Re: Rates: Published v. Reality

We publish our rates. Why? So clients don't call when they are making an estimate to recall how much we charge for graphics. Works for them, works for us. How much for 5 DVDs? It's on our site. Why not publish that? It's not going to change. For big productions, we do meet and prepare a formal proposal.

Without production, we hover around $300-$600 per finished minute for basic editing with some graphics. Been consistent doing that. Client sits over our shoulder for the entire edit or we add in a bunch of compositing or complex green screen and it ranges from $600-$1200 per finished minute.

With production it depends on crew size and production needs like prompter etc. But for HD editing and post it can range from $2000-$4000 per finished minute. But probably not a training video, but perhaps if it has a lot of 3D elements and the editing gets complex or the client is not prepared with the scripts. Training requires critical pre-pro because it needs to visually describe the process and it can be done many different ways.

My guess is we would create a proposal for the 15 minute training video under $30k. And we would probably come close to what we proposed if we apply our current posted rates. We have done enough projects to know what it will take...and if we know the client well enough what will make things smooth or bumpy.

Hourly post rates in our area don't vary by much. So published or not, it's not a mystery. Walter's point about moving away from the corporate squeeze means you can put more money in the production and post finishing (where most corporate projects come up short) which also means your work will begin to look better and better. meaning you can sell to even bigger clients. Walter, correct me if I'm wrong!



Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator