Pricing templates, sample invoices, contracts in Filipino, and a starter spreadsheet for tracking jobs across barangays. The full playbook for turning your Lumipad Quad into a working microenterprise — what the cohort program covers in Week 6 and what comes after graduation.
Every Lumipad cohort produces graduates with a working drone, a CAAP pathway, and the technical skill to fly a survey. That gets you halfway. The other half is everything that happens before and after the flight: how to find clients, what to charge them, how to scope the work, how to deliver a report that gets paid for, how to handle the months between contracts.
This kit is the cumulative knowledge of the Lumipad alumni network — what worked for graduates of Cohorts 01 and 02, what didn't, and what we'd do differently. The numbers throughout are based on alumni-reported figures from the Mindanao region as of early 2026. They will need adapting for Visayas, Luzon, and partner-org deployments outside the Philippines, but the structure transfers.
Most Lumipad alumni reach each stage in roughly this order — but not at the same speed. Some have their first paid client within 30 days of graduation; others take six months. Both are normal. The stages below describe what to focus on when you're there, not when to get there.
Setup is the paperwork most graduates start during Week 6 and finish in the first month. Pricing and Selling are the hardest stages — most alumni spend 2–4 months getting their first regular clients. Delivering is what you trained for. Growing is what year two looks like.
Get your business legally constituted before your first paid flight. Most graduates start this in Week 6 of the cohort and finish in the first month after graduation. None of it is hard, but each step has its own form, fee, and waiting time. Do them in parallel where you can.
Don't get hung up on the order. The strict sequence is DTI → barangay → mayor → BIR. The bank account can be opened once the BIR registration is in hand. SSS can wait.
If you're stuck on any single step, the Lumipad alumni network has a buddy system — graduates from prior cohorts who've completed setup will walk you through their LGU's specific quirks. Email alumni@lumipaddrones.com to be matched.
The single most asked question in the alumni network. Charge too little and you can't sustain the business; charge too much and your first cooperative says no. There's no perfect answer — but there's a defensible structure, and there are floors below which no Lumipad alumnus should ever quote.
The ranges above are observed alumni pricing — not what you should charge from day one. Calibrate to your context:
A common mistake: pricing too low to "win the first contract." This sets a baseline the client will resist raising later, and signals to the market that drone surveys are inexpensive. The floor exists for a reason.
The cohort prepares you to fly, not to sell. Most alumni find this stage harder than expected. The good news: Lumipad's network includes partner cooperatives actively looking for survey services, and the program's reputation in Mindanao opens doors that cold outreach can't.
Before you sign anything, the contract should specify:
Never fly a paid survey without a signed contract. Even small ones. The 30-minute investment to get the contract signed protects both parties when expectations diverge mid-project.
What the cohort training prepared you for. The technical work — pre-flight, fly, process, report — is now augmented by client-management work: setting expectations, communicating delays, presenting results, and getting paid. The smooth operations of an alumnus's first ten contracts will define their reputation for years.
What separates alumni who keep clients from those who don't:
If a client is unsatisfied: address it directly. The Lumipad alumni network's records show 90% of complaints resolve in your favour if handled within 7 days. After 30 days, resolution becomes much harder.
Most Lumipad alumni reach Stage 4 within their first year. A growing share — about 30% of Cohort 01, more in Cohort 02 — reach Stage 5 within their second year. Growth is optional. A solo microenterprise serving 10–15 cooperatives is a successful business. Growth is what you do if you want to.
Cohort 02 alumni reaching Stage 5 reported these patterns:
Not all growth is good. Some Year 2 alumni report regret about hiring too early, scaling into specialisations the market didn't reward, or formalising before the revenue justified it. Stay solo until you can't. The Lumipad alumni mentorship program pairs Stage 5 graduates with Cohort instructors quarterly to think through these decisions.
Based on Cohort 01 and Cohort 02 alumni data. Your individual timeline will vary — some alumni hit milestone 4 within 60 days of graduation; others take 8 months. Both lead to sustainable businesses by Year 2.
Anonymised composites drawn from Cohort 02 alumni reports. Numbers are the median for that scenario type, not the maximum. Each scenario shows what the work actually produces — gross, costs, and net.
2 surveys for 1 cooperative · 40 ha total at ₱500/ha = ₱20,000 gross. After fuel, transport, battery wear, and BIR setasides: ~₱14,000 net. Hours worked: ~24. Effective hourly: ₱583. Sustainable but tight.
See the full month breakdown ↗5 surveys across 3 cooperatives · 120 ha total at ₱650/ha avg = ₱78,000 gross. Costs ~₱22,000 (fuel, repairs, taxes, insurance). ₱56,000 net. Hours: ~50. Effective hourly: ₱1,120. The Cohort 02 median by month 12.
See the full month breakdown ↗2 retainer cooperatives at ₱18,000/month each + 3 one-off contracts at ₱8,500 avg = ₱61,500 gross. Costs ~₱18,000. ₱43,500 net. Hours: ~45. Stable cash flow vs project-based; lower peak revenue but no slow months.
See the retainer contract template ↗9 surveys · 240 ha total at ₱600/ha avg = ₱144,000 gross. Pilot 2 paid ₱27,000 (3 surveys at ₱9k each). Other costs ~₱30,000. ₱87,000 net for the owner. Top-quartile Cohort 01 alumni territory.
See the pilot agreement template ↗Most common cause: the alumnus hasn't actually contacted prospects, only thought about contacting them. The Lumipad alumni network coordinator can introduce you to active prospects within a week of an email — but the email has to come from you.
If you've reached out to 10+ prospects and gotten no contracts, the issue is usually one of three things: pricing (most often too high, sometimes too low — both signal "this person doesn't know the market"), scope (too generic — clients want specific outcomes, not "drone surveys"), or region (some areas have established competitors; consider a 1–2 hour radius expansion).
The alumni mentorship program offers free 1-hour calls for graduates stuck in this stage. Email alumni@lumipaddrones.com to request one.
Most Lumipad alumni who succeeded as full-time microenterprise operators kept a part-time income stream for 6–12 months after graduation. The exceptions were graduates who joined the cohort with savings or family support specifically planned for the transition.
The honest answer: drone-survey work in the Philippines is typically not a 9-month-to-full-income business. It's a 12-to-18-month build. Plan for that runway. If you can't, plan for a hybrid arrangement (3 days at your day job, 2 days drone work) and convert progressively.
Lumipad doesn't recommend quitting before completing Stage 4 (~₱30K monthly revenue consistently). At that point, the math usually works.
BIR requires VAT registration when annual gross sales exceed ₱3 million. Below that, you can be a percentage tax (3%) taxpayer or, more commonly for new microenterprises, an 8% gross receipts tax taxpayer (much simpler — no quarterly filings, no VAT computations).
For most Cohort alumni in Year 1, the 8% option is the right choice. It's a single annual filing and you can switch to VAT later if revenue grows. The Lumipad alumni accountant referral list has CPAs who specialise in microenterprise tax registration if you want help making the choice.
The honest pattern across Cohort 02: alumni who succeeded budgeted 30% of their working hours for non-flight work — selling, scoping, reporting, follow-up, paperwork, professional development. Alumni who flew 100% of their available time and did sales "in spare time" mostly stalled in Stage 3.
Practically: if you have 20 working hours per week, plan ~6 hours for selling and admin. Calendar them. Treat them as as protected as flight days. The drone work is what you're paid for; the rest is what makes that work continue.
Among Cohort 02 alumni, ~3% of contracts had payment issues. Of those, the resolution path:
The strongest preventative is a 50% deposit on signing. Cohort 02 alumni using deposits had less than 1% non-payment vs ~5% without.
Yes. Some Lumipad partner organisations — Kennemer Foods, regional cooperatives, NGO partners — directly employ alumni as in-house drone pilots. This is a salaried position, not a microenterprise.
Trade-offs: salaried positions offer steady income, employer-paid benefits, less administrative burden. They typically pay ₱22,000–35,000/month for first-year alumni, plus benefits. Microenterprises in Year 2 typically out-earn salaried positions but with more variability and more responsibility.
About 25% of Cohort 02 alumni took partner-org positions; about 60% are running microenterprises; the remainder are doing hybrid arrangements. All are valid outcomes — the program is designed to give graduates options, not prescribe a single path.
Some alumni discover that 80% of their revenue comes from 2–3 large partners (Kennemer, large agribusinesses, NGO programs) and 20% from a long tail of smaller coops. That's a valid model. It's also a more concentrated risk — losing one client could mean losing half your revenue.
The Lumipad alumni network coaches Stage 4–5 alumni on portfolio diversification. The general guidance: no single client should account for more than 40% of your annual revenue, even if they're easy to serve. If they pull their contract, you need to survive.
The honest answer: most alumni under-charge for too long. The pattern that produces sustainable growth:
The biggest mistake: raising prices to "what the market should pay" instead of what your value to that specific client justifies. A small cooperative that earns ₱150,000 per harvest cycle cannot pay you ₱30,000 per survey. A 200-hectare commercial operation earning ₱4M per cycle absolutely can.