional
The FAA’s Part 107 license is the commercial drone certificate. Any pilot flying a drone for paid work — including real estate, construction, marketing, or events — is required by federal law to hold one. Hobbyist rules don’t apply to paid work, no matter what the pilot tells you.
Two things to actually do:
- Ask for the certificate number and verify it on the FAA’s airman database. It takes 30 seconds.
- Confirm they handle LAANC authorization for controlled airspace. Downtown Salt Lake City, anything near SLC International, and parts of Provo near the airport are all in controlled airspace. The pilot has to pull a near-real-time LAANC authorization before they can legally fly. If they say they don’t need it for a downtown SLC site, they’re either uninformed or willing to fly illegally — both are bad signs.
2. Insurance
Minimum $1M general liability coverage. This is the standard ask from most agents, brokerages, GCs, and venues, and any professional drone operator should have it.
Ask for a Certificate of Insurance (COI) before the shoot. A pilot should be able to email it within the hour. If they hesitate, push back, or say “I’m careful so I don’t need it,” walk away.
3. Sample work in your actual project type
A photographer who’s great at events isn’t automatically great at real estate. A real estate specialist isn’t necessarily great at construction documentation. The skill sets overlap but the framing, editing, and delivery expectations are different in each.
Ask for portfolio examples in your specific category. Don’t accept “I shoot all kinds of things” — ask for the three best photos they’ve shot for a project just like yours. You can see my portfolio organized by category for a sense of what category-specific samples should look like.
4. Turnaround and communication
The industry-standard turnaround for edited drone photos is 24 hours from the shoot. Video usually takes 3-5 business days because color grading and music sync take real time.
What to look for:
- Same-day reply on your initial inquiry. If a pilot takes three days to answer an email, they’re going to take three days to answer every email after that too.
- A specific turnaround commitment in writing. “We’ll get it to you soon” is not a commitment.
- Cloud delivery — Google Drive, Dropbox, WeTransfer — not “I’ll text you the photos.” Phone-texted photos are compressed and unusable for the MLS.
5. Pricing transparency
Quote-only pricing isn’t a red flag on its own — some projects genuinely need a custom quote. But for standard work like real estate listings and monthly construction visits, published starting prices are a sign of an organized operation. You can see my published pricing as one example of what that looks like.
If a pilot can’t tell you within 10% of a final price for a standard real estate listing without seeing the property, they’re either inexperienced or pricing by gut.
Questions worth asking before you book
A short script to use on a first call or email exchange:
- “What’s your Part 107 certificate number?”
- “Can you email me your COI?”
- “What’s the turnaround on photos? On video?”
- “How do you handle weather days?”
- “Can I see three recent shoots in the same category as my project?”
If a pilot answers all five clearly and quickly, that’s most of what you need to know.
If you want to see whether we’re a fit, here’s about us, and you can reach out anytime. I respond to most inquiries the same day and can usually get on-site within the week for standard real estate and construction work in Salt Lake and Utah Counties.