DJI - Mavic 3T

A Mavic 3 Enterprise is your best option. That budget should get you the drone plus a bunch of batteries. Depending on what accuracy you need, you could add on an RTK module as well.

You need more budget if you want to do both. Mavic 3T for thermal is good and in that budget but very little payload capacity. M30T for both but likely double that budget all up.

Fly it a lot, remember the limitations of the obstacle avoidance, learn the flight characteristics, and above all, have fun.  I had the Air2S, then went to the Mavic 3 and Mavic 3E and now the Mavic 3T. Skipped the Mavic 2pro to get newer, as I use these for my small business side job. 

I just took part in flying drones to map infrastructure and home damage in a bunch of super remote villages in South West Alaska. The whole area was smacked by the remnants of Typhoon Halong, huge storm surge up the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta and 100mph winds. We were using Mavic 3T’s. Our primary job is flying on wildfires, and these are great for that mission. They worked well for this as well. I’ll say the biggest bottleneck in our workflow was sending the imagery to the cloud for processing. We’re going to be looking at how RTK might increase processing speed in the future, and possibly do it local, rather than have to upload everything. Starlink is great, but it can only do so much. Near the end of our mission we started switching over to some service, don’t have my field notes on me and I can’t remember the name, that was taking full motion video and creating orthos from video shot at a 45° angle from about 50-100’. That was only my last couple days on the incident, so I’m not sure what the actual resulting product turned out like. Anker makes some really nice 25000mah batteries. They were handing those things out like candy. I was using them to run a Starlink mini and to keep my remote and phone charged. Super handy.

The Mavic 3 T is not a surveying drone. You can use it but it will need control points used as GCPs. The RTK module is positioning only and it does not use Time Sync like its sister model the E. For thermal, a thermography certification will lead you to the correct way to operate.

You will be far better equipped getting a Mavic 3 thermal and a separate handheld device. Detachable payloads sit with things like the 300/350/400 series and you're looking at about 20 grand

Thanks for sharing your journey. My dad has been in the surveying industry for 30 years and recently bought a DJI Mavic 3 Thermal for surveying and solar plant inspections. To operate legally, I obtained my drone license last year, but I’m still new to surveying, which has been quite challenging. I feel like I’m not making much progress on my own and would really appreciate some guidance. I'm based in South Africa and would love advice on how to use my Mavic 3T for surveying, where to learn how to conduct accurate thermal inspections on solar plants, and how to analyze thermal data effectively. Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

If you want accurate maps, you need the Mavic 3 enterprise with it's mechanical shutter. For basic mapping for fun, you can go as low as a Mini 3 pro, but the rolling shutter will reduce accuracy and resolution. I work with the Mavic 3 Enterprise with RTK at work, and does incredibly accurate and detailed maps, but really no better than my old personal Phantom 4 Pro I have at home. With RTK and GCP's you can get accuracy within a cm or two. I'm trying trying to get our non-profit to get a Matrice 350 RTK with all the goodies to increase functionality as the Mavic 3E is great for maps, but not much else.

I do tower inspections and use a Mavic 3 Enterprise with RTK which is required for accuracy of models.

The zoom capability of the M3E is ideal for inspecting safety anchors and cable connections from a safe distance. 7x optical zoom.

The M3E with RTK will work fine for your use case. My house is my drone test site so I have a lot of control on the ground but the reality is I really don't need it for landscape planning. The output I use the most in landscaping is the ortho which is good enough to measure and plan against. Although I have survey equipment, more often than not I find myself surveying by rock and tape measure. The point cloud is less useful IMO because of the scale. I'll occasionally use it for measuring rock volumes on patio builds but only because I have a lot of the tools for work.

Reality Capture would be free. M3E is the best drone for this