It’s usually one of the first questions I’m asked: how much does it cost to make a professional video?
The slightly frustrating answer is that it depends on what you’re making. A straightforward customer testimonial might cost around £1,000–£1,500, while a more involved case study or business film will typically be somewhere around £2,000–£3,000. Projects involving several films, multiple shoots or lots of different content can run to £4,000–£5,000 and beyond.
The good news is that if you already have a budget in mind, that’s a perfectly good place to start. I can usually work backwards from it and figure out what we can realistically achieve.
What do you get for £1,000–£1,500?
At this level, we’re generally talking about a fairly simple production.
That might be a few hours filming at your business or another location, recording a good interview and shooting some supporting footage (usually called B-roll) to help tell the story.
There’s still planning involved. We need to establish what the film is trying to achieve, who it’s for and what we want to get from the interview before turning up with a camera.
But the production itself is relatively straightforward: one location, one main contributor and one finished film of a few minutes.
For a customer testimonial, short case study or simple business story, that can be all you need.
What changes at £2,000–£3,000?
As projects become more complex, it’s rarely because I’m simply using more expensive equipment.
It’s usually because there’s more of a story to uncover and more work involved in telling it properly.
A case study, for example, might involve interviews with both a business and its customer. There may be several contributors, different locations or relationships between people that we need to understand.
That requires more preparation before filming and usually creates more material to work through afterwards.
The editing process can be more involved too. I might initially create a longer version of the story so that we can look at what’s working, then refine and restructure it with the client before arriving at the finished film.
At this level, we can often also create a shorter social media version alongside the main film.
What about larger projects?
Once you’re getting towards £4,000–£5,000 and upwards, we’re generally producing more than one thing.
Instead of thinking about the project as a video, it becomes more useful to think about the collection of content we can create from the production.
One shoot might generate a main business film, several customer stories, shorter social edits or different versions aimed at different audiences.
This is where the amount of editing becomes particularly important. Filming an interview once and turning it into one film is one job. Taking the same body of material and finding three or four different stories within it is considerably more work.
I’ve also worked on larger projects running over several months where the overall budget moves beyond £10,000. But these tend to involve multiple shoots and deliverables rather than one particularly expensive film.
So what actually determines the price?
Most video production costs ultimately come down to time and complexity.
That includes the thinking and planning before the shoot, the amount of filming required and, importantly, what needs to happen afterwards.
A project involving three interviews isn’t necessarily three times the price of one interview. If we can plan efficiently and film everything together, we can make much better use of the budget.
Equally, a project that only requires a few hours of filming can still involve considerable editing if you need lots of different finished versions.
This is why I prefer to understand the project before putting a price on it.
What can add to the cost?
Most of the projects I make are deliberately fairly lean. I handle the planning, filming and editing myself, bringing in additional people when the production genuinely requires them.
Occasionally there are additional costs.
Actors, professional voiceovers, specialist crew, locations or more involved scriptwriting can all add to the budget. I can arrange these as part of the production where they’re needed.
Simple graphics can usually be handled in-house. More complex animation or motion graphics are specialist jobs, so I’ll bring someone in and include that cost in the quote.
Music licensing for normal projects is generally included.
I can also provide aerial filming using my own drone. Depending on where we’re filming, this can require additional planning around airspace, permissions, location and weather, so it’s something that’s best discussed at the beginning of the project.
Travel within roughly 45 minutes of my base in Devon is normally included. For projects further afield, I’ll usually add reasonable travel expenses.
What about revisions?
Revisions are a normal part of making a film.
I generally include a couple of rounds of changes within the agreed project price. That gives us room to adjust the structure, remove something that isn’t working or make other reasonable changes once you’ve seen the edit.
What I try to avoid is an endless cycle of changing something, changing it back and then introducing completely new ideas late in the project.
If revisions start moving significantly beyond what we’d originally allowed for, I’ll flag that before doing additional work. We can then agree a few extra editing hours rather than you unexpectedly receiving a bigger bill.
Should I tell you my budget?
Yes.
Clients are sometimes reluctant to reveal a budget because they’re worried the quote will magically expand to use all of it.
In reality, knowing the budget makes planning much easier.
If you tell me you’ve got £2,000 to spend, I can think about the best film we can make for £2,000. We might decide that one really good customer story is more valuable than trying to squeeze three films out of the budget. Or we might plan the filming differently so that we can produce a main film and a useful shorter version from the same material.
A clear budget gives us something to design the project around.
The cheapest video isn’t necessarily the best value
There is an important distinction between cost and value.
A beautifully produced film isn’t good value if it doesn’t have a clear purpose. Equally, spending a little more can make sense if careful planning allows you to create several useful pieces of content from the same production.
Good video can also have a surprisingly long life. I’ve had clients use the same core content across campaigns for several years, and a well-planned shoot can provide material that can be edited and repurposed in different ways.
So before deciding how much to spend, I think it’s worth asking a more useful question:
What do we need this video to achieve?
That’s the conversation I like to have before recommending what to make or how much to spend.
If you’ve got a project in mind, even if it’s still fairly vague, get in touch. Tell me what you’re trying to achieve and, if you have one, what sort of budget you’re working with. I can help you figure out what makes sense from there.