Drone Prices: Choosing Products That Fit Your Budget

Rapid innovation of drones has led to global introduction to the public market. With so many developers and manufacturers that compete in the drone industry, the price is the critical point. Depending on features and use, beginner drone can only cost for under $100 while professional drones can cost about $1000 or more.  With a wide range of drone models, drone prices may only vary by a significant amount.

Here are some of the drones with their respective prices, starting from the cheapest one, without disregarding their functionality and credibility.

Best drones under $100

Hubsan X4 – around $40

The Hubsan X4 is a mini, ready to fly (RTF), quadcopter designed for beginners. This palm-sized drone comes with a precision 6-axis gyro, stabilizing your flight that can be suitable for either indoor or outdoor places. It also comes with a 240 mAh high-capacity Li-PO battery that can give you 6 to 8 minutes of flight time. With its attached LED, it looks awesome when flying in the night time.

Its control sensitivity can be adjusted to suit your flying needs. The higher the sensitivity, the more stunts it can pull off such as flipping and rolling.

Blade Nano QX – around $60

Blade Nano QX is quite an advanced drone that can also be acquired for a cheap price. It is equipped with SAFE technology, enabling users to toggle between stability mode and agility mode:

• Stability mode – you can enable the quadcopter to hover by itself without using any buttons at all. If you happen to be in a pinch, just let go of the sticks and let Blade Nano QX hover by itself.
• Agility mode – it gives faster-flying speed with more maneuverability compared to stability mode, perfect for those who have mastered quad piloting and is ready to do the tricks.

SAFE stands for Sensor Assisted Flight Envelope, a feature that Blade Nano QX prides upon. With its cheap price, beginners could afford this little drone and even practice themselves for advanced drones.

And because of its size, it can be flown in small spaces like in the office and living room, giving you fun even if inside a structure.

It can provide 9 minutes of flight time with its 150 mAh Li-PO battery, giving you enough time to master the controls or do some amazing tricks once you’ve mastered them. For a much better insight into what this model offers, we suggest reading our Blade Nano QX in-depth review.

Syma X5C Explorers – around $50

With its cheap price, you wouldn’t expect this to have a build-in HD camera, but it has. The Syma X5C Explorers drone is perfect for those who are looking for an affordable device that will capture their precious moments in a different angle. It also comes with prop guards, removable landing skids, and a transmitter, making this a must-have quadcopter.

It can also perform flips with the press of a button and has wind resistant sensors that enable it to fly indoors or outdoors. However, the camera is not equipped with a gimbal, making it unsuitable for professional work. It is designed to be a leisure camera that can shoot photos or record videos.

If you are interested in finding out more about this model, as well as about best from the X5 series, we suggest reading our article that offers the reviews of the entire series.

JJRC H16 Tarantula X6 – around $50

The JJRC H16 Tarantula X6 drone boasts itself with its cool and badass main body structure. Combined with its frame color, it really looks like a flying arachnid. Not only its visuals are appealing, but also its performance. With a control distance of 300m, you can utilize its 8 minute flight time thanks to 7.4V 1200mAh Li-Po 30C battery.

The price is cheap compared to its size, and because of its bigger size, you can equip it with cameras like GoPro. Despite being larger, it can also do tricks and flips, combined with high-intensity LED lights at night.

Hubsan Q4 Nano – around $20

The Hubsan Q4 Nano may be the second cheapest and the smallest drone out there. This little thing won’t lose to its big brother, Hubsan X4, in terms of performance and fun. Because of its small weight, it could do a lot of tricks like 4-way flipping and continuous roll action.

You can also play with this little drone at night with the help of its colorful flashing light LEDs. You can enjoy flying it for 5 minutes mostly indoors. Outdoor wind could easily blow off its course but will not crash it down. For much more information regarding this tiny drone, we suggest checking out our Hubsan Q4 in-depth review.

UDI U841 – around $40

You can enjoy the UDI U841 with its three different modes. With a cheap price, it is equipped with an HD camera making the drone worthy of its price. It comes equipped with a series of accessories that enable you to change modes.

• Flying mode – traditional mode for drones that fly for about 7 minutes. Its flight is assisted by a 6-axis gyro system to provide a balanced and more stable flying approach.
• Running mode – one of its prop guards is designed to be like a car wheel attached to the motor. You can use this to transform the UDI U841 into a whole new remote control driving system. The prop guards will spin like a real car wheel.
• Climbing mode – another type of prop guard that can be attached to the motors to help the drone climb walls. With a little help from the propellers’ thrust, this mode will enable you to enjoy wall climbing using your drone.

With these different modes, you can shoot many photos and videos depending on what system you are using. With only a cheap drone price, you can experience three types of remote control fun.

Cheerson CX-10 – around $15

The Cheerson CX-10 is probably the cheapest drone and is perfect if you are getting it as a present. Some might think that because of its price, it is not working, but it will really fly. With that cheap price, you can experience hours of fun, unlike any other toy. It is good for beginners who just want to check out what drone flying feels like.

The specs are almost similar to the Hubsan Q4 Nano, and this cheaper alternative a great way to start your own or others’ drone flying adventure.

Drones for under $500

Parrot Bebop – around $450

The Parrot Bebop is a light-weight drone (compared to other drones of the same level) making it safe and secure with an ABS reinforced structure. To aid to its safety, a GPS system allows the drone to return automatically to the flight point in case a collision was made, where the propellers will automatically stop.

This drone can be controlled via smartphone with the use of an app. To efficiently do that, Parrot Bebop generates its own WiFi signal in which you can connect your phone and tweak different kinds of stuff. Because of a phone controller, the drone sends live feedback of the stream it captures, giving users a real-time experience of the flight.

Not only that, Parrot Bebop is equipped with an innovative 14-megapixel Fisheye lens that gives you an 180-degree view of the place. It also features a full digital image stabilization technology to transform the fisheye effect into a clear and stable photo or video. For a much betetr insight on what this model offers, we suggest checking out our Parrot Bebop in-depth review.

DJI Phantom 3 Standard – around $450

Coming from the world-renowned manufacturer DJI the Phantom 3 Standard is the latest version of the Phantom series and the first version of the Phantom 3.

Being the first version of the Phantom 3 means a basic introduction of its features that will be developed in the more advanced version, but it lets the drone fit inside the price range. Its price is worth it for all the advanced features that it has compared to the past Phantom series.

The Phantom 3 is equipped with an intelligent flight system that uses GPS records to help your drone return to the flight point just at the press of a button. It will also activate this feature whenever you lost command or control to your drone. The intelligent flight system also offers automatic hovering function that will always act until you issue a command.

The camera is a 2.7k HD video camera that can capture 12 megapixels photos. And, because of its advanced 3-axis gimbal system, it stabilizes your camera view even if you fly your drone wobbly or unsteadily. This creates a clear and disturbance-less view of what you capture.

It also offers live video feed when you connect the controller with a smartphone using its own generated WiFi network and an app. Moreover, it can give you 25 minutes of flight with the help of its intelligent battery that automatically calculates the distance you’ve traveled to automatically return in safely to the flight point when the battery gets low.

The best drone under $1000

Ehang Ghost Drone – around $350

Proclaimed as the worlds’ easiest-to-fly drone, the Ehang Ghost Drone can be flown by using your smartphone or tablet with intuitive, user-friendly, 1-click commands. For beginners who want a professional drone within a large budget, this drone is right for you.

Its body is made of aircraft grade aluminum parts, strong enough to carry a 1080p HD Camera like GoPro Hero 3 and 4. However, this model does not include the camera in the package so you have to purchase it separately.

Also, it includes an all-new feature called G-Box, which will act as a signal tower for your phone and for the drone. You can connect your phone to this medium and it will then send your commands towards the drone, with a signal range of up to 1000 meters. For those who want to get more familiar with all the features and flight characteristics of this model, we suggest checking out our Ghost Drone review.

Furthermore, it has different features and control which beginners will surely utilize such as:

• Micro Control Mode – easily adjust the drone’s position to any of the direction
• Drone Control – in the user-friendly interface of the app, the vertical bar represents the altitude control while the horizontal bar represents the rotation of the drone.
• Camera Control – additional available inside the app which lets you control the movement of the camera, tilting it up, down, left or right.
• Hover Command – a 1-click break button that when pressed will stop the movement of the drone but will hover in its current position.
• Takeoff and Land Modes – each takeoff and landing will have its certain features activated that will assist the drone to take off and land smoothly and safely.
• Auto-Return Mode – this mode enables an auto-return function that will return the drone to the G-Box in case the signal has been lost.

DJI Phantom 3 Professional – around $800

The Phantom 3 Professional is the third version of the Phantom 3 with more advanced features compared to the first two, Phantom 3 Standard and Phantom 3 Advanced. Like Phantom 3 Standard, the Professional version also has the intelligent flight system that lets users sit back and relax as they fly the drone safely and securely.

Also, all the other features that are in the Phantom 3 Standard like the advanced 3-axis gimbal system and its own generated WiFi network are available in the Phantom 3 Professional.

If you have a bigger drone price budge, you can go for Phantom 3 Professional due to its upgraded camera. It is equipped with 4k video camera that can shoot up to 30 frames per second and can capture 12-megapixel photos. The Phantom 3 Professional is built to be a professional aerial drone camera which can be used for professional work in movie making and photography.

Drone prices really matters

Before buying, you should consider the price of the drone that you want. There are so many models to choose from that you will be able to get a fantastic drone, regardless of your budget level.

Most users buy drones for recreational purposes so drones that fit under $100 are the most economic and widely sought ones. If you are a drone enthusiast, then drones that are under $500 can give you more features and a lot of fun compared to the first category.

However, if you are using drones for professional work, you may want to consider more expensive models with high-quality cameras and better flight performance. With so many drones to choose from, the sky is the limit (literally)!