If you’ve been reading The Drone Girl for a while, you already know about the Lucid Bots Sherpa Drone — it’s one of the best exterior building cleaning drones on the market. But while that building cleaning drone is an impressive piece of hardware, at $75,000 for the full package, it’s not cheap.
That makes it a tougher sell for entrepreneurs who want to consider launching a career in building cleaning, but who aren’t made of money nor willing to take a risk that big. But this year, Lucid Bots rolled out an option that just changed that math entirely.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based robotics company recently launched Lucid Refresh, which is a subscription model. The subscription fee covers access to the Sherpa Drone, payloads, software, support and automatic hardware upgrades every two years, and it starts at $2,500 per month.
The Sherpa Drone is an ultra-powerful window cleaning drone capable of cleaning more than 300 square feet per minute. There’s also an add-on Window Payload that turns it into a high-rise window washing machine. That much high tech also requires a significant capital commitment for someone just getting started. With that, Lucid Refresh should be a compelling option for people looking to launch a drone business. As far as I’m aware, this is the first program of its kind in the drone cleaning space.
Here’s how much Lucid Refresh costs, when it’s worth it and who it’s best for.
What Lucid Refresh actually is
Lucid Refresh is a 2-year subscription plan with three tiers that offer varying degrees of features: Launch ($2,500/month), Growth ($3,500/month) and Scale ($5,000/month).
- The Launch tier: This is the entry package. It includes the Sherpa Drone itself, the Lucid Suite software and support package, a data plan and eight batteries with two chargers.
- The Growth tier: This includes everything in the Launch tier, while adding the Window Payload (unlocking window cleaning jobs on top of general exterior washing), 3-Day Business-in-a-Box Training and Lucid Command, which is a web-based mission control platform for monitoring and managing your fleet from anywhere.
- The Scale tier: This tier includes everything in the Growth tier, but it also adds some other payloads for expanded capabilities. There’s a Power Tether System that eliminates battery limitations on long-duration jobs. Plus, they give you a Marketing Content Package which entails professional video content including a highlight reel, B-roll and photography of your operation in the field. That itself could be key in leveling up your business.
All tiers include what Lucid calls the Lucid Suite, which entails unlimited loaner drone access (so you never have to cancel a job due to maintenance). You’ll also get 24 months of comprehensive coverage and weekend support (no limitation to 9-5 Monday through Fridays only!).
To me, the key piece after years of watching the drone industry is that hardware upgrade every two years. Rather than buying a drone and watching it become dated technology while you’re still paying it off, Lucid Refresh ensures its customers never have tech that’s too old, as its subscribers automatically receive updated hardware at the two-year mark. In a space where drone technology is still evolving quickly, that’s a meaningful hedge against obsolescence, a challenge so many drone pilots in other industries face.
The part drone pilots actually want to know: does it pencil out?
The average revenue per commercial cleaning job is $14,023, according to data provided to The Drone Girl by Lucid Bots, based on more than 400 real commercial jobs from Lucid Bots’ customers. On major jobs (defined as those requiring 8 or more hours of flight time) the median revenue spikes to $30,588.
Lucid Bots data also shows that operators running 10 or more jobs per year average $200,000 in annual revenue. (Of course, actual revenue can vary widely based on factors such as operator experience, market conditions, location, time of year, etc.).
So is this a lucrative career path? Here’s a revenue breakdown by job size, after you factor in the the $2,500/month Launch tier subscription cost which will eat into your profits:
For medium jobs (2-4 hours of flight time) at roughly $8,000 per job:
- One job per month: Nets $5,500 monthly ($66,000 net annually).
- Three jobs per month: Nets $21,500 monthly, $258,000 net annually.
For large jobs (4-8 hours) at roughly $16,000 per job:
- One job per month: Nets $13,500 monthly ($162,000 annually).
- Three jobs per month: Nets $45,500 monthly ($546,000 net annually).
For major jobs (8+ hours) at roughly $30,000 per job:
- One job per month nets $27,500 monthly ($330,000 annually).
- Three jobs per month: $87,500 net monthly ($1.05 million annually).
Even the most conservative scenario, one medium job per month, produces more than double the subscription cost.
Just keep in mind that these are based on the assumption that you score worth on a regular basis. Depending on factors like climate, you may find you get more work in certain times of year versus others. And landing major $30,000 jobs also assumes you live near large buildings that need to be cleaned (think sparkly skyscrapers). But if you do make those conditions work for you, you could be walking away with more than $1 million in annual profit in that high-end scenario.
Why the building cleaning market is worth thinking about as a drone pilot
Here’s what I keep coming back to when I think about drone cleaning as a business: it’s one of the few commercial drone use cases that is genuinely hard for AI to replace, doesn’t have the fierce competition that has compressed margins in real estate and wedding photography, and addresses a massive, physical problem that isn’t going away.
Buildings get dirty. High-rises need their windows washed. Roofs need soft washing. Stadiums, schools, apartment complexes, commercial properties all require exterior maintenance on a recurring basis.
This work is typically done sans drone, but it’s hard work that involves scaffolding, rope rappelling systems, lifts and human labor at height, all factors that are expensive, slow and carrying real liability. This is a key example of how a drone does it faster, safer and without any of that infrastructure setup.
Does the Lucid Refresh subscription make sense for you?
The Lucid Refresh model makes the most sense for operators who are either launching a drone cleaning business and want to minimize upfront capital risk, or established cleaning companies that want to add drone capability without a major hardware purchase.
Replace with: At $2,500/month, Lucid Refresh totals $60,000 over the two-year contract, roughly $15,000 less than purchasing the Sherpa Drone outright. And that’s before you factor in what’s bundled in: comprehensive coverage, loaner drone access so you never have to cancel a job, weekend support, and an automatic hardware upgrade at the two-year mark. Buying outright gets you hardware. Lucid Refresh gets you a complete, supported operation from day one, plus the guarantee that you’ll never be flying outdated equipment. For most operators, that’s the better deal.
But the subscription comes with other key benefits, including Lucid Suite coverage, loaner drone access, weekend support and that automatic hardware refresh, which might be more valuable than anything in ensuring you’re not stuck with an outdated drone.
Especially for drone entrepreneurs who are uncertain about volume or don’t want to sink ~$75,000 into hardware before proving out the business model, Lucid Refresh lowers the barrier to entry significantly.
You can start generating revenue immediately, prove out your market and upgrade your hardware automatically at the two-year mark, all without the capital outlay and depreciation risk of ownership.
The numbers from Lucid’s own job data suggest that even one large cleaning job per month covers the subscription. The question is whether you can land that first job, and whether you’re willing to do the kind of work that doesn’t win drone photo contests but does make for a real business.To learn more about Lucid Refresh, visit lucidbots.com.
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