Every robot quote eventually includes a line for coverage — a care plan, an extended warranty, a maintenance agreement. Almost nobody publishes what it costs relative to the machine. On 12 August 2026 I pulled every coverage SKU I could find in eight US robot and drone catalogues — 91 of them at one dealer alone — and priced each one against the machine it protects, in the same store, on the same day.
The short version: coverage is priced far more like a fixed servicing cost than like a percentage of value. At the top of the market it is 2% of the machine. At the bottom it is 100%.
One year of accident coverage costs about 9% of the machine
Infinit Drones is the only one of five US drone dealers I read that publishes DJI Care Enterprise prices at all. For 17 machines I could match a plan to a price in the same catalogue:
| Machine | Price | Care Basic, 1 yr | % of machine | Care Plus, 1 yr | Plus ÷ Basic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zenmuse L2 | $18,099 | $1,569 | 8.7% | $2,376 | 1.51× |
| Zenmuse H30T | $13,647 | $1,112 | 8.1% | $1,778 | 1.60× |
| Zenmuse H20T | $13,406 | $1,754 | 13.1% | $2,609 | 1.49× |
| Matrice 30T | $12,039 | $1,375 | 11.4% | $2,336 | 1.70× |
| Zenmuse L1 | $11,619 | $1,423 | 12.2% | $2,394 | 1.68× |
| Matrice 350 RTK | $10,939 | $987 | 9.0% | $1,494 | 1.51× |
| Matrice 300 RTK | $10,004 | $1,739 | **17.4%** | $2,462 | 1.42× |
| Matrice 30 | $8,649 | $963 | 11.1% | $1,788 | 1.86× |
| Zenmuse P1 | $8,567 | $1,032 | 12.0% | $1,686 | 1.63× |
| Matrice 3TD | $8,009 | $695 | 8.7% | $1,052 | 1.51× |
| Matrice 3D | $5,445 | $472 | 8.7% | $714 | 1.51× |
| Zenmuse H30 | $5,121 | $418 | 8.2% | $668 | 1.60× |
| Zenmuse H20 | $3,859 | $637 | **16.5%** | $942 | 1.48× |
| D-RTK 3 station | $2,621 | $218 | 8.3% | $319 | 1.46× |
| Zenmuse S1 | $1,984 | $179 | 9.0% | $263 | 1.47× |
| Zenmuse V1 | $1,389 | $124 | 8.9% | $189 | 1.52× |
Median: 9.0% of the machine price for one year (range 6.9%–17.4%, n=17). The upgrade from Basic to Plus is a median 1.51× multiple and unusually consistent — four separate products land within 0.002 of 1.514.
The two outliers are both old products
The 17.4% (Matrice 300 RTK) and 16.5% (Zenmuse H20) are the two oldest items in the table, and both are being discounted: the M300 appears as a combo at $10,004 against a Matrice 350 at $10,939. The plan price did not follow the hardware down.
That is the mechanism behind the whole table. Coverage is priced off the product's original position, not today's street price — so the older and more discounted the machine, the worse the ratio gets. Buyers of end-of-line hardware are paying new-hardware coverage rates.
The second year is half price
Nine machines have both a one-year and a two-year Basic plan listed. In every single case the second year costs 45–52% of the first:
| Machine | 1 yr | 2 yr | Second year | As % of year 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zenmuse V1 | $124 | $189 | $65 | 52% |
| Zenmuse H30T | $1,112 | $1,679 | $567 | 51% |
| Zenmuse H30 | $418 | $629 | $211 | 50% |
| Matrice 3D | $472 | $699 | $227 | 48% |
| Matrice 3TD | $695 | $1,029 | $334 | 48% |
| Matrice 350 RTK | $987 | $1,455 | $468 | 47% |
| Zenmuse S1 | $179 | $263 | $84 | 47% |
| D-RTK 3 station | $218 | $319 | $101 | 46% |
| Zenmuse L2 | $1,569 | $2,275 | $706 | 45% |
A spread of seven points across nine products of wildly different value is a pricing rule, not a coincidence. If you are buying coverage at all, buying it one year at a time costs roughly twice as much.
Accident coverage is only half the bill
The same dealer sells a second, separate product: a Maintenance Program, which is scheduled servicing rather than crash replacement. It has its own three tiers — for the Matrice 350 RTK, $495 / $793 / $1,388.
Add them up for one machine, one year:
- Matrice 350 RTK: $10,939
- Care Enterprise Basic: $987 (9.0%)
- Maintenance Basic: $495 (4.5%)
- Fully covered, cheapest tier: $1,482 = 13.5% of the machine, per year
- Top tier on both: $1,494 + $1,388 = $2,882 = 26.3% per year
Buyers who budget "the warranty" almost always budget one of these two.
Now widen it: coverage as a share of the machine
| Coverage | Machine | Price of coverage | Share of machine |
|---|---|---|---|
| HOBOT 3-year warranty | HOBOT-298 window robot, $199 | $199 | **100.0%** |
| HOBOT 3-year warranty | HOBOT-2S, $299 | $199 | 66.6% |
| HOBOT 2-year warranty | HOBOT-298, $199 | $129 | 64.8% |
| Inspired Flight Elite support, 1 yr | IF800, $23,000 | $5,000 | 21.7% |
| DJI Care Enterprise Basic, 1 yr | median of 17 machines | — | 9.0% |
| Rover Robotics 3-year maintenance | mini, $3,900 | $599 | 15.4% (5.1%/yr) |
| Rover Robotics 3-year maintenance | MAX, $13,000 | $599 | 4.6% (1.5%/yr) |
| Rover Robotics 3-year maintenance | MEGA, $39,999 | $899 | 2.2% (0.7%/yr) |
The consumer end is where this gets absurd: a three-year warranty on a $199 window-cleaning robot costs $199. The same document that would be a rounding error on a $40,000 ground robot is, on a small consumer machine, a decision to buy two robots.
Rover's numbers show why. Its maintenance agreement is $599 for the mini, the MĪTI and the MAX — three machines spanning $3,900 to $15,000 — and $899 for the MEGA. The price is set by what servicing a robot costs, not by what the robot costs, which is exactly why the ratio collapses from 15.4% to 2.2% as you move up the line.
One more: fleet contracts barely discount extra years
Maverick's Fleet Maintenance Program prices multi-year terms directly: Essential $2,499 / $4,499 / $6,399 for one, two and three years; Priority $4,499 / $8,099 / $11,499. The second year costs 80% of the first and the third 76% — against DJI Care's 48%. Committing longer to a service contract buys you almost nothing; committing longer to accident coverage halves the rate. They are being priced by different logics, and only one of them behaves like insurance.
What I would do with this
- Benchmark any quoted plan at 9% of the machine per year. Above 15%, ask what changed — usually the machine is old and discounted while the plan is not.
- Never buy coverage a year at a time if a multi-year SKU exists on an accident plan; the second year is about half price.
- Ask which of the two products you are being sold. Crash replacement and scheduled maintenance are separate line items at full price each.
- Below about $2,000 of machine, treat coverage as a second machine and price it that way.
Sources
- Infinit Drones public product feed (91 DJI Care and Maintenance Program SKUs plus matching machine prices), read 12 August 2026
- Maverick Drone, DSLRPros, DroneFly, Volatus Drones public product feeds, read 12 August 2026
- Rover Robotics and HOBOT US public product feeds, read 12 August 2026
- GrabaRobot, Blue UAS & NDAA Drone Price Guide, 11 August 2026 (Inspired Flight support tiers)
- GrabaRobot, Is a US Service Network a Real Moat?, 11 August 2026
*Limitations: single-day, single-market list prices. Plans were matched to machines by product title within the same store, so a machine sold in several bundle configurations is represented by its base listing — ratios would fall if measured against a fully loaded kit. The "fully covered" arithmetic combines two separately sold products and is mine, not the vendor's.*
