Service
AcreWatch Auto
Dock-based monitoring that never leaves the farm. Also on job sites, by trailer.
AcreWatch Auto puts a dock-based drone station right on your operation. It launches, flies its route, and returns to charge on the cadence you set, with one of our licensed remote pilots planning and monitoring each flight. You get consistent coverage all season without dispatching anybody to the field for it.
What you get, by operation
Crop
- A scheduled pass at each growth stage, pre-plant to pre-harvest: stand, weeds, nitrogen, disease, efficacy, lodging, drydown
- Flights between passes for change detection
- Prescription load files for your planter, pivot, and robots, and for the spray drones that take them: DJI Agras, XAG, EAVision, Hylio, Ceres Air
- One-page report per pass with the finding and the action
Cattle
- Every flight: head count, count exception, down or isolated animal, water check, fence and gates, feed and mineral
- Weekly or per rotation: forage mass by paddock, rotation record, weed and brush map, manure and mud map
- Seasonal: spring pasture, hay pre-cut and post-cut, calving watch, bull check, heat stress, winter feeding
- On call: stray and escape search, predator and carcass check, pre-sale or lender inventory, insurance documentation
Construction site
- Capture on your cadence: dated orthomosaic, 3D model, cut and fill, stockpile volumes
- Progress series for owner reports and pay applications
- Surface files for Trimble Earthworks and Topcon machine control
- Site boundary, fence, and access map at install
Application is yours. We deliver the map and the file your equipment reads.
How it works
- 01
Site survey
We map the property, pick the dock location, and file the FAA beyond-visual-line-of-sight authorization for your site.
- 02
Install
Permanent pad with power and connectivity, or a self-powered trailer. The survey sets the date for your site.
- 03
Scheduled flights
The dock launches, flies, lands, and charges on your schedule. One of our pilots plans and monitors each flight; nobody has to drive out for it.
- 04
Findings
Delivered to your dashboard, and to the equipment that runs the file.
Plans
Buy the dock and pay a program on top, or lease the whole thing from us. Crop and cattle can do either. Construction is lease only, because the trailer moves on when the job is done.
A credit is one flight.
Crop
Buy the dock
$1,225/mo
on a dock you own
- $1,225 a month, which includes one flight
- $2.00 per acre per pass for the analysis
- Additional flights that are not an analysis pass, $100 each
Lease the trailer
$4,050/mo
8-month minimum
- $4,050 a month, plus $2.00 per acre per pass
- We own the trailer dock. Nothing to buy and nothing to finance
- It moves: the pad and the power run are not your problem
Neighbors fly off your trailer at a per-acre rate with no lease of their own, and what they pay is credited to you, up to the full lease. Enough neighbors and the trailer costs you nothing.
Cattle
Buy the dock
Light
2 flights a month
$1,300/mo
Standard
4 flights a month
$1,450/mo
Heavy
8 flights a month
$1,750/mo
On a dock you own. Additional flights $100 each. Every bundle includes the count, the exceptions, the water and the fence on each flight.
Lease the trailer
Light
2 flights a month
$2,900/mo
Standard
4 flights a month
$3,050/mo
Heavy
8 flights a month
$3,350/mo
On a trailer dock we own. Same deliverables, no hardware to buy. Neighbors fly off your trailer at a per-acre rate with no lease of their own, and what they pay is credited to you, up to the full lease. Enough neighbors and the trailer costs you nothing.
Construction sites
Lease the trailer
Light
4 flights a month
$3,050/mo
Standard
8 flights a month
$3,350/mo
Heavy
20 flights a month
$4,250/mo
12-month minimum. Delivery and setup $1,500, waived on 24 months. Lease only: the trailer moves to the next site when this one is done. NDAA-compliant and Blue UAS platforms are quoted on top.
Purchase packages start at $38,625, plus a three-year service plan. The survey sets the final figure, because the pad, the power and the connectivity are different on every site.
What it saves
A monthly figure is only half the sum. Here is the other half, in numbers somebody other than us published.
Crop
Put the input where it pays
Product and application put a fungicide pass somewhere near $18 to $20 an acre by the time it is on the ground. A pass is $2.00 an acre. If the map says skip a quarter of the field, that one pass has paid for itself more than twice over, and you still have the record of why you skipped it.
Cattle
One animal covers most of a year
Calves have run at records through 2024 and 2025, and at $300-plus a hundredweight a 500-pound calf is well north of $1,500. A Light bundle on a dock you own is $1,300 a month. Find one down animal, one calving problem or one gate left open a season and the arithmetic has already moved.
Source: USDA AMS Livestock Market News
Labor
The drive is the expensive part
USDA put the average gross wage across all hired farm workers at $19.52 an hour in April 2025, and $18.15 for livestock workers. Two hours a day driving out to look at fields or pastures is roughly $1,100 a month of somebody's time before the truck, and it is time spent on the search rather than on the problem.
Source: USDA NASS, Farm Labor
Construction
Rework starts as a documentation gap
FMI and PlanGrid put 48 percent of US jobsite rework on poor communication and poor project data. A Heavy trailer lease is 20 captures a month at $4,250, which is under $215 for a dated orthomosaic, a 3D model, cut and fill, and stockpile volumes. One settled pay application is the whole month.
Published figures from the sources named, not our estimates of your operation. Your acres, your inputs and your labor decide what this is actually worth, which is what the site survey is for.
And on our own prices
Arithmetic on the tables above, so it stays true when they change.
$16 an acre for a corn season
Eight passes at $2.00 an acre, on 200 acres or 2,000. The pass schedule is the crop's, so a six-pass crop is $12.
On crop, a lease is about fourteen months of the difference
The trailer lease is $4,050 a month against $1,225 on a dock you own, a difference of $2,825. A purchase package starting at $38,625 is about fourteen months of that difference, before the service plan.
Neighbors can take the lease to nothing
The crop trailer lease is $4,050 a month. At $2.00 an acre a pass, roughly 1,000 neighboring acres flown twice a month credits the whole thing back to the host.
The Heavy bundle beats buying flights
Eight cattle flights a month on a Light bundle is $1,300 plus six extra at $100, which is $1,900. The Heavy bundle is $1,750 for the same eight.
On cattle, a lease is about two years of the difference
A Standard lease is $3,050 a month against $1,450 on a dock you own, a difference of $1,600. A purchase package starting at $38,625 is about twenty-four months of that difference, before the service plan.
Neighbors buy down the lease here too
What a neighboring operation pays to fly off your trailer is credited against your lease, up to the whole of it.
Five times the captures for 39 percent more
Light is 4 captures at $3,050. Heavy is 20 at $4,250. Past the first few, each additional capture is costing about $75.
The setup fee goes away at 24 months
Delivery and setup is $1,500 on a 12-month lease and waived at 24, so the longer term starts $1,500 ahead before the first flight.
What a crop season looks like
Corn is eight passes, so $2.00 per acre per pass is $16 an acre from pre-plant to pre-harvest. Other crops carry their own pass count: see the schedule by crop.
A corn season, pass by pass
- 1.Pre-plant: Standing water, residue cover, tile blowouts, washouts
- 2.VE-V2: Stand count, skips, doubles, emergence uniformity
- 3.V5-V6: Weed escapes pre-canopy; waterhemp, giant ragweed patches
- 4.V8-V10: N stress (NDRE), yellowing, ponded areas
- 5.VT-R1: Tar spot, gray leaf spot, NCLB onset; silk timing
- 6.R2-R3: Fungicide efficacy, disease spread, hail/wind damage
- 7.R4-R5: Stalk rot, lodging, late insects, ear drop
- 8.Pre-harvest: Drydown uniformity, lodging, yield-estimate imagery
Platforms
DJI Dock 3 for private agricultural sites; NDAA-compliant and Blue UAS dock systems for public, utility, and government work.
Questions we get asked
- Does the dock need internet?
- Yes. We install Starlink or use your connection; it is included in the plan.
- Who holds the FAA authorization?
- AcreWatch. Our BVLOS program covers your site; you fly nothing and file nothing.
- What happens in weather?
- The dock holds the aircraft in rain, wind over limits, or lightning risk and flies the next window that opens. A missed flight rolls forward rather than being dropped.
- Who owns the data?
- You do. We keep a copy to serve the program. Nothing is sold or shared.
- Can my own sprayer or spray drone use the maps?
- Yes. Prescription files are delivered in the format your equipment reads.
- Who operates and maintains the dock?
- AcreWatch. The aircraft, the dock, the authorization, and the maintenance are all ours; your side of it is the pad and the power.
Get a Site Survey.
Tell us where you are and what we are watching. We map the property, pick the dock location, and file the authorization for your site.
Rather talk it through? Call (937) 930-4107.