Videographer profit calculators
Videography carries the heaviest post-production ratio in the event industry. A single filming day can generate several full edit days, plus rendering, revisions and long-term storage of very large files.
These calculators let you enter edit days as first-class inputs so a film that takes a week to finish is never priced as a one-day job.
Calculators for videographers
Costs that belong in every booking
- Filming hours
Coverage on the day plus travel and any recce visit.
- Edit days
Ingest, sync, cut, grade, sound mix, render and client revisions.
- Music licensing
Per-film licences or a subscription allocated across annual films.
- Storage and archive
Working drives, backups and long-term retention of raw footage.
- Kit depreciation
Cameras, lenses, gimbals, audio and drones written down over their working life.
- Insurance and permissions
Public liability, kit cover and drone operating requirements where relevant.
- Second operator
Their day rate, travel and hours, costed to the specific booking.
- Revision allowance
Budget the revision rounds included in the package, and price extra rounds separately.
Common pricing mistakes
- Selling unlimited revisions
Unbounded revisions turn a fixed price into an open-ended labour commitment.
- Pricing per filming day
The edit is the bulk of the work; per-day pricing systematically underprices longer films.
- Ignoring storage
Raw footage retention is a recurring cost that grows every year you trade.
- Bundling drone work at no extra cost
Drone coverage carries its own kit, insurance and compliance costs and should be a priced add-on.
Worked example
Illustrative example — a £1,800 wedding film. These figures are an illustrative walk-through of the formulas below — they are not survey data, benchmarks or a real customer result.
| Package price | £1,800 |
|---|---|
| Filming hours | 10 hrs |
| Edit time | 28 hrs |
| Admin, meetings, deliveryTotal: 43 hrs | 5 hrs |
| Music licence | £60 |
| Storage and archive allocation | £45 |
| Kit depreciation£16,500 kit ÷ 150 expected films | £110 |
| Travel (100 miles @ £0.45) | £45 |
| Insurance and software allocated | £60 |
| True cost excluding owner time | £320 |
| Contribution before owner pay | £1,480 |
| Effective hourly rate£1,480 ÷ 43 hrs | £34.42 |
Every extra revision round on this film costs roughly three hours — around £100 of your own time at this effective rate. That is why revision limits belong in the package definition.
How the figures are calculated
- Total hours = filming + travel + edit + revisions + admin.
- Contribution = package price − licensing − storage − kit depreciation − allocated overheads.
- Effective hourly rate = contribution ÷ total hours.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I price extra revision rounds?
- Estimate the hours a round genuinely takes, multiply by your target hourly rate, and quote that as a named add-on. The calculator shows the margin effect of including one more round for free.
- Should drone coverage be a separate charge?
- Usually yes. It carries distinct kit depreciation, insurance and compliance costs, and treating it as an add-on keeps the base package honest.
- How long should I keep raw footage?
- That is a commercial decision, but whatever you choose, price it. Retention has an ongoing storage cost that should be allocated across the films you deliver.
Related guides and tools
Results are planning estimates based on the figures you enter. They are not financial, accounting or tax advice.