This week I bought a hulk costume for my daughter. Battling the notion that girls have to dress as princesses not superheroes. It took me a while to find what I was looking for but when I did there on the website was a picture of the babygrow and the price. Two clicks and it was mine. Simple.
So why is buying a video for your business never that easy? In fact when you go on a production companies website why can’t you find anyone even talking about costs? The reasons are pretty straightforward:
- Costs will always depend on what the video is and how much work is involved
- Different prices for different clients
- If they put prices online it will scare small clients off or make the big clients think they are to cheap to be any good
- The competition might see what they charge and undercut them
The truth is only the first of these reasons is genuine. The cost of making a video does depend on a huge amount of variables. The shear number and scope of those variables discourages production companies from going into explaining costs. You may just want a video of you talking to camera for 60 seconds. But this could be as simple as just filming in your office or as complex as making it look like your head is floating in a jar like a character from Futurama. You would need an encyclopedia to cost all the possibilities in creating a video.
But in the majority of cases we aren’t talking commercial adverts that have a set budget and freedom to do whatever is possible for that budget.
If you want to make a video about your business and that tells your story it must be possible for you to look on a website and get a rough idea what that will cost?
And unless you are providing a head freezing service the chances are you just want a film real people in your real office. All you want is some figures to give you an idea of where to start.
I’m going to try and do that but the important thing is to remember is that in this industry there can be a huge difference in the prices you pay for a video.
A single shooter in Cardiff will charge a fraction of what a production company in London does. It is always important to look at the work of whomever you are employing first. And remember Cost Vs Quality will always be the biggest factor in your decision.
Don’t be afraid to ask a couple of companies for a cost. Most would be willing to put together an estimate from a short brief.
So let’s talk figures bearing in mind these are our costs and we are just one Production Company based in Wales. There will be less expensive and more expensive companies out there but hopefully this will give you a starting point.
For us to shoot a short under 3-minute promo for your business that is filmed on location and features interviews over one day will cost between £1,800-£2,500+VAT.
That’s the ballpark. But it is still vague, so if you want to find out how we break this down in detail check this article out. The Price breakdown of a business Promotional Video