What should you charge for video production?
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- How much should you charge for video production? Should you know what your competitors charge? I don't have an answer for you, but here's my perspective. Most importantly, I'd love to know what you think in the comments below.
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I have a minimum engagement level (MEL). All my videos, no matter what they are, start at a base price. This covers cost of equipment, general expenses, administrative time, strategy discussion, insurance, making it worth my effort to roll out of bed to and pack up a few thousand dollars of equipment to shoot...etc. I always try to get an idea of what the customer's budget is. Either, they'll tell me and we can then discuss if we're a good fit. If they tell me they have no idea of where to start with price and after our exploration meeting, is when I let them know that those "types of videos" typically start at "this price" (my MEL). The prospects who tell me their budget and falls inline with my MEL typically move into the next phase of needs assessment to insure their requirements are on budget or if they need to reevaluate it. The prospects who may be below my MEL deserve either a deeper discussion about their needs and goals before deciding if they aren't the right fit. If they aren't, I'll still try and help them by referring them to someone who is within their budget. After all is said and done, we're in a service based industry and should be ready to help. Great video Scott!
Great strategy. Glad to hear it's working out well.
Hubspoke Marketing I like your method a lot! Thanks for sharing
Hey Scott! I just wanted to say thank you for all the content that you put out! I am studying media production and marketing in college and will be a senior when I go back. I landed my dream internship this summer doing video production for an engineering company where I couldn't be more supported, excited, and thrilled with the projects I am working on! Content Content Content!!!
So awesome to hear you enjoy the channel. Thanks for following along.
YES! Love this type of content. In my experience, I have found that the less someone is willing to pay for creative work, the harder they are to work with haha. Definitely not the case all the time, but many times, when they keep asking to offer your services for less, it means they don't value your creative business. It boils down to knowing your worth and having good budgeting skills; at least that is the case for me :)
Exactly. I'm not interested in price shopping clients.
That's what you want from a client...to take your business seriously. Know that you're there to provide value and that value costs.
Oh mamma mia!!! SOOOO true Scott... just because you're better with what you do, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're faster... sometimes it's the opposite because you highered up the bar of what's ok or not to deliver. Golden points as always my friend!
Absolutely. Everything takes longer when you care more and know more haha
Charge whatever you want...charge what makes sense for you! Yes, I agree. Throw your price out there and see what happens. Thanks for the advice. Excellent video!
stumbled upon your channel today and watched a handful of videos. Great content! Keep up the amazing work.
This video is super helpful and keeps me thinking! Thanks for always letting us in on your secrets!
So glad it was helpful. There's definitely no easy answer.
"This vlog should be called reality!" Haha. After being up till 1 am last night doing a new gear list I can relate. I like this coming from you because I know you look after your wife and kids so well and manage to keep it all in perspective! Keep chargin Scott.
Thanks my friend. You’re killing it as well. Keep it up.
very well explained - we had this discussion years ago when there was no Insta, Facebook or others ... today we more into filmscore and cinematic music production
as someone who just started his company, i think it is important that you know what the competition is charging, but i can see your point Scott.
As for charging a fix price, there are to much variables for me on that matter, so i dont.
But im never far of or over the competitions price.
I can see the point of starting out and getting some backend knowledge of knowing what people charge for service overall, but not digging too deep into is the problem I try to eliminate.
@@scottmckenna I see both ways, too. You have to price for YOUR needs and hopes for you business. But the younger ones, especially, who are starting out have no idea if any sort of video should be $300 or $3000. My first 'corporate' video I did I waaaaaaay under sold myself and said "I'll do the first one for $100 and if things work out we can build from there." He literally laughed at me and said "No we'll do $500 this time and go from there."... Now I don't even touch a camera for that amount. I had to learn about half day/whole day rates and billing for extra equipment use and so on. Great video.
but you LEARNED you were undercharging, and that's the whole process. You learned you were undercharging and now you charge more. You have to charge something to understand what's worth your time.
Scott McKenna totally agree. But it was the lack of know what I even could charge for the work. I was new and lacked any confidence so it was all a great learning experience, and now I value my work much more because of that!
flycatcher creations that’s how Kraig Adams (WFS) started when he did his first wedding for his school teacher.
One of the best takeaways from Scott is great customer service and delivering an awesome product. Will cause leads, by word of mouth, and more bookings.
Once you start booking way to many, ie weddings, etc... maybe it’s time to take a leap of faith and increase your asking price a’lil bit. Always be fair, honest and let you work speak for you. My opinion!
This is exactly how I charge out my work. Bespoke everytime and instead of figuring out how much to charge I spend the early meetings with clients figuring out how much they have to spend and whether or not that fits with my company medium to long term. It's been a game changer, as when I land a client, everything lines up and I am being valued while providing value.
Thanks for chiming in
Super helpful insight. I agree 100% with you that it doesn’t make sense at all to charge by per minute of edited video. And I love the takeaway: charge what you want (of course, according to your level of experience and what you think your work is worth, considering all the relevant factors.) I also like how you go about carefully weighing the factors that might affect the cost of a video rather than giving a quick $ answer to “How much would such and such video cost?”. There’s a lot of wisdom in that. Thanks Scott!
Thanks Steven. I definitely am trying to learn more about the best way to charge.
Useful to hear someone saying what I've been telling people for ages.
I've been laughed at (by people who don't do this for a living) when, like you, I tell them I don't care what others charge and I can't quote a price without fully understanding the requirements.
Most people who contact me haven't got a clue what they want or what their budget is... They just want a ball park figure.
I suspect I lose business to people new to the industry willing to take a job on for 'experience' and to develop a showreel.
Kraig Adams (WFS) started when he did his first wedding for his school teacher.
One of the best takeaways from Scott is great customer service and delivering an awesome product. Will cause leads, by word of mouth, and more bookings.
Once you start booking way to many, ie weddings, etc... maybe it’s time to take a leap of faith and increase your asking price a’lil bit. Always be fair, honest and let you work speak for you. My opinion!
Good points.
Totally. The customer experience plays a huge factor in people paying more than someone else or choosing you over someone else.
Great video Scott. You are on fire since new office, keep it up!
Thanks so much
That was absolutely excellent! Thank you.
Your videos keep me on my toes with my thought process. I know you have touched on this subject in the past but I still soaked up what you had to say about it now. Thank you for making this video and spreading your thoughts and knowledge.
Glad it was helpful
Best advice I can offer is make an ala carte list only you see. This way you dig into each piece independtly. Also find out what your in house gear would cost to rent and factor that in. This way when you go to do a quote you can have a much easier map to navigate with.
I knew it before I started the video you will say you actually can't answer the question in your own title, but still watched it and am satisfied.
Nice.
I think the best bit of advice I ever got on the 'how to price' question is.... Stop quoting to get the job, and price to do the job. If its too much then, not your client. If you are not getting enough work, it's not the price its something else (Within reason of course). When I started, I walked away from jobs having done amazing work thinking.... I have barley made any money. This applied to weddings and commercial. Now I price to do the job and make a business profit. I love the Hubspoke Marketing approach .... I price by adding the cost of liabilities (equipment, people, my wages, DCODB etc ) then I add how much I want to make on the job. I used to forget to include my wages as a liability/cost and saw my wages as profit. I was exchanging time for money and making no business profit. Thats the same as working for someone else. Great thought provoking video Scott, cheers.
So glad you liked it. Thanks so much for commenting.
A lot of great points brought up in this video! Charging per edited minute is a common practise that I've seen, but isn't necessarily the best because no 2 videos are exactly the same. Will take a look at my pricing and see how I can make things fairer for myself and my clients :)
Excellent thought! I've been charging different rates per clients and when we first started I gave a 25% discount because I was afraid they wouldn't book. After that first project was complete, I stopped giving discounts because I had gained the confidence I needed once I saw my finished product. That same client still wanted the same discount for the next videos and I denied them. The next day, they agreed to pay what I offered because they loved the first video so much. Lesson Learned. Bet on yourself.
I'm not a fan of discounts because once you give it once, that becomes the new max budget they will spend because they figure they can get that price every time.
@@scottmckenna Yea, I learned that really quick.
It is always really hard to increase rates for the same clients you have done work for in the past. They always remember what you did say, 2 years ago. Unfortunately, to be successful in the business, you have to outgrow clients and move on.
Great point for sure David. It can be hard raising price to previous clients because they don’t think pricing should ever change. I’ve found that you just have to be honest with them though and tell them prices have increased. If you’ve done good work for them and the experience with you has been good, they should be fine.
David Baillieul That’s very true. In my case, I set the expectation that the discount was there to minimize their risk for hiring me without having experience in their niche. After the first project, they realized they had nothing to worry about and lucky for me, they were smart business owners who understood value. Similar to sales at a retail store. Just because you bought something at a discount from a store, doesn’t mean you will always be able to get that same item at the price. Working at Apple for 4 years taught me how to set really good expectations.
Super helpful advice. As a newer production company in my area, my prices are unbelievably low, mostly because I have very low overhead and work fast. In my position, the quickest way for me to scale to where I want to be is to build a big body of work and a wide array of referrals. Thanks for today's video!
Glad it was helpful. I'm learning as well.
My man! You hit this on the head with all of this information.
Glad you liked it.
I got started in freelance doing one minute videos for local business owners. I got that question a lot. I've found as I continued to do them you have business owners that are willing to pay a premium for quality and others that don't value the work and experience you have as a video producer. my general rule for video (I made a video on it too) is "multiply it by two". what ever you would normally make at a regular job, multiply that by two, then you have a "per hour" sorta idea (ad travel, tax, etc after) that's not definitive, and it changes, but thats one place to start so you see the value of your time. once you come up with that, then you have a ball park of what you charge. thats how it did. Scott, love your videos bro. I feel like you and I are going through the exact same thing right now. so cool! id love to have you on our podcast someday! lets talk !
Cool perspective. Shoot me a DM on Instagram or Twitter and tell me about your podcast and we'll see if we can make it happen.
Scott McKenna got you 🤙🏻
Thanks for this video, bro - I appreciate this advice here. I don't have a set rate or anything either - it sort of feels arbitrary sometimes, but its because everyone is different like you said; and based on a blend of what I want and think I should charge.
Totally. Not easy to figure out.
Interesting advice (in a good way). Thanks for that bro
What a McKenna-Farnan video spree today haha.
I love you made video about this topic since I commented lately, that I struggle with pricing quite a bit. To be honest, I don't really look at what's competition doing but I don't know I always thought I should match their price. I don't really get why I didn't think of just pricing whatever I consider is enough. Thank you for an interesting thought.
For exposure and to market yourself /company.
Scott once also said that it’s ok to film a short of a local business and just let them have it when starting out.
Free work is a great starting point no question. You need a portfolio before you can charge for anythign.
@@scottmckenna Absolutely, that's the point I'm at right now. But it's exciting...the beginning of building my business and experience.
In the end it goes to a single simple (universal) answer that a marketing teacher of mine used to say: "It depends". There are way to many variables to take into consideration and every price should be "tailored" custom made.
Agreed.
Lol, the tile answers the question.....What should you charge? Whatever makes sense for you at this moment in time. However I believe your right. Things change pricing will change and what I charge now will be different than what I would charge later. Every client is for sure different. Thanks!
Definitely different.
The question is what qualifies the price. What is the formula for pricing? If it's anything you want. Then how do you put that price on a budget sheet to the client. What if the client wants to know what exactly does this price cover. Line itemized. Preproduction ,production,and post. How do you come up with a price for each stage of production
Always asking this question to myself. I love the idea of not giving them a quote right there on the spot. I always feel so pressured to give them that number without having time to really think it through. I will have to give it a try during my next client meeting!
Never give a quote on the spot. You’ll feel pressured to say something low so they don’t get scared and then it backfires on you
This is so true. Very complicated and we, you have to figure it out. I am from Greece and the base income of Greeks is 500 euros at the moment....! This means when I have this kind of customers I can't charge 3000 for a wedding.
Also, Chris Do at The Future has a great series on this for graphic design. It's worth a look.
Thanks for the share
Conrad Know-How yeah his good
100% charge whatever you want! For me, I'm starting to learn to have a minimum value that I will not go under based off experience doing certain projects, but then also digging deep and finding out what value a video provides to the client and going from there!
Agreed. Me too.
Always in the debate about this. It's interesting to me how people in general don't feel obligated to compensate artists for effort.
At the end of the day I just hope to love what I'm doing so it doesn't matter as much the amount I get paid.
Well people won't compensate artists for the effort because people are allowing them to. If you charge an amount and don't negotiate away from it, they eventually have to pay if they work with you.
I don't ever think anyone truly understands what to charge for their services. We can have all the confidence in our abilities, but when work isn't pouring in, it's easy to second guess. Maybe lower your rates. I've struggled to get a foothold in my local market with commercial work, everyone wants to pay $100 for a social media ad, but that's because they don't understand what it takes to make a 30 second ad. Even after explaining it, explaining the time involved, they don't think it's worth it. I'm not lowering my prices. I know what my time/experience is worth. Rambling... I know.
It's not an easy thing, it's all experiemental.
Maybe you should do an ad or two for yourself.
You rock Scott! Thanks a lot :)
Thanks for watching.
Great advice! Thanks!!
Glad it was helpful.
Great perspective on this.
Glad it was helpful.
Good Tips! Makes perfect sense
Glad you liked it. Thanks for watching.
@@scottmckenna sure
Having a Television background, usually production was wrapped into air time sales. It’s so challenging to do pricing for social media.
Yes indeed.
i also think its important to keep in mind your location. i live in a very small town where business money is honestly scares. i say 200 for a video here and its expensive for a area. but if i move a hour up to Charlotte NC. 200 is almost nothing because the business is there. just my thoughts.
$200 for a video? Lmao. Charge $2000 honestly. If you know what you're doing and are confident in the results, at least $2000
Yup, location is a big factor as well. I do think $200 seems incredibly low no matter what you're producing, but that's just my opinion.
Your both definetly right. Sense I’m new to this, I just lack the confidence. A lot bigger factor then I thought.
The customer with the money gets the work done.
You could do some freebies for local charities from time to time, pet/wildlife rescue, or a men's shed or someone helping the homeless.
Exactly! I just met with an agency (big, national agency) that charged a blanket $1k per minute delivered video. I had to put on my educator's hat for them.
Yea, that makes no sense to me.
Where a 30 second Super Bowl commercial would cost $500 and a recording of an hour and half lecture would be $90k! :D
This vlog>>>
Great video, and I’m still really exited to find out who won the giveaway! What are some examples of prices you would charge for like the video you filmed for the mechanic or for East Coast Facilities?
All over the map because it's not just one video or one day or shooting.
This question is one of the biggest reasons most creative brands fail IMO. Either charging way too much and scaring away clients, or charging too little out of fear and a lack of confidence and not being able to make ends meet. Such a tough balance- it’s all about accurately assessing your own value as a creator or brand like you touched on. Great video as always, Scott!
I agree. Pricing can be very tough. I'm learning as well.
So hard man. I’m 16 and starting out making videos for people in Hershey. I just did a commercial for $500 and today I booked a commercial that is gonna take more work for $200. I walked in saying, “I’m starting out I’m desperate I need to make this sale.” In retrospect I’m seeing I definitely should have promised way less since the price is way less. All lessons I’m still learning.
Yup. It’s all about learning.
If you get a chance to discuss the production you can certainly quote something with more depth but you have to be ready for the people who are just contacting for a price. I get calls all the time from Admins and Assistants who were told to call for pricing by their bosses. This happens all the time for corporate clients. So you need to have an answer, so I generally will quote a day rate and explain it may vary with the type of production. Obviously, once you prove to a company you are awesome they will contract you again, and thats when I go into retainer pricing.
That's one way to do it, but the rare times that I just have someone shopping for prices, they aren't typically the clients that we're looking for. We don't give quotes without some more info on what they are looking for.
@@scottmckenna Totally agree but you have to be ready for it. There are a bunch of tech companies in my area and its the first thing they ask. Luckily it has lead to some great clients.
Do you have sort of 'base packages' or 'starting points' built in your head? Not just based on price, but more like one being one person with a camera and one location for an hour or two shoot just b roll shots. Then another that's two people for shooting/producing, lighting, audio, one/two locations, and so on? That's about how I start working with them, not saying package 1 is this cost, etc. but discussing their needs and expectations and letting them then know something like, "to really accomplish the feel of what you need, our side of things will look like this 'starting point' (again, in my head)" so I have an idea of price range in my head to then build a proposal for them.
Interested in anyone else's input here, also!
In my head, yes. I won't do things under a certain price no matter what. But each persons base is different.
I usually talk to the client first, and when I get a feel for what they want to achieve with the video, I give them a cost estimate. I estimate the time I‘m going to invest to shoot and edit and that x my price per day/half day = the estimate cost.
I realized that oftentimes, clients realize they want more during the process, more interviews than initially discussed, more b-roll, more locations..... so in the beginning of my career I would end up working wayyyy more than agreed and being frustrated. Now, if everything works out fine as planned and the client doesn’t ask for extras, the estimate = final cost. When The client asks for more, I politely inform them that we will make it happen, but that they will have to pay the additional work hours. So far, every client was happy with this solution. And I am relaxed, too because I don’t feel like I got a bad deal with more work for the same price....
Yup, makes total sense. Get a feel for what work is required ,and then price accordingly.
Do you not believe then in "industry rates"? In my market it is between $100-$200hr shooting based on 1/2 day 4 hrs or whole day 4-8.
All pricing should be based on the value the video has to the client. If you’re not doing value-based pricing for your video design and execution, you should SERIOUSLY consider it.
Ditch hourly rates. Ditch day rates. Go value-based.
To learn more, check out the Art of Value podcast, listen to Chris Do on The Futur (UA-cam) and listen to everything Jonathan Stark is putting out there.
If you don’t price based on value to the client, you’re most likely leaving money on the table.
I'm not sure I agree with that concept, because every video company in the would say they are delivering videos that are valuable to the customer. So are you going to let the client decide how valuable it is? How are you going to price based on value seeing as though that's a subjective then. That's like a photographer saying I'll charge for you the pictures I think are good. They might pick 500 of them. If they show it the client, they may choose 5. So what price do you agree upon? I don't agree with that concept, sorry.
@@scottmckenna I’m not communicating this concept well - your summary isn’t what value-based pricing is. 😋 Value-based pricing is pricing based on the results you get for your client and the value those results have to them. If you design and execute a video that your client uses to increase revenue by $100,000, but you only charge $2500, don't you think your work is worth more than $2500? What if the client was willing to pay you $15k but your one-option quote was only $2500? You're leaving money on the table.
I PROMISE you if you watch Jonathan Stark and Chris Do explain it, you will wish you had known about this years ago: ua-cam.com/video/ivKnj9ffcmE/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/B1b7QlQILRo/v-deo.html
@@scottmckenna You want your clients to perceive of you as an expert who will add value to their business ... not a commodity - someone they call to push record on a camera and give them a valuable product at the lowest possible price. Some clients will NEVER see the value of what you do ... and that's why YOU decline to work with them. Instead of spending time drafting quotes only to have them try to haggle you down or ask you about whether you really need all those cameras or lights or aerial videography, etc. Anyway ... watch the videos and I sweat you and your viewers will see a whole new way of approaching your business and your clients and you will LOVE it. I think you'd be GREAT at value-based pricing. Truly.
@@matthewTobrien Chris Do's video is a good way to look at purely creative work like design or writing. Its not really applicable to video production that involves hard costs like locations, actors, styilng, lighting, preproduction, postproduction, technical crew, food, transportation, etc. etc. It's important to understand the expectations the client has, whats necessary to produce the video, and make a plan and quotation based on that. Of course everyone deserves to get paid more if they are better at their job, or based on how much time, risk or pressure the project involves, but how well their product ultimately sells shouldn't really dictate budgets.
david barker Chris Do’s philosophy DOES apply to video - his agency Blind regularly produced motion and live production client for Fortune 500 clients.
Remember, too, that value-based pricing is more easily applied to firms that lean more toward being an agency - one that develops the Strategy AND Design ... which then informs the Execution because Strategy and Design or easier to connect to the direct value they create (revenue/money).
If you are simply a production company that’s hired to execute someone else’s Strategy/Design, then pricing based on commodity is certainly the norm. Although I think production companies CAN price based on value, although the value may be more indirect than direct.
Either way, value-based pricing always starts with calculating your hard costs to make sure that the value-based price is MORE than what it would cost a firm or prod co to execute the project. Sometimes agencies and clients just care about the bottom line and they’ll take bids from any ol’ production company - but there are plenty that value certain things from the prod cos they hire and in those situations prod cos can have a value conversation with the client or agency to better understand the value they bring and charge based on that.
No worries if we agree to disagree.
I dont agree on charge what you feel like charging. That is a very wrong advice. This can be only valid for specialist specialist and has a well known name established in that industry. If your not well known then you should charge something similar to people that do similar work like you . You could be 10% / 15% cheaper maybe or expensive.
We don't need to agree, which is why I said I also said I'm not right haha. Just what I do. I agree that when you start from scratch, you should pay attention a little to what is normal, but at the same time it really doesn't matter what's normal, because normal doesn't necessarily make sense for you.
from the business perspective it just doesnt make sense at @5:35 and @6:11 - if you are the cheapest on the market and you see more expensive ones are getting enough clients, you should raise price at least slowly, otherwise you are not going to grow as a business. thats a fact.
Agreed. I simply said it doesn't mean I HAVE TO. It's your call what you want to do. That's all I was saying. I raise my prices about once every 2-3 months, but it's never because of another company factoring in. It's me deciding we can charge more.
@@scottmckenna right, but as you said it is a difficult business for pricing.
Do you have a video covering coloring using final cut?
Search my channel. I can’t remember haha
Heeey, what happened to the hard drive situation video?
Its back
Scott McKenna I am on it.
It definitely "makes sense"
haha. I don't always make sense.
2nd
You look 1st to me lol!
Word of warning - if you wanted to hear $5479 you're going to be disappointed. Good points though.
Now ever since you started this new setup...I've been noticing that you've become skinny or maybe it's just me
And it's quite evident how much you're putting yourself into it...I applaud for you that!
Maybe it's just the wide angle lens haha