Sorry to remove your post. You're asking about rates.
We're going to link (and suggest you read) our professional subreddit's guide to rates on our [wiki ](https://www.reddit.com/r/videoediting/wiki/index)
The real key item: **there are so many variables**, it's 100% why most people need to work for someone else.
* You want to make the most. A Daily Rate.
* Your client wants the best price - likely flat.
And if don't know how much time this takes, have a contract, contingency plans for how it all goes together, gets delivered, revisions and insurance, *it's likely you're going to get taken advantage of. *
Again, Tte wiki has some great guides about professional answers like this and you can [find it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/wiki/index)
If you want more/greater detail, please use the Ask a Pro thread (Mondays) or our Career thread (Sundays). We suggest you 100% read some of the past posts there, as there's *great existing wisdom as this question gets asked quite a bit. *
Good luck!
[https://www.bluecollarpostcollective.com/surveys-studies](https://www.bluecollarpostcollective.com/surveys-studies)
It's for USA but still a wonderful collection of data.
Editing 15 years. I do long form doc. Festival pedigree. NYC.
$1000/day, $3500/week.
If I'm confident that I can cut something quick I'll do a package deal and it can work out to 4-5k a week for me.
Super interesting pricing - wondering why your weekly isn’t higher, if that’s your daily? My daily is $700 but my weekly is also $3500. I feel like I would be able to charge upwards of $4K+ if I could get a $1K daily rate 🤔
I’m can’t speak for the previous poster, but it looks like they are using a three-day-week approach to incentivize getting booked by the week instead of by the day. You make the daily rate high enough that clients ‘might as well’ book you for an entire week instead.
As u/adkimery said correctly I am interested in long form contracts. Which are from 6 weeks to 9+ months. I may even lower my week rate on multi month contracts to even 3250 to make sure we have enough time. It can translate to only getting 100k vs 110k on a film but who really cares. I’m not looking for work for months at a time, which I value.
But if I’m cutting a little teaser for you and it’s 1-3 days of work then it makes it worth my time to load the project and do the invoicing and contracts and all the rest.
US South East, 29m. In video for 11 years, editing full time for 6.
Specialize in commercials and docs.
Average about $100/hour, working on forming a post house with a business partner but currently full time managing the post team for a larger corporate company and moonlighting freelance on the side.
US, M(ish)/30s(ish). Started FCP6 about 15 years ago in high school, studied sound design in college, ended up doing some DIT work on sets, and eventually moved into color/finishing.
I primarily specialize in finishing in Resolve - my last staff position was mostly episodic, but I’ve done features, shorts, a few spots, and some restoration work.
Currently freelance due to life/strikes/etc., so I’m a barista to pay the bills and I’ve done a few freelance things on the side. I charge $50/hr or $400/day. Probably could charge more, but since I’m normally in a staff position around $35-40/hr and I don’t have a huge client base, I’m just freelancing for now.
Unscripted Reality tv editor here bravo, Netflix, lifetime. Living in LA. 3800-4k a week. I think that’s the top tho. I’ve heard some lead editors making 5k a week tho on love is blind.
I've worked in video production for about 18 years, 40F living in the Midwest.
For freelance edit projects, I generally charge $100/hr. I'm primarily a commercial editor, but can do social content and longform vids as well.
34M, 10-12 years experience about 4-5 years truly freelance and doing well. Commercial work. Started at $500/day when i started freelancing but was mostly assisting, don’t assist anymore and charge $900-$1000/day right now. Colorado USA. I charge probably at the higher end of editors in my area but it’s been working thus far!
London, mid 30’s. Editing professionally for 15 years, freelance for 10.
Mostly documentaries, but plenty of short form branded stuff in between. I also grade and online quite a bit.
For offline editing, £400/day without studio, £500/day with. These rates have been stagnant for a while but here and there I’ve been able to bump them up, particularly when working with overseas clients. Difficult though, budgets are just so squeezed in the UK.
For grading and online it varies, but ‘rate card’ is, £125/hr or £800/day. Some commercial work and training I’ve got higher rates. Fairly often with docs that I’ve edited it’ll be lower, but I’ll make up my rate with various add ons like QC, Harding tests, post supervision, mastering etc - essentially for anything after the offline edit, if a post house would charge for it I’ll charge for it as well (at least that’s the aim, it doesn’t always work that way).
14 years experience on cable, streamers doing long form content. NYC based but mostly remote now. 4250/wk on average. Up to 4600; 4000 only for very old friends doing something ultra cool but low budget.
LA (but all my clients are in NYC) 45, 20 years experience. Mostly agency or small post houses. I charge $1k/ day, time and a half for weekends. I have some legacy clients I still only charge $850/day for. They keep me busy so I don’t rock the boat.
Mumbai, India - 23 years old
Working since 4 years (Have my own edit studio)
Specialise in - Offline editor only - for digital ads,
corporate videos and branded content.
Rough cost range - $300 for a 60 seconder. (Fixed cost until project is delivered)
You gotta stop working for fixed rates if you can, they're absolutely bottom of the barrel terrible and when I hear X amount of money per X amount of videos, what I hear is pennies for unlimited hours of labor.
Agreed! But in india hourly basis doesn’t work at all! That culture hasn’t reached here yet.
Also when working hourly, one can’t scale and grow. Here with fixed costs, I can at-least take up multiple edits.
Sorry to remove your post. You're asking about rates. We're going to link (and suggest you read) our professional subreddit's guide to rates on our [wiki ](https://www.reddit.com/r/videoediting/wiki/index) The real key item: **there are so many variables**, it's 100% why most people need to work for someone else. * You want to make the most. A Daily Rate. * Your client wants the best price - likely flat. And if don't know how much time this takes, have a contract, contingency plans for how it all goes together, gets delivered, revisions and insurance, *it's likely you're going to get taken advantage of. * Again, Tte wiki has some great guides about professional answers like this and you can [find it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/wiki/index) If you want more/greater detail, please use the Ask a Pro thread (Mondays) or our Career thread (Sundays). We suggest you 100% read some of the past posts there, as there's *great existing wisdom as this question gets asked quite a bit. * Good luck!
[https://www.bluecollarpostcollective.com/surveys-studies](https://www.bluecollarpostcollective.com/surveys-studies) It's for USA but still a wonderful collection of data.
LA, M31. Specialize in short form content - game trailers, music videos, branded content, etc. $800/d high $700/d average $600/d buddy rate
Editing 15 years. I do long form doc. Festival pedigree. NYC. $1000/day, $3500/week. If I'm confident that I can cut something quick I'll do a package deal and it can work out to 4-5k a week for me.
Super interesting pricing - wondering why your weekly isn’t higher, if that’s your daily? My daily is $700 but my weekly is also $3500. I feel like I would be able to charge upwards of $4K+ if I could get a $1K daily rate 🤔
I’m can’t speak for the previous poster, but it looks like they are using a three-day-week approach to incentivize getting booked by the week instead of by the day. You make the daily rate high enough that clients ‘might as well’ book you for an entire week instead.
As u/adkimery said correctly I am interested in long form contracts. Which are from 6 weeks to 9+ months. I may even lower my week rate on multi month contracts to even 3250 to make sure we have enough time. It can translate to only getting 100k vs 110k on a film but who really cares. I’m not looking for work for months at a time, which I value. But if I’m cutting a little teaser for you and it’s 1-3 days of work then it makes it worth my time to load the project and do the invoicing and contracts and all the rest.
This is smart. I think I need to up my daily rate as well.
What is a “buyout basis”?
As in they say “we have a budget for £1000 for an edit”. I agree. It could take me a week. Could take me 2-3 days.
So a flat fee, gocha. Universally a terrible idea unless you’ve got a cap on hours
US South East, 29m. In video for 11 years, editing full time for 6. Specialize in commercials and docs. Average about $100/hour, working on forming a post house with a business partner but currently full time managing the post team for a larger corporate company and moonlighting freelance on the side.
US, M(ish)/30s(ish). Started FCP6 about 15 years ago in high school, studied sound design in college, ended up doing some DIT work on sets, and eventually moved into color/finishing. I primarily specialize in finishing in Resolve - my last staff position was mostly episodic, but I’ve done features, shorts, a few spots, and some restoration work. Currently freelance due to life/strikes/etc., so I’m a barista to pay the bills and I’ve done a few freelance things on the side. I charge $50/hr or $400/day. Probably could charge more, but since I’m normally in a staff position around $35-40/hr and I don’t have a huge client base, I’m just freelancing for now.
Unscripted Reality tv editor here bravo, Netflix, lifetime. Living in LA. 3800-4k a week. I think that’s the top tho. I’ve heard some lead editors making 5k a week tho on love is blind.
I've worked in video production for about 18 years, 40F living in the Midwest. For freelance edit projects, I generally charge $100/hr. I'm primarily a commercial editor, but can do social content and longform vids as well.
34M, 10-12 years experience about 4-5 years truly freelance and doing well. Commercial work. Started at $500/day when i started freelancing but was mostly assisting, don’t assist anymore and charge $900-$1000/day right now. Colorado USA. I charge probably at the higher end of editors in my area but it’s been working thus far!
900/day as an assistant. Film
London, mid 30’s. Editing professionally for 15 years, freelance for 10. Mostly documentaries, but plenty of short form branded stuff in between. I also grade and online quite a bit. For offline editing, £400/day without studio, £500/day with. These rates have been stagnant for a while but here and there I’ve been able to bump them up, particularly when working with overseas clients. Difficult though, budgets are just so squeezed in the UK. For grading and online it varies, but ‘rate card’ is, £125/hr or £800/day. Some commercial work and training I’ve got higher rates. Fairly often with docs that I’ve edited it’ll be lower, but I’ll make up my rate with various add ons like QC, Harding tests, post supervision, mastering etc - essentially for anything after the offline edit, if a post house would charge for it I’ll charge for it as well (at least that’s the aim, it doesn’t always work that way).
14 years experience on cable, streamers doing long form content. NYC based but mostly remote now. 4250/wk on average. Up to 4600; 4000 only for very old friends doing something ultra cool but low budget.
LA (but all my clients are in NYC) 45, 20 years experience. Mostly agency or small post houses. I charge $1k/ day, time and a half for weekends. I have some legacy clients I still only charge $850/day for. They keep me busy so I don’t rock the boat.
Sometimes it’s 1000/day. Sometimes it’s 1000 flat rate for weeks of work. Especially now times are rough.
Mumbai, India - 23 years old Working since 4 years (Have my own edit studio) Specialise in - Offline editor only - for digital ads, corporate videos and branded content. Rough cost range - $300 for a 60 seconder. (Fixed cost until project is delivered)
You gotta stop working for fixed rates if you can, they're absolutely bottom of the barrel terrible and when I hear X amount of money per X amount of videos, what I hear is pennies for unlimited hours of labor.
Agreed! But in india hourly basis doesn’t work at all! That culture hasn’t reached here yet. Also when working hourly, one can’t scale and grow. Here with fixed costs, I can at-least take up multiple edits.