Each MQ-9 Reaper costs around $14.5 million USD¹. This includes parts currently under 100% economic sanctions that are only sourced in China, so the real cost to replace is almost definitely higher at this point. Rare Earth Metals ain’t the expensive or rare part.

As a fun experiment why don’t we see what took down these drones that cost as much as a brand new elementary school and all teacher salaries for a year;

Each Shahed drone costs $15,000-$50,000 depending on the model these killed at least two.

Each S-400 9M96E Missile costs around $300,000. These are the short range missiles that would be used by Iran’s air defense for the low flying Reapers.

Misgah recoilless rifle ($150,000-$1,000,000) (This is confirmed at least 1 reaper down.

The Russian Verba system (~$200k per missile)

So basically the max cost on Iran’s side is $30 million USD, though realistically this is likely closer to $10-15 million USD.

The max cost on the US side is approximately 45 elementary schools or around $450 million USD.

Or in other words, this is why Americans are so much more poor on average than Iranians and other “third world” or “developing nation” citizens. Did you know fewer than 2/3ds of Americans own their own home? That’s fucking unheard of in Iran. There’d be actual riots and not US led ones overnight if it ever got that bad.

¹There are no official numbers except bundled (staff, weapons resupply, support cost, actual cost of vehicle) fact sheet propaganda numbers.

These are only the ones the US has admitted to losing.