How Much do Videographers Charge for Commercials?

The average price videographers charge for a commercial in the US is varies, especially in the north Texas area, with videographers having widely varying rates for video services. The cost for a commercial advertisement video production could range from $1,000 to $20,000. If using a videographer with little to no experience, it is possible to find pricing below $1,000. However, a return on investment into a commercial video production service is certainly more likely to be achieved when an investment is made in the higher costs of experienced videographers.

Variables that determine the cost of production include length of video, quality of camera and equipment used, size of video production crew, experience of crew, lighting and staging labor and equipment, and studio rental if needed.

Scope of Work

At Firebrand Media specifically, we use a structured “TLED”, or Time Labor Equipment and Deliverables, assessment tool during our initial consultation regarding a video production cost. This works to ensure that all elements of the production are considered up-front, and the full scope of work is mutually understood before quoting the cost.

Because we keep our prices transparent and our quotes very accurate to the labor cost associated with the project, there’s little to no likelihood of over-charging or under-charging. This approach has the added benefit of addressing questions well before a client knows to ask them, and specificities surrounding preferred deliverables are known and can be accommodated for when staging, filming, and editing.

Creating accurate quotes and cost estimations for commercial and corporate video production services can be a challenge, but with formalized guidelines such as those in our TLED assessment tool, it is possible and practical. As a video production company in Dallas, Texas, we are able to successfully save money for clients across the Metroplex, while retaining the sought-after Dallas videographer talent that is integral in our ability to provide maximum value to the video production project.

Time

Here is how a commercial project would be broken down by cost when evaluating the time needed for a videographer, when using TLED. The time spent on the shooting location site is broken up into a half-day or a full-day. How much a videographer costs starts at $500 for the half-day and $1,000 for the full-day. This is just a general labor cost, so when we book a day for a commercial project, we would want to factor in how many videographers are being used whether it is a half-day (specifically, four hours and under) project, or a full-day (four to eight hour project). Labor is in the same cost ballpark.

Imagine that the commercial project that you are filming requires multiple angles. Each angle is a videographer, in a nutshell. So we’d use the multiplier above to factor in what that cost would look like in pre-production.

Lighting

Your equipment charges are similar, in that if we are needing extra equipment, we break it down as a flat charge and then take care of the rest. Some productions, especially in the commercial space, need a lot more lighting than just the standard lighting you’d get with a space or outside. With this, the lighting can be anywhere from $350 to $450 as a flat charge. This flat charge will generally include three-point lighting and stage washes.

Drone videography services are also something that you might want to think about for your commercial production. A 15-minute flight time is a flat $500 with our team of Dallas drone videographers, and guarantees 10 to 15 minutes of flight recording for the commercial project.

Deliverable

The deliverable, or deliverables, for the project are quoted uniquely to our post production schedule. Video editors at Firebrand Media begin at $95 an hour. With this, we’re able to quote the assigned deliverable with editing included prior to starting the production efforts. An example would be if we need to make a two minute video advertisement production for sign ups for a Dallas event production service our conference videographers are doing in real estate. For this, we might budget three to four hours for something very simple, but if the editing is going to require special graphic overlays and more than two angles of work in a multicam scenario, the quote might be higher based on the amount of hours. Because the editor will need to not only cut a multicam but render, as well.

Another factor that could affect the post production budget is royalty-based assets. If you are intending to run ads and need a specific track, the monetization of this ad will affect the licensing of the music which could add the additional cost of purchasing the rights for the advertisement.

General Quotes

When you take the cost factor of both the pre production and the post production and marry those two together, you get a generalized quote. An average project at Firebrand Media will sit around the $2,000 range all the way up to $10,000 depending on the need and size of the commercial video production project.

Transparency is important when doing a cost analysis on a commercial project because clients want to know what they’re spending their money on. When you call around to try and find the best quote, ask production companies what their quoting assessment tool looks like and if the editing is quoted as well. In most cases, a Dallas, Texas video production company will likely quote just the production labor and leave the post as a question mark. But, with Firebrand Media, we bundle it up as a package so that you have something to take back to your team and discuss.

And remember, budget can always be modified or trimmed down to meet budget constraints. Trimming down the lighting package or trimming down the labor on the pre production efforts can save money. This is how our videographers quote the costs charged for a commercial video project.