Great! Your experience and recommendations enlightened me 🙏🏻 Been a solo video maker since 13 years and yet still a bit confused about my rates. I always charged per day but almost always ignored my efforts and time for bringing value. Thanks again and greetings from Turkey ✌🏻
Another great video, thank you. But what you don’t mention is how you include the value of the kit within the quote. Our niche is live streaming and we might turn up with £150-200k of kit. After many years we have found quoting a daily rate works for us. £2k per day for all the kit and 2 people plus £1k for each cameraman after that. But to be honest we are undervaluing the capital cost of the kit, but I feel the market and clients we have won’t pay more. We are already thought of as expensive and we don’t win a lot of work because of that. Talking to other colleagues in live-streaming and we all struggle more with pricing than anything else.
Hey mate. Pricing is something a lot of videographers struggle with. While there is an element of market expectation I think you’ll find you could be charging more if you framed it in the right way. I find when clients have the true value explained they understand why things cost what they do. As far as kit on quotes I typically itemise a package of gear and what a included then I put an amount next to it. From my days in gear rental I’d be charging £1509-£2000 day for gear hire on thy value of kit. You should not be absorbing it
I’d have to agree with turning down that job! Hourly pricing really becomes scrutinised when the actual value you provide is worth so much more than a couple of hours ‘shooting’
Great video Den, very helpful! I too have been pricing hourly but that what every I've worked with client is used to. I agree, it doesn't make sense for our line of work! I have a client that I've been always invoicing based on hourly rates, is there a way I can transition to charging without hourly rates for this client?
So transitioning to any new process takes a shift in mindset. You can still use hourly pricing internally to work out how long you anticipate the shoot and post taking. But you shoo-ins also factor in 3 hrs as a base for pre production. Eg calls with client, logistics, prepping gear. Then I would charge per day for shooting and per day for editing. Let’s say you have a 1 day shoot for a 2-3 min finished video. I’d allow 2-3 days for the edit. Then I’d add in half a day for pre then any other factors. If you think about the value of the completed film to the client then your total invoice should reflect that. I have a book all about quoting that you can read for free if you join our free community - Free community invite- denlennie.com/free-community-invite/
The client might prefer to see some itemisation of hours spent doing the job on the final bill. Otherwise, how does the client understand how the price was arrived at?
That part is handled at the beginning. I break it down by pre production, production and post as the main items. Then things like admin fee, travel and insurance are on there too.
Great question mate and exactly my point. The number of hours spent creating the content is not really relevant - take the chef analogy of the steak cooks in 4 mins should it be cheaper than the 8 he slow roasted lamb? If you can lean into the value of the completed gum and how that impacts the client then you are being paid proportionally to the outcome. If you’d like to read my book on budgets and quotes you can do that here for free- Free community invite- denlennie.com/free-community-invite/
