When you buy a car, you rarely pay for the entire cost of the vehicle upfront. Instead, you finance the car, which means you pay for a loan over the next several months or years. If you’re looking to buy a new drone, you may be surprised to see drone financing options are available. Do you need to finance your UAV?
There’s no need to finance every drone, as some are quite affordable, costing under $100. Even the mid-priced drones should require no financing. For a DJI drone of more than $1,000 though, you might consider financing the UAV.
If this is the first you’ve heard of drone financing, then you’re not going to want to miss this article. Ahead, we’ll talk about reasons to consider financing, where you may get drone financing, and how much you could pay for it. You’re not going to want to miss this!
Reasons to Finance Your Drone
You’ve had your eye on an expensive DJI drone that’s upwards of $2,000, maybe even more. Some specialized drone such as those that lift heavy objects can cost a pretty penny, but there is nothing like having the right tool to do the job.
You want to buy it so badly, but the price tag continues to hold you back. This article has inspired you to look into drone financing. Is financing your UAV worth your time?
Absolutely! The following reasons to finance your drone will prove why this option is one you should always take advantage of for more expensive drones.
Buy Now and Pay Later
More and more today, we’re able to buy something now and pay for it later. From concert tickets to that new car, financing makes it possible.
The same rules apply to your drone. The DJI drone you’ve dreamed of for months could be in your hands today if you finance the UAV. You then pay for it over the months ahead while you enjoy your drone now. How convenient!
Pay in Affordable Installments
It’s okay if you balk at the idea of spending $2,000 for a drone. How does $200 to $400 a month sound? That’s much more reasonable, right? With drone financing, your overall UAV cost gets divided into affordable payments. If you opt to repay the drone costs in three or five months, then those payments will be higher. Stretching out the terms of your financing for a year will keep your monthly payments low.
Interest-Free Payments for Many Financing Plans
Another great part about a drone financing plan is that many of them are 0 percent APR. This is another way of saying that you can pay interest-free for 15 to 18 months. That means your drone repayment terms won’t gradually creep up for at least the first year because interest is being added on.
So yes, the price you agree to for your drone repayment is indeed the bill that will be due each month, at least within those first 12 months. That makes budgeting so much easier, as you won’t have to worry about surprise fees.
Where Can You Get Drone Financing?
The idea of drone financing has intrigued you, but where can you get a loan? Here are some of the top UAV financing resources to consider.
ExpoDrone
Your first option is ExpoDrone. This authorized reseller of DJI drones sells refurbs as well as new DJI models such as the Mavic, Inspire, and Phantom. Since we’re talking about pricy DJI drones here, you can also do all your UAV financing through ExpoDrone.
ExpoDrone partners with Klarna for financing with their buy now, pay later plan. You can put $0 down on your UAV and then begin paying for it each month. When you’re checking out your drone purchase on ExpoDrone’s website, make sure you choose the Klarna option. You’ll need to input your credit or debit card next.
Klarna splits your payments up into four installments. The first installment occurs upon checkout, so you’re not exactly paying $0 for the drone right then and there. Then, on a two-week basis, Klarna will automatically take out the rest of the money until your drone is paid off.
Dronefly
You don’t necessarily have to finance through ExpoDrone if you’d like to keep exploring your options. Dronefly uses Affirm instead of Klarna, a popular financing alternative. Like you’d check out your order on ExpoDrone, you also have to choose Affirm upon checkout.
Then, before you can finalize your order, you need to fill out a short application form through Affirm. This will set up your account with Affirm as well as share your phone number, email address, and other basic contact info Affirm needs.
When Affirm approves you for financing, they’ll tell you the exact sum you’re approved for. You can then choose a payment plan–typically over three, six, or 12 months–that works best with what you can pay for at the moment.
Vertigo Drones
Vertigo Drones also offers UAV financing through Affirm. This online retailer specializes in DJI and Yuneec drones, the former of which is always worth considering a lower monthly payment plan. The same Affirm instructions as above apply at Vertigo Drones, and you don’t have to worry about getting charged late fees with Affirm either.
Verydrone
To wrap up this section, here’s Verydrone. Their refurb and new drones include Parrot, Autel, and DJI models. Verydrone also offers financing through Affirm, a common choice. With Verydrone’s financing, you can skip the late fees and penalties. You can also apply for your loan without any physical paperwork, doing it all online quickly and easily. It takes only seconds to get approved.
How Much Might You Pay for Drone Financing?
You’ve decided to dig a little deeper into one or two of the drone financing options we covered above. If you select Verydrone, Vertigo, ExpoDrone, or another pick of your choosing, how much money would you expect to be charged each month as part of your drone repayment plan?
That’s hard to say. Financing services like Affirm will check your credit score to decide what your monthly payments might look like. Other factors, such as the cost of the drone itself, play a role in your recurring bill, as can the length of your repayment plan. As we said earlier, shorter plans are more expensive but pay off the drone more quickly. A yearlong plan is affordable, but that’s a whole 12 months of being on the hook for your UAV loan.
According to ExpoDrone, some of their financing plans start at $27 a month. Vertigo Drones has a similar quote for payments at about $25 per month. That’s the lowest amount of money you may spend each month to repay a drone, but it’s not necessarily the average.
Should You Take Advantage of Drone Financing?
Financing anything, from your drone to a car or even to that nice new couch can sound very appealing. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right option for you, though.
There are several things to keep in mind should you proceed with drone financing. For one, you will get your credit checked. This shouldn’t impact your credit score, says Affirm, but they do need to look into your credit nonetheless. If you’re not comfortable with this, then you might want to skip the financing.
Also, being approved is not a surefire thing. If you have a lot of debt or your credit score is very poor for any other reason, then Affirm could turn you down. In that case, you could always try Klarna, but the same thing would probably happen. You’d need to boost your credit score before you’d be eligible for financing. This is always a good thing to do anyway, but yes–to reiterate–your financing approval is not guaranteed.
Remember too that financing is a loan. As with any loan then, you’re expected to pay for your drone in a reasonable amount of time. Even if you can dodge interest payments and late fees with some financing options, you can’t dodge the payments. Many of them are automated, meaning Affirm or Klarna will pull the amount due from your credit or debit card on a certain day (you do get reminded of this before it happens, and you receive a payment confirmation afterward as well).
If you change your credit or debit card or you have insufficient funds for your payment, then a loan for a UAV can become far more troublesome than you would have imagined. You’re on the hook to pay, and you will have to pay sooner than later one way or another.
If you’re ready to handle all these financial responsibilities and your drone is expensive enough to warrant financing, then definitely, you should go for it! Otherwise, you may be better off buying a cheaper drone.
Conclusion
You can have that $2,000 DJI drone and not put anything down with UAV financing. The two most popular financing services are Affirm and Klarna. Both mandate a credit check to get you approved, and then you choose your payment plan and the duration.
The buy-now, pay-later plan can finally let you buy a drone that has long since been out of your reach. Just make sure you pay off your loan on time and financing is a great option to use.
Hal Simmons
When I first started flying drones I was always afraid of damaging my drone. I would always be thinking what if. I questioned myself often and as a result it made me question various aspects of flying drones. In the process I learned a lot. This is why I feel I have a lot of information that will be helpful to beginners and intermediate drone enthusiasts. Of course I still have a lot to learn so join me on this journey and I am sure you will enjoy the adventure ahead of us.
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