How Much Does Video Editing Cost? Real Numbers, Not Ranges
Answers how much does video editing cost
"There is no fixed price" is the answer most editors give, and it is true and useless. The problem is not that editing costs vary. It is that the variation is caused by four things, and every one of them can be counted before the job starts. Count them and you get a number. Skip them and you get a range that is wide enough to mean nothing.
The four things that actually move the price
The ratio of footage to finished runtime. This is the single biggest factor and the one nobody asks about. A ninety-second brand film cut from two hours of planned shots is a different job from a ninety-second film cut from four hours of unplanned coverage. The first is assembly and polish. The second is a search, and searching is the expensive part. Ask for a ratio, not a duration.
Whether the structure exists yet. If the client knows the order of the beats, the editor is executing. If the client has four hours of footage and a feeling, the editor is also writing, and writing is a separate skill that should be priced separately. This is the most common source of a quote that turns out to be wrong in both directions.
How much motion and graphics sit on top. Cutting is one discipline; titles, lower thirds, animated type, tracked UI and 3D elements are others. A film with six graphic moments is not a film with one, and the price difference is not proportional.
How many people get to have an opinion. One client contact and one round of notes is a known quantity. Four stakeholders, two of whom have not read the brief, is a different project with a different budget. Not because the work is harder, but because the work happens more times.
Why "per project" beats hourly
Hourly billing punishes efficiency. An editor who has cut eighty brand films finishes faster than one who has cut four, and hourly billing charges the experienced one less for the same outcome. Day rates have the same flaw in a softer form.
Per project prices the outcome instead. It requires both sides to do a little work up front, in the form of a scope that names the four things above. That work is the service.
What to ask for when you request a quote
Send these five lines and you will get a number rather than a range:
- How long is the finished piece, and how many versions of it do you need?
- How much footage is there, and is it shot to a plan or gathered?
- Is the structure decided, or does that need finding?
- What graphics and motion do you have in mind, even roughly?
- Who gives notes, and how many rounds do you expect?
The honest version of "it depends"
A quote is an estimate of effort, and effort varies with the four factors above. What should not vary is the answer to "roughly what am I looking at". An editor who has done this work knows the band before the details arrive. Anyone who cannot give you a band has not done enough of it to be worth the risk on a job with a deadline.
If you want a number for your particular film, the contact page takes those five lines, and the reply is a figure with the assumptions written out next to it.