Here is the honest version up front. Scopito is real, capable software built for inspection-imagery programs on power lines, wind turbines, solar farms, and telecom towers. It tags defects on the photos and turns an inspection run into a report. If your assets stand overhead and you inspect them from photographs, Scopito is built for that job. This page is not trying to talk you out of it.
But a small water system does not run an overhead grid you photograph once a year. It runs a buried, living system that changes every time a crew digs. The value for you is not the flyover. It is the record your crew keeps current underneath it. Here is where each tool fits.
For a small water or wastewater system that needs a living map and a work record, yes. If your job is inspecting power lines, wind turbines, solar, or telecom towers from the air, no. That is Scopito's job and we do not claim it.
The two tools are built for different jobs, not different quality levels. Scopito is inspection-imagery software. GPS-tagged photos of a tower or a turbine, shot from a drone, a helicopter, or the ground, plot on a map; an inspector tags the faults and you get a report. That fits assets you can see and photograph on a schedule.
A small utility's assets are the opposite. Your mains, service lines, curb stops, valves, and manholes are under the road and behind the house. No photograph reaches them, from the air or from the street, and they move every time someone digs a new tap or replaces a service. The job is not a picture of the system. It is a map your crew updates from the ground the day the work happens.
A drone flyover, like a paper map or a one-time survey, is a snapshot. Worse, it is a snapshot somebody else made and owns. It is only right for the day it was made, and it starts getting wrong the moment a crew puts a shovel in the ground.
We hear this from operators all the time. As one put it: "By the time that they make the maps, it's probably out of date or you have new information." A small system needs a record that gets better as the crew works. One that is already wrong when it lands does not help anyone.
Here is the receipt that makes the point. A small utility got quoted $28,000 for an engineer's drone flights to map its system, and the crew still had to go blue-stake the entire system themselves. After all that money, the operator could not work the map he paid for. In his words: "I can't update it, I can't edit it, I can't do work orders on it. It just, I feel like, personally, it's gatekeeping." That is the whole argument in one invoice. A flyover is a snapshot someone else owns. The crew's daily work is a record you own, and today's leak is on that record tonight, not in a snapshot that was already out of date the day it landed. (Customer kept anonymous. This was an engineer's drone-mapping quote, not Scopito.)
| Ziptility | ||
|---|---|---|
| Built for | ZiptilitySmall water and wastewater systems with a handful of staff | ScopitoInspection-imagery programs on power lines, wind turbines, solar farms, and telecom towers |
| Who keeps it current? | ZiptilityYour crew, from the ground, as the work happens | ScopitoA flight team; each flyover is a snapshot of that day |
| Getting started | ZiptilityStart from paper maps, a shapefile, or a meter spreadsheet; gray dots fill in as the crew works | ScopitoPlan and fly an inspection campaign, then tag defects on the photos |
| Work orders in the field | ZiptilityWork is assigned to the asset on the map; every leak, valve turn, and inspection logs where it happened | ScopitoDefect tags and inspection reports from the imagery |
| On a phone, in the field | ZiptilityThe whole crew gets it on a phone | ScopitoPhoto capture from a drone, a helicopter, or the ground |
| Pricing | ZiptilityOne yearly price by service connections. Unlimited users, no per-seat fee. | ScopitoNo published prices; third-party reporting describes pay-per-asset pricing across several editions (G2, accessed 2026-07-04) |
| The cost behind the cost | ZiptilityA living map you keep current yourself is a few thousand a year and gets better every week | ScopitoA flyover is a snapshot someone else owns; it starts going stale the day it lands |
| Keep your current map | ZiptilityBring in what a flight found; photos and notes live on the asset's record | ScopitoKeep flying when a one-off flight is genuinely the right tool |
| Who actually uses it | ZiptilityThe operator and crew who run the system every day | ScopitoInspectors and imagery programs with assets you can see and photograph |
Reported figures accessed 2026-07-04. Scopito pricing is third-party-reported (G2), not list price. Trademarks belong to their owners.
You do not work a flyover. You work the map. In Ziptility the work is assigned to the asset on the map. Every leak, valve turn, and inspection logs right where it happened.
Here is the loop. Your assets start as gray dots from whatever you already have, paper maps, an old shapefile, a meter spreadsheet. Every time a crew member is out there working a ticket or marking an 811 locate, they confirm a dot and fill it in: a photo, a depth, a material, a fix. Over a year, the locates and repairs you already do quietly turn your old paper into a real database. Everything the crew does in the field adds something to the map or corrects something on it. That is the mechanism, and over time the record gets more and more filled in.
That is the whole idea behind Ziptility. The map updates as a byproduct of the work your crew already does, not as a project you have to find time for. Picture an operator on valve maintenance. He logs what he would note anyway, the number of turns, how hard it was to turn, the condition. That rolls straight up to the valve on the map. He did not stop to do data entry. He did valve maintenance, and the record updated itself. Ten small tasks a day across the crew builds a serious data set. Nobody ever sits down to a data project. You already have enough to do.
Yes, but as work-management cycles attached to the asset on the map, not as an aerial-defect-scoring engine. A manhole inspection, a CCTV run, a valve exercise, or a hydrant flush is a task on the asset. When the crew closes it, the condition and notes log to that asset's record, where the next person can pull them up.
Be clear on the boundary so you do not buy the wrong thing. Ziptility is not a CCTV video-coding or NASSCO-PACP scoring engine, and it is not an aerial-defect-detection tool. CCTV video is linked to the asset, not hosted inside the app, which keeps the map fast even with no signal in the field. The win is the living record the crew keeps current, not a better camera or sensor. The deeper pipe-inspection workflow lives on our wastewater inspection page.
No. Keep what the flight found and bring it in. If a drone flight is genuinely the right tool for one job, a hard-to-reach tank roof, an after-storm look at a lagoon, fine, fly it. Then bring what you learn into Ziptility as part of the asset's living record: a photo on the tank, a note on the lagoon, a follow-up task on whatever needs work. It does not go stale in a folder, and you do not have to rip anything out. You give the one-time picture a place to live where your crew actually works.
Honest about scope: we do not fly drones and we do not capture or analyze aerial imagery. That is Scopito's lane, and for power lines, wind, solar, and telecom it is a good one. We are the ground-level living map and the work record for a small buried water or wastewater system. We concede the air openly, because conceding it is what makes the ground-level argument true.
One yearly price, set by your number of service connections, with no per-seat fee. The whole crew gets it on a phone, not one license on the office computer. Scopito does not publish prices. Third-party reporting (G2, accessed 2026-07-04) describes pay-per-asset pricing across several editions, roughly EUR 6 to EUR 80 per asset depending on the asset type, with unlimited free users and no monthly subscription required. That shape fits an inspection campaign you price per asset, not a buried system your crew works every day.
The bigger cost is the one you cannot see on an invoice. A $28,000 flyover you cannot edit is money spent on a picture you cannot work. A living map you keep current yourself is a few thousand a year and gets better every week.
For a small water or wastewater system that needs a living map and a work and inspection record, yes. If you inspect power lines, wind, solar, or telecom towers from the air, no, that is Scopito's job and we do not claim it.
No. We do not fly drones and we do not capture or analyze aerial imagery. We are the ground-level living map and the work and inspection record for a small buried system. If a drone is the right tool for a one-off job, fly it and bring the result into Ziptility on the asset.
Yes, as work-management cycles attached to the asset on the map. The crew runs the inspection, closes the task, and the condition and notes log to that asset where the next person can find them. We are not a CCTV-coding or NASSCO-scoring engine.
No. Bring what the flight found into Ziptility as part of the asset's living record, a photo, a note, a follow-up task, so it does not go stale in a folder. You do not have to rip anything out.
One yearly price by your number of connections, with unlimited users and no per-seat fee. Scopito's reported pricing is per asset, across several editions (per G2). That fits a per-asset inspection campaign, not a buried system your crew runs every day.