How much does video production cost?

One of the questions we get the most is, “how much does video cost?” While we have a number of products that are turnkey and carry flat rates, we’ve found that many of our clients want a customized project unique to them. In this article, I hope to shed some light on the mystery behind video production pricing. If you’re looking to produce a live stream or virtual event, you might also find this page helpful.

Our pricing philosophy

Our pricing is based on a simple hourly studio rate of $120/hr for every crew hour devoted to your project. So, if your project requires 10 hours of planning and scriptwriting, 20 hours of production and 20 hours of post-production, you’d be looking at a $5500 project. Unlike many video production companies, we don’t add any additional fees for equipment rental, studio space rental, music licensing, data storage, or media buy fees. Though we do have studio rentals available as a standalone option.

6 factors that affect the scope (and price) of a video project

1. Production Value. Scroll through Facebook or YouTube and you will quickly see a broad range of video content. The quality of online video ranges from selfie videos shot on a phone to high-end commercial content shot on the best cameras with professional actors. For your business, you’ll need to ask yourself what kind of quality you want to strive for and what you want your customers to take away from the experience. All of our projects are done using professional-grade equipment and we guarantee that your video will look and sound great.
2. Time needed: The amount of time a project takes is closely tied to the production value of your project. The amount of time needed is determined by looking at the following questions: How much pre-production planning, logistics, and scheduling is required for your project? How many people are needed on filming days to execute the vision? Is there additional travel time that needs to be accounted for? Are there special editing techniques, animations, motion graphics, or color processing that is needed to complete the project? Most of our productions also take weeks, if not months to complete, if something needs to be turned around quickly or last minute it will cost more.
3. Talent: We encourage businesses to use their own spokespeople as often as possible because it lends itself to a more engaging and authentic experience. But, for some projects, you might want to bring in professional actors. If this is important to you and your project it will add costs associated with auditioning the talent and fees related to working with them. Sometimes working with professional actors require purchasing rights to use their image for a certain amount of time.
4. Style: Will your project be a simple video shot in our studio on a solid colored background or do you want to film on-location? Will the video be live-action, animated, or a combination of both? The style you choose will affect the overall price of the project and can vary substantially in cost for the same final duration. For example, a 1-minute how-to video presented in our studio will cost a lot less than a 1-minute custom animation with a professional voice over.
5. Duration: This is a tricky one because the amount of time required to produce different types of videos varies. We could record and edit a one-on-one conversation with a representative from your company interviewing a thought leader in your industry and that 20-minute interview could cost $1500. Creating a 30-second commercial ready for broadcast, however, might take four days of production and cost $10,000.
6. Out of scope fees and change requests: proper planning usually takes care of these additional costs, but sometimes things happen: your branding changes, you need to cut a feature you highlighted in the script or rename it after filming, the stakeholder that was on vacation for two weeks suddenly has a different idea for the project. We include two rounds of revisions in all of our edits. If additional work is needed beyond this or the project scope changes, additional fees based on our hourly rate are incurred.

Base pricing for our services

So, you can see how each video project is a bit different and that you will have some unique variables in your own project to consider. What follows is a place to start with 10 of our most popular videos to give you an idea of what is possible and included at different price points.

Hero Video $5500. A hero video is designed to increase the fame of your brand and quickly communicate who you are and what you do. A well-made hero video will last you for years to come and is an integral part of your outward-facing communication. A typical hero video requires at least 1 day of production and usually multiple locations.

Testimonial Video $1500–$3000. Testimonial videos are a great way to capture your customers endorsing your product or service. These videos can stand on their own or be used as a part of a series. We can also combine multiple testimonials into a Testimonial Highlight Reel. The most impactful testimonials include an interview with your customer/client/donor and footage of them on-location in their environment.

Product/Service Overview $3000. Showcase a key product or service. This video typically requires a half day of production to capture interviews/teleprompter delivery and additional footage on-location.

Google My Business Video $350/$850. Stand out on Google with a 30s video for Google My Business. This video is an easy add on ($350) to any other video package since we can utilize your existing footage. Ordering this video by itself requires 2 hours of on-location production time and will cost more in post-production ($850).

30s TV Commercial $5500. TV commercials can vary significantly based on the scope. A basic 30s spot can typically be produced with one full day of production.

Thought Leadership Interview $750. Utilizing our studio space is a great way to create an affordable video. We make it easy to arrange a time to come into our space with a customer or industry thought leader to facilitate a one-on-one conversation. We provide a 3 camera talk show-like experience and light editing so that you can start using the content right away.

Remote keynote/interview recording $750. In the age of Zoom and virtual connections, we now offer the ability to record someone from a distance in a high-quality video call. Now you can include anyone, from anywhere in the world in your conference, virtual event, or video. This fee includes scheduling a time to film as well as the editing to add in lower third titles and switch back and forth between the host and interviewee.

E-Learning Video Course (Starts at $10,000). Creating an online course for your business is a big deal. We can work with you to come up with a plan based on instructional design best practices. Our studio offers a versatile space to film your content and give you the consistent and professional image you want.

Virtual Events $3,000 / $6,000 / $9,000. We have three different tiers for virtual events and a number of add ons to customize your package. More information about our virtual events is available here.

How can I get the most value out of working with video?

As you can see above, video can be expensive. Therefore, focus on creating the assets that will have the biggest return on your investment. We can work with you to plan out your video marketing or communication strategy. Video amplifies your existing efforts, so take a look at the channels that you want to bolster and your desired outcomes, and create content with that in mind. With focused planning and execution, your videos should pay for themselves in no time.

Bundles. One of the coolest things about video is that it can be recycled and reworked for years to come. Out of a single day of filming, you can create dozens of different deliverables. We encourage you to bundle projects together to save on production time upfront. You might just want a Hero Video for your website, but why not interview a few of your favorite customers, include a few sound bites of them in the Hero Video, and create a longer form case study or testimonial video to put on your site? While you’re at it, we can also provide you with a series of clips for you to share on social media. Ask about our Brand Builder Bundle—a $10,000 package that sets you up with everything you need to get started with video.

Build your own stock library. When you work with us, we store all of your project footage (and back it up) so that in the future you can incorporate it into new projects at no additional cost. Many of our clients find that once they have a few projects under their belts, it’s faster and less expensive to cut together new videos because they already have so much great footage captured.

A note on intellectual property and footage licensing. We believe that you should be able to do what you want with the footage we’ve captured for you. If you’d like a copy of your footage we can provide it to you on a hard drive which includes a license for unlimited use of the footage. The fee for this service is $500 or 5% (whichever is greater) per project. Please note that working with our footage requires knowledge of video production codecs, color correction and professional hardware and software that can process the footage. We do not license or provide copies of any project files.

Arriving at a price for your project

When you’re ready to get started with a video project we’ll work with you to ensure you’re getting the most value out of your investment. We’ll walk through the following steps to arrive at a price and scope of work that feels good to you.

The Discovery Meeting: The first step is our complimentary discovery meeting. Here we’ll ask you about your goals for your business and listen to the ideas you have for using video. It’s important in this meeting for us to have an accurate understanding of your working budget so that we can provide recommendations to maximize your investment and let you know what is possible.

The Quote & Scope of Work: at this stage, we’ll have a solid idea as to how we can best serve you and advance your goals. We’ll put together a document that outlines what we talked about in the Discovery Meeting and our approach to working together. We’ll also include a breakdown of the deliverables and scope of work that we’ll agree on.

Sign Off: once you sign off on the quote we’ll get started with your project. Additional deliverables and add-ons can still be incorporated into your project for an additional fee.

Ready to get started?

Video production pricing can be confusing. Hopefully, this article helps to demystify our pricing for you. We’re always happy to chat and walk you through any questions you have about planning for your video project.