How Much Does a Shahed Drone Cost, and How Far Can It Fly?

Between about $20,000 and $50,000 to build, though nobody outside Iran and Russia has published a verified bill of materials. The CSIS Missile Threat project gives the $20,000 to $50,000 range in its profile last updated on June 2, 2026, and The War Zone judged a figure of around $50,000 realistic after reviewing the evidence in February 2024.

The engine sets a floor. The drone’s MD-550 is a copy of Germany’s Limbach L-550, and Ukraine’s Defense Express found in 2023 that the original sells for $12,000 to $17,000 on the open market, which makes the early reports of a $20,000 drone look low.

Russia’s price was far higher. Documents leaked by the hacker group Prana Network and reported by The War Zone in February 2024 showed Iran first asking $375,000 a drone, then agreeing to $193,000 each for 6,000 or $290,000 each for 2,000, within a $1.75 billion deal that included technology transfer. The same papers projected that full production in Russia could cut the unit cost to about $48,800. The documents have not been independently authenticated.

For a Western yardstick, the U.S. LUCAS drone, which Central Command says is modelled on the Shahed, costs about $35,000 each, Reuters reported on March 3.

Somewhere between 1,000 and 2,500 kilometres, depending on the version, the warhead and who is estimating. CSIS cites estimates of 1,000 to 2,000 kilometres, and a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency figure of 2,500 kilometres, which matches Iran’s own claim.

Ukraine has argued for the lower end. Its Air Force spokesman, Yurii Ihnat, has said that the evidence pointed to a real range of around 1,000 kilometres, since a 2,500 kilometre flight would need more fuel than a drone of that weight carries.

Range is also traded for punch. The Alabuga papers, as Defense Express reported in April 2024, listed a range of 1,350 kilometres for the standard drone and only 650 kilometres with the new 90 kilogram warhead, both in ideal weather.

Even the shorter figures are enough for the wars in which the drone is used. Yemen’s Ansurullah movement, widely known as the Houthis, flies the Shahed-136 as the Waid-2, according to CSIS, alongside the missiles that now reach almost all of Saudi Arabia.

The propeller-driven Shahed-136 cruises at about 180 kilometres per hour, or 110 mph, and carries 20 to 50 kilograms of payload, according to CSIS. It weighs about 200 kilograms, is 3.3 to 3.5 metres long, spans 2.5 to 3 metres and is pushed by a 50 horsepower engine mounted at the rear. It is a one-way attack drone, often called a kamikaze drone or loitering munition: it flies a preprogrammed satellite-guided route and dives into its target, destroying itself.

Russia has made the warhead heavier. The leaked Alabuga documents described a 90 kilogram warhead with 62 kilograms of explosive, against 28 kilograms in the 50 kilogram version, and Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence said in 2025 that Russia was using them.

The jet-powered models are a different class. The Geran-3, derived from Iran’s Shahed-238, flies at about 300 to 370 kilometres per hour over roughly 1,000 kilometres, according to Ukrainian military estimates, which makes it far harder to catch with guns or slower interceptor drones.

The Geran-2 is the Shahed-136 built or assembled in Russia, with Russian warheads, upgraded satellite navigation and other changes of its own. Ukraine’s Defence Ministry showed the first wreckage of an Iranian-supplied Shahed near Kupiansk on September 13, 2022, and Russia later moved production to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan.

Output there has grown into an industry. Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence told Militarnyi on August 12 that Russia makes about 2,800 Geran-2s a month, more than 33,600 a year.

That rate shows in the launch counts. Russia fired 948 Shahed-type drones at Ukraine in 24 hours on March 23 and 24, the record so far, and 8,161 in May, according to Ukrainian Air Force figures compiled by the Institute for Science and International Security. Those totals include decoy drones such as the Gerbera, which look like Shaheds on radar but carry no warhead, and the Air Force has published less detail since May.

Anything from a few dollars to several million dollars, and that gap is why the drone works. A Shahed is not hard to hit on its own, since it is slow and loud, but it arrives in hundreds, low and by changing routes, so defenders must spread guns and interceptors across a whole country. A Patriot PAC-3 MSE costs about $4 million to $5.3 million, as we set out in how many Patriot missiles the U.S. has left, and an AIM-120 fired from a NASAMS launcher about $500,000 to $1 million, according to The War Zone.

The Gulf has paid that price. Gulf states used hundreds of Patriot interceptors, at about $4 million each, against Iranian missiles and drones costing far less in the first month of the 2026 war, the Brussels think tank Bruegel noted on March 30, and the UAE alone said by March 17 that it had engaged 1,627 drones. Saudi Arabia still struggles with mixed salvos, as our report on why its air defences fail showed.

Ukraine has driven the cost down. Its Sting interceptor drone, made by the Wild Hornets group, costs about $2,100, often with more than one launched per target, and in May Ukraine downed or jammed 7,618 of the 8,161 Shahed-type drones fired at it, about 93 percent. Lasers promise the cheapest kill of all: Israel’s Iron Beam costs a few dollars a shot, while the U.S. Army’s first production counter-drone laser is not expected before 2028.

Iran, Russia and Ansurullah use it in combat, and the United States has built its own copy. Iran developed the Shahed-131 and the larger Shahed-136, in service since 2019 and 2021 according to CSIS, and Iran launched Shahed-136s at Israel in April 2024 and drones at the Gulf states in 2026.

Russia is now the largest user by far, under the Geran name. The U.S. answer is the LUCAS, built by Arizona’s SpektreWorks, which made its combat debut against Iran, Reuters reported on March 3. That the side the drone was built to strike now copies it shows how far the cheap one-way drone has changed drone warfare.