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¿Robot o humano?

Crop spraying

Ground rig or crop duster (custom hire) vs Spray drone (hire, or buy and fly)

Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos. Metodología · Historial de aciertos

Humano · Al año17.400 US$Ground rig (custom hire)
Robot · Al año22.121 US$Buy a spray drone and fly it
Plazo de recuperación62 meses
Año de crucedespués de 2035 (2031–después de 2035)Base-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers people are clearly cheaper. The robot would sit idle most of the time; it pays off at higher volume or longer hours. Payback is longer than three years, which is longer than many robot contracts and some robot companies.

Estados Unidos · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Carga de trabajo
Supuesto

Acres sprayed per year (all passes).

Supuesto

Flying hours per spray day.

Supuesto

Spray days per month, averaged.

Supuesto

Volume is annual.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 45-2091.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Precios
extension.iastate.edu

Iowa 2025 average custom rate, self-propelled ground broadcast spraying ($5-$15).

extension.iastate.edu

Iowa 2025 average custom aerial application ($9-$16).

American Spray Drone Coalition

US average custom drone spray rate, 2025 (down from $21 in 2024).

Robot
Supuesto

Acres per drone-hour in practice, including refills and moves. Spec sheets quote more.

Southeast Drone Solutions (dealer)

DJI Agras T50 spray-ready package (aircraft alone from $19,999).

Supuesto

Extra batteries, generator, mixing trailer, certification (FAA Part 137 in the US) and insurance.

Supuesto

Yearly repairs and battery replacement, share of price.

Supuesto

Useful life in years.

Supuesto

Share of spray hours flyable (wind, rain).

Supuesto

Work lost to faults.

Supuesto

Acres a drone cannot do well (very large flat fields at high volume rates).

Supuesto

Crew minutes per drone-hour: pilot plus a mixer/visual observer.

Supuesto

Generator or grid energy per drone-hour (kWh).

Supuesto

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finanzas
Supuesto

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Supuesto

Years in the NPV comparison.

Supuesto

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Supuesto

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Supuesto

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Resultados

OpciónAl mesAl añoPer unit (acre)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Ground rig (custom hire) Referencia 1450 US$17.400 US$8,70 US$— — — —
Humano Crop duster (custom hire) 1975 US$23.700 US$11,85 US$— nunca — -27.192 US$
Robot Drone spraying service 2131 US$25.570 US$12,78 US$— nunca — -33.565 US$
Robot Buy a spray drone and fly it 1843 US$22.121 US$11,06 US$43.500 US$ 62 meses 16 %
Utilisation 11 %
 -14.154 US$

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a spray drone and fly it5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a spray drone and fly itWorkloadlow value: 300 → -56.087 US$high value: 10000 → 183.176 US$Ground riglow value: 5 → -43.587 US$high value: 15 → 35.961 US$Robot purchase pricelow value: 19999 → 4644 US$high value: 40000 → -28.048 US$Robot output per hourlow value: 12 → -35.685 US$high value: 40 → -6701 US$Useful life or contractlow value: 3 → -24.864 US$high value: 6 → -3590 US$Integration and setuplow value: 5000 → -7154 US$high value: 25000 → -27.154 US$Maintenance per yearlow value: 0.05 → -7681 US$high value: 0.2 → -27.100 US$Supervisionlow value: 60 → -4451 US$high value: 180 → -23.857 US$Work that stays humanlow value: 0 → -11.558 US$high value: 0.3 → -27.136 US$-14.154 US$low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/ag-spraying/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos.

ChartCosto humano por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance rápido), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance lento). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/ag-spraying/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$2,50 US$5,00 US$7,50 US$10,00 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / acrescenario rangeCosto humano por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/ag-spraying/). Modelled estimate, not…

Año de cruce: después de 2035 (2031–después de 2035)

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
No crushed crop or soil compaction; operators are near the chemical when mixing, as with any method.
Calidad
Good on small, wet or irregular fields; ground rigs win on huge flat fields at high water volumes.
Flexibilidad
Drones fly when fields are too wet for a rig.
Edge cases
Drift, label rates and tank size limit what a drone can apply.
Customer experience
Neighbours notice less noise than a crop duster.
Jobs and redeployment
Creates operator jobs; custom applicators often add drones to their fleets.
Regulación
US needs FAA Part 107 plus Part 137 and a 44807 exemption for heavy drones, and state pesticide licences; other countries differ.

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

Las notas y las fuentes están en inglés; la versión en inglés es la de referencia.

  1. 2025 Iowa Farm Custom Rate Survey: self-propelled ground broadcast spraying $8.70/acre average; aerial application $11.85/acre average (materials excluded) Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, 2025
  2. 2025 ASDC Impact Survey: US average custom drone spray rate $13/acre (down from $21 in 2024) American Spray Drone Coalition, 2026-01
  3. DJI Agras T50 from $19,999; spray-ready package $31,500 Southeast Drone Solutions (dealer), 2026-10 · vendor
  4. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  5. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  6. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  7. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  8. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  9. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  10. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  11. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  12. Outsourced drone spraying in Brazil: BRL 60-150 per hectare Planon Ambiental, 2026-10 · vendor
  13. Drone fumigation in Mexico: MXN 300-800 per hectare, application only EAVision México, 2026-10 · vendor
  14. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  15. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  16. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013