Ask what a Blue UAS drone costs and the search results give you explainers, cleared-list summaries and procurement advice — but almost never a number. That gap is odd, because several of these aircraft are sold from ordinary online storefronts.
We read five of them on 11 August 2026: the manufacturer's own shop plus four US dealers, currency confirmed as USD from each store's cart endpoint. Here is what the compliant fleet actually lists for.
Inspired Flight — the clearest ladder on the market
Inspired Flight publishes its full configuration matrix. Each aircraft is sold in two ground-control-station options and four support tiers:
| IF800 TOMCAT (medium-lift quad) | Foundation | Starter | Pro | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Herelink GCS | $23,000 | $23,500 | $25,000 | $28,000 |
| GS-ONE GCS | $29,500 | $30,000 | $31,500 | $34,500 |
| IF1200 (heavy-lift hex) | Foundation | Starter | Pro | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Herelink GCS | $32,000 | $32,750 | $35,000 | $39,000 |
| GS-ONE GCS | $37,500 | $38,250 | $40,500 | $44,500 |
Two useful readings. First, the ground station costs more than the support plan: stepping from Herelink to GS-ONE is $6,500 on the IF800 (+28.3%) and $5,500 on the IF1200, while the entire jump from base coverage to Elite support is $5,000. Second, mission kits dwarf the aircraft — the same IF800 sells at $40,070 with a Sony LR1 mapping payload, $52,650 as a thermal/public-safety build, and $117,850 with a Teledyne EchoONE LiDAR kit, or 5.1× the base aircraft.
The same aircraft, five sellers, a 66% spread
Take the cheapest IF800 build — aircraft with the Blue Herelink GCS — and check every US seller we could open that day:
| Seller | IF800, Blue Herelink | vs manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| Maverick Drone (aircraft only) | $17,950 | −22.0% |
| Maverick Drone (base bundle) | $19,950 | −13.3% |
| Inspired Flight (manufacturer) | $23,000 | — |
| Dronefly | $23,000 | 0.0% |
| DSLRPros | $23,000 | 0.0% |
| Infinit Drones | $29,784 | +29.5% |
Three sellers match the factory to the dollar; one sits below it and one sits nearly 30% above. On the IF1200, Volatus lists the Herelink build at $33,500 against the factory's $32,000, and Infinit at $42,160 against $37,500. The pattern we keep finding in robot catalogues holds here too: there is no cheapest dealer, only a cheapest dealer for this line item.
What compliance itself costs: $6,000
Freefly sells the same airframe twice, and the difference is a clean line item:
| Aircraft | Standard | NDAA / Blue | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Astro Max | $22,995 | $28,995 | +$6,000 (+26.1%) |
| Alta X Gen2 | $39,650 | $45,650 | +$6,000 (+15.1%) |
Same payload, same endurance, same factory in Woodinville, Washington. Freefly's own knowledge base explains why: *"The radio link is what determines NDAA compliance."* The standard build ships with a Chinese-made Herelink radio and is not Blue-approved; the compliant build ships with a Doodle Labs radio and is. The accessory pricing corroborates it — the NDAA and non-NDAA armour kits for the Alta X are both $5,495, identical, because the armour was never the issue.
That is the most precise answer to "what does Blue UAS cost" we have seen published anywhere: on this platform, $6,000, and it buys a radio.
The rest of the compliant shelf
| Platform | Origin | Listed price |
|---|---|---|
| Vantage Robotics Vesper (2.4 GHz) | US | $6,900 |
| Vantage Robotics Vesper (multi-band) | US | $8,490 |
| Parrot ANAFI USA Thermal | US/France | $7,000 |
| ACSL SOTEN aircraft | Japan | $10,779 |
| Vantage Trace, public-safety bundle | US | $12,599 |
| Vantage Vesper, public-safety bundle | US | $13,699 |
| Parrot ANAFI USA GOV thermal | US/France | $14,000 |
| ACSL SOTEN, packaged bundles | Japan | $11,250 – $25,115 |
| Freefly Astro Max (Blue) | US | $28,995 |
| WingtraRAY bundle (VTOL survey) | Switzerland | $23,100 |
| Flybotix ASIO X (confined space) | Switzerland | $33,899 |
| Freefly Alta X Gen2 (NDAA) | US | $45,650 |
Aircraft-only prices for the small platforms are startlingly low against the enterprise tier — a Vesper at $6,900 is under a third of an IF800 — but the bundles are where agencies actually buy, and there the gap narrows fast. Vantage's two-packs are the only genuine volume discount we found: two Trace public-safety bundles are $21,499 against $25,198 bought separately (−14.7%), and two Vesper ISR bundles save $4,058.
A caution on stock: several of the Parrot and Wingtra listings, and all six Freefly Astro Max variants at one dealer, were out of stock on the day we read them. An out-of-stock price is a claim, not a quote.
What to do with these numbers
- Price the radio and the ground station separately from the airframe. Between the GCS choice and the Blue radio, $12,500 of an IF800-class purchase is decided before you pick a camera.
- Check the manufacturer store before the dealer. Here it was neither the cheapest nor the dearest — it was the median, and it is the only source that publishes the whole matrix.
- Assume the payload is the purchase. LiDAR kits ran to $131,000 on the IF1200; the aircraft is a minority of that invoice.
- Get the compliance claim in writing per-configuration, not per-model. Freefly's split shows a single model name covering both a compliant and a non-compliant build.
Related reading: our industrial drone category, the Hylio US-made ag drone price guide, and what US–China robot import rules mean for buyers.
*Prices read 11 August 2026 from live US storefronts; single-day, single-market observations. Configurations were matched by product title, not by part number.*
