After spending a good chunk of change on a capable video camera, audio equipment, and videography education, aspiring filmmakers and videographers will hit their first roadblock into the business. It’s an age-old question across many creative fields, and is something that a lot of people still struggle to find a definite answer to.

Before we jump in, let’s start with a pre-requisite to this article with my guide on How to Become a Videographer.

“How much should I charge my videography services?”

Putting a price on your craft is a stressful thing to navigate. For most people just starting, it’s the clash between your confidence in your work and anxiety surrounding client relations and rejections that make the process all the more agonizing.

So in this article, we’re exploring the many factors that should dictate how much you can charge for your video production services, along with industry figures that can help steer you in the right direction.

Video Production Rates per Industry

While there are available data for different industries for us to pull from, please know that these figures represent more of a ballpark range for different industries, coming from varying sources. That means the figures we’re presenting here represent more of a ballpark range instead of exact figures that creatives of every skill level should base their pricing structure around. And a lot of it will depend on your location as well. When I lived on the island of Maui in Hawaii, I charge about 20-30% more than I did on the mainland because of the demand from tourism.

That said, let’s get on with everybody’s favorite videography niche: weddings.

Wedding Videography — Weddings are mostly just a one-day affair, and staffing required for this type of is very minimal. A lot of pros would bring in a second shooter and maybe an assistant, but rarely more. The national average cost of wedding videography, according to Wedding Wire, is about $1799, whereas couples are more likely to spend between $1,000 to $2,500. On the lower end of the spectrum, entry-level or beginner wedding videographers charge $500 or less. It goes up to $3,900 and more on the high-end.

Real Estate Videography — PFRE says rates range wildly from $1,000 to $10,000. Wherever side of the scale you land on will be dictated by your geographical location and the property value. We’ve previously covered real estate videography pricing (and how to make money with real estate videography). On there, you’ll find a simple pricing sheet that takes into account the square footage and the type of real estate video you’re producing and should put you around an hourly rate of $100.

Corporate Videography — Now corporate videos, unlike the first two videography niches, is an umbrella term for pretty much any piece of video content that is commissioned by a company. As such, pricing for a corporate video can range from $500 to $5,000 on the low-end segment. This would be something like talking head videos (explainers) and testimonials, to short how-to videos. On the high-end segment, where we’ll be looking at full-on infomercials and branding videos, it can go as high as $7,000 to $10,000 per finished minute.

Commercial Production — You could get away with minimal crew members or perhaps attempt to go solo on the first three niches we’ve touched on, but commercial work would often demand a full-on production crew. Commercial work will more often than not span multiple shooting days, will require extensive post production, and of course, meticulous pre-production. Music videos for one can range from $5,000-10,000 even on the low end, and it can shoot up to $100,000-300,000 for bigger artists.

How Much to Charge for Videography?

As the hugely varying figures have suggested, it’s pretty much impossible to put a pin on what individual freelancers and production companies are charging for their work. And that’s hugely because of the many variables surrounding the entire process from pre to post production.

So to help you figure out exactly just how much should you be pricing your video production services, we’re running through some of the core cost considerations that you should factor in your client’s final invoice.

What’s Your Day Rate?

In a nutshell, a day rate is a flat fee that you’d charge a client just to get you on set, with all your equipment, maybe even with an assistant, and shoot for 8 hours that day. That’s it. Post production, even if you’re the one editing for the project, is a completely different fee outside of your day rate. And so are rental fees (if you’re renting better gear), additional crew members, and so on. Your day rate, and half-day rate will likely be your most popular services.

Getting Started as a New Filmmaker

Now if you’re an absolute beginner who’s just finished up his portfolio, you’re going to start on the low end. You’re most likely flying solo, and therefore must focus on completing videography projects that you can take on your own such as weddings, short e-commerce product videos, and easy corporate talking head videos for small companies.

In his very insightful Q&A session, Henry Finn, president of Luminous Media US, says beginner videographers can start charging $500 for a completed project. Since it’s just you, the one-man-production team taking on the job, your first $500 projects should cover your pre-production fees, day rate and of course, post production tasks. Then you can jump to upwards of $1,500-5,000 projects as your experience grows, you get better gear, and your quality of work improves.

And when you start to hone your skillset and build a reputation, your day rate will also be something you can give out to production companies looking to bring you in for a project.

Here’s Justus McCranie of Tomorrow’s Filmmakers with an awesome guide that can help you figure out what’s your day rate going to look like for your video work.

Additional Crew

Now there’ll be projects that would be just a little outside of your skill level, and the responsible thing to do is bring in someone that knows what they’re doing. Say you landed a big, branding video project for a pretty well known company. That’s all well and good, but the issue is you’ve only been shooting smaller scale videos and a multi-day, creative project like this is a little outside of your comfort zone.

What you need to do then is to subcontract a cinematographer, an audio guy, grip personnel and so on. Make sure that your client’s budget is aligned with the size of the crew you’re trying to hire, because a DP’s day rate alone can run you $1,500 to $2,500.

Gear Rental

As with the need for a bigger crew, bigger projects will often require better gear. Now not a lot of video production companies keep a RED or an Alexa in their offices ready to go. So naturally, you’re going to need to rent.

If you’re renting, then it’s pretty straightforward. Make sure that your rental fees make their way into your final invoice.

If you bring your own gear, include them in your fee. Things break. Insurance policies must be paid. You’ve invested a significant amount of money for your equipment, and you should be properly compensated for introducing a million different risks that could destroy your assets come shooting day. An easy way to put a price on your equipment is by looking it up on ShareGrid and KitSplit and see how much everything’s rental fees go for.

Post Production

Music videos, branding content, short films to feature lengths, and documentaries will need a lot of labor intensive post production. Thus, you’re going to need to get a dedicated team of video editors to slog through terabytes of footage and stitch together the final product for you.

Then there’s VFX. For more creative projects, VFX is an area you wouldn’t want to skimp out on since it can easily make or break your project. A team of dedicated VFX team won’t come cheap, but if you get the right set of people on the job, then you can expect more high-end projects coming your way.

A non-union VFX supervisor alone can charge around $1,000-1,500, and can go up to $5,000 for people from bigger studios.

Travel Fees

Even if it’s just you and a bunch of buddies going on a relatively long drive to your client’s metal fabrication factory, or you’re flying an entire team to the other side of the globe, you shouldn’t be covering travel expenses out of the kindness of your heart. Travel fees can add up to a significant amount of money, not to mention the amount of time that the commute takes away from your day.

Pricing a Videography Project

From here on out, it’s only a matter of plugging in your day rate and all of the fees and expenses on a spreadsheet. Now when you start bringing in a lot more hands into the set, it can be easy to always resort to taking a pay cut just to make the client’s budget work with the vision and the crew you’re planning to hire.

That’s why Caleb of DSLR Video Shooter recommends that you aim for a 40-50% profit off of every project you take on if you’re hiring a lot of people regularly. Go any lower and you’d become much more like a “bank” and much less a producer/creative, as you’ll just be taking money from the client and distributing it to a whole bunch of people.

Here’s Caleb’s super helpful interview with Corbyn Tyson where they tackle pricing a 3-day corporate video project:

Lastly, I want you to think about other ways you can make money as a videographer. You have a ton of extra b-roll, try selling your stock footage. Plenty of people have made millions on YouTube, so maybe grab a little slice of that and start a YouTube channel (we have a few tips here).

What are your guys thoughts? How much do you price your video production? Which niches are you making the most money in? Let us know in the comments below!