Somewhere between $900 and $15,000, and that range is useless without knowing what moves the number. Here is what you are actually paying for, what typical jobs cost, and where cheap video quietly gets expensive.
What you are paying for
A video quote is mostly time, and the time is mostly not the filming. A one-hour interview takes half a day to shoot once you include setup, lighting, sound checks and the inevitable second take — and then a full day or more to cut, colour, mix and caption. The shoot is the part clients see. The edit is where the money goes.
The rest of the quote is gear and overhead: cinema cameras, lenses, lighting, audio, a drone if the job needs one, licensed music, and the insurance that lets us walk onto a construction site or fly over a property legally.
Typical ranges by job type
These are the brackets we see across the Central Coast, Newcastle and Sydney. Every studio is different, but if a quote is far outside these, ask why.
- Single social reel from supplied footage — $150 to $400
- Business intro or about-us video — $900 to $2,500
- Property listing video with drone — $600 to $1,500
- Customer testimonial, filmed on location — $800 to $1,800
- Brand film with a scripted concept — $3,000 to $8,000
- Multi-day corporate or campaign shoot — $8,000 upward
- Monthly content retainer — $1,000 to $3,500 per month
The retainer is usually the best value per video by a wide margin, because one planned shoot day produces a month of content rather than a single piece.
What makes a quote go up
- Shoot days. The biggest lever. A half-day shoot and a two-day shoot are different products.
- Locations. Every move costs setup time. Three locations in a day is roughly a day and a half of work.
- Crew. A second camera or a sound operator adds to the day rate but usually saves it back in the edit.
- Talent and voiceover. Paid actors or professional voice are quoted separately.
- Motion graphics. Animated titles, lower thirds and explainer sequences are slow to build.
- Revisions beyond the included rounds. Most studios include two. A third is billable.
- Rush delivery. Jumping the queue costs a premium, and it should.
Cheap video that wastes money
There is nothing wrong with a low budget. There is a lot wrong with spending a low budget on the wrong thing.
The most common mistake is buying a single expensive hero video and having no plan for where it goes. It sits on the homepage, gets a hundred views, and is never cut down for social because that was not in the quote. The second most common is the opposite: paying almost nothing for a batch of reels that all look the same, because whoever made them was working to a template rather than to your business.
The fix for both is the same. Decide where the video will live — website, YouTube, Reels, ads, Google Business Profile — before you decide what to make. A shoot planned around six placements costs about the same as a shoot planned around one and produces six times the material.
What we charge and why
Our quotes are fixed and itemised. You see the shoot time, the edit time, the deliverables and the revision rounds before you commit, and the number does not move unless the brief does. We do not bill hourly because hourly billing punishes you when a shoot runs long and rewards us for being slow.
Single projects start around $900. Monthly packages start at $1,000. The packages page has the current figures and what each one includes.
Frequently asked questions
Why is editing so much of the cost?
Because it is most of the work. An hour of interview footage takes six to ten hours to turn into a tight three-minute piece with clean sound, colour and captions. Filming is the fast part.
Can I get a cheaper video by supplying my own footage?
Yes, often substantially. Edit-only work removes the shoot day entirely. The footage needs to be usable — steady, in focus, with audible sound — but phone footage often is.
Is a video retainer worth it for a small business?
If you need to post more than once a month, almost always. The per-video cost drops sharply because one shoot day is cut into many pieces, and consistency is what actually builds an audience.
Do you charge for a quote?
No. A call or a coffee to scope the project is free, and you get a fixed written quote afterwards.
