How Much Should You Charge For Video Editing?

ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome back my name is nadian sands this of course is learn how to edit stuff and today i'm going to answer your most asked question how much should i be charging somebody for my editing services and honestly i haven't done this video on my channel yet because there is no definitive right or wrong answer for this question so i'm gonna do my best to explain what i have learned over the last 15 or 16 years of editing professionally so that hopefully you guys don't make the same mistakes that i did because i made a lot of mistakes i have done hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of free work in my career and i don't want my mistakes to be your mistakes as well so let this serve as a lesson to all of you watching this video and i will first start off by saying these are my own opinions this is not fact there is no data scientific backing nothing these are my opinions that i'm giving to you so take it with a grain of salt not every situation is going to be identical to mine okay we got that out of the way my opinions that's it that being said there is one thing that all of you need to do before you take on a project and that is put a contract together even if you're doing a project for fifty dollars or five hundred dollars or five thousand dollars you need to have a contract between you and the client that you're doing the work for and you might ask why why do i need to have a contract because business sure editing is fun and it's creative and it's all these other things but it's also a career path it's also a business and when you do business with somebody you should both be on the same page and the easiest way to do that is by putting a contract together and this goes for everyone especially especially friends or people that you trust because those are the people that are actually going to take advantage of you more than somebody that you don't even know and by putting a contract together it's gonna make you look more professional at the end of the day the person that's receiving the contract is gonna go oh wow this person really cares about this kind of thing and that's gonna make you look better and your business relationship be better in the long term and your next question is probably what goes in the contract thank you for asking i will let you know number one project scope what is it that you're actually going to be doing detail out everything that you're going to be doing if it's one edit plus social media cut downs or whatever the case is one two ten deliverables outline it in the contract under project scope that way you know what's going on they know what's going on and there's not going to be any random surprises during this project number two project deadline and delivery dates when is it all due when does it need to be delivered and this also includes revision rounds in every single one of my contracts i give my clients revision rounds and this is important for a number of reasons but mainly so that you guys can feel like it's a collaborative project between the two of you i look at the project scope i do my version of an edit and then i send it to the client and they give me feedback and that is revision round number one then i take their feedback and then i kick out a version two of the edit and send that to them and then they give me feedback on version two and final feedback goes into version three and that is the final version it allows for a nice back and forth between you and the client it feels more collaborative you guys are communicating on a regular basis and the whole project overall will feel better for both you and the client that you're working with and the third and final thing that needs to be in the contract is your rate and this is where people start to get really confused because it's not an easy thing to figure out how much do you charge for the project it depends on a lot of different things what is the actual project is there a budget for the project how involved is it does it need additional high level skill sets like after effects motion graphics work are you going to be doing color how many cut downs are there what's the deadline where's the video gonna live how many revision rounds is the creative locked there are a lot of things to consider when you're putting your rate into a contract but here's my best advice that i can give you on rates first of all you should be rarely rarely accepting a lump sum payment for a project that you're working on if you've watched my videos before you know i say it all the time time is money money is time and with a lump sum payment your time commitment to the project can skyrocket and your money will stay relatively low in comparison to the hours that you're putting into the project and this has happened to me so many times in my past somebody will be like hey man i'm gonna pay you 500 bucks to do this video and i'm like cool and then i spend 50 hours on the video which is the equivalent of dollars an hour i might as well go get a job at mcdonald's based on how much time i'm putting into this edit lump sum payments get very very confusing because they'll just keep asking and asking and asking and taking and taking and taking and eventually it's gonna piss you off so much that you don't even want to do this as a career anymore so please take my advice don't accept lump sum payments from anybody if you are going to accept a lump sum payment make sure it is with somebody that you've worked with multiple times and that you trust to actually not screw you over okay so no lump sum payments that basically leaves us with two different options there is a day rate and an hourly rate day rate hourly rate those are the two things that you guys need to be putting into the contract but first you need to figure out what those numbers actually are and your rate is largely determined by a couple different things mainly your skill set how good you are at editing and what the project actually requires your understanding of time and budgets and the ability to set deadlines for yourself so that you're not wasting a tremendous amount of time or a tremendous amount of budget and then that person never wants to work with you anymore you have to understand the big picture there is no one-size-fits-all price for your editing is it a simple edit is it a complex edit is it a short edit is it a very long edit a documentary a full length feature a half length feature how long are you actually going to be working on this thing does it involve motion graphics after effects work color grading are you going to be coloring it yourself how many other people are involved in the project all of these things are things that you need to ask the person that you're working with so that you are armed with the most information you could possibly have before agreeing to jump into something because the last thing you want to do is enter into something that's going to be a nightmare for you and it's hard i get it i understand it's hard to ask somebody to pay for creative services because this is one of the only industries that really works this way right like if you go into a furniture store there is a price tag on that sofa and you are not going to pay any more or any less than what the price tag states and that is the business transaction but with creative work not even just editing that line is very very blurry and some people be like hey we're going to pay you once the project's done or hey if we like it then we'll pay you or hey we're going to give you an imdb credit for your time because we have no budget all of this stuff doesn't happen in any other industry and that's why this question is so hard to answer i know really really great editors that don't charge nearly enough for their time and i also know really bad editors that charge so much money and i can't believe that people actually pay them to do the work because the work is such dog so there's a lot of thinking that needs to go into your rate but really what you need to determine is do you want a day rate or an hourly rate with a day rate you're gonna need to know how many days it's actually going to take you to complete the project same with an hourly rate how many hours is it going to take you to complete the project and what is their budget for this project overall and are you willing to dedicate the time to fit into that budget for entry level editors anyone that hasn't really been doing this for a while 150 to 250 bucks for the day is pretty good intermediate level editors can probably charge anywhere from 350 to 550 for the day and advanced editors can charge anywhere from 600 and up the sky is pretty much the limit because with that skill set with that advanced editor level skill set you can guarantee that a project will get done at a very high quality at a very high pace the professionalism everything kind of goes into that and people are willing to pay those day rates because you are just going to knock it out of the park where somebody who's just starting or has only been doing it for a little bit of time there's a little bit of skepticism involved and they're not really sure so the budget might be a little bit lower but that's where you can kind of place yourself beginning intermediate or expert level if you're curious but regardless of how much you're charging for the project there are two things that you must must must understand what is the project and how much detail can i get out of the person that has the project and what is my skill set and how can i contribute to this project and how long is it going to take me and the marriage of those two things is what's going to determine all the stuff that's in your contract and you have to have a contract the contract is not for when things go right the contract is for when things go wrong so that you can have a legally binding agreement if the person decides to try to screw you over you at least have a little bit of leverage on your side and in that contract is going to be project scope all of your deadlines and deliverables and your rate and you're not going to accept a large lump sum or a small lump sum no lump sum you're going to charge a day rate or an hourly rate based on your skill set kind of lumping you into the beginning intermediate or expert level buckets that you can charge and then once you have all of that information present the contract to the client and if they're actually a good business person they will respect it they will sign it and then you will have yourself some work that you can then put into your portfolio make a little bit of money on and keep moving forward in your career path look on craigslist and linkedin jobs and indeed and all those other job posting websites go on fiverr off of your services on fiverr even if you're reducing the rate at which you want to do it at least you're building your portfolio so that you can keep moving forward in your career and have stuff in your portfolio and have a body of work that future clients can look at and say oh okay this person is very serious about this i know you're probably upset because i didn't give you a definitive answer at how much i should be charging people for my editing work but that's because there is no definitive answer and you can be one of those people that's charging a lot and are not very good or charging very little and you're like way too good you have to just understand all of the information associated with the project that you're working on and every project is going to be different so if you do your due diligence and you understand what you're getting yourself into and you say okay this project is going to take me x amount of time and this is my skill set that will determine how much to charge people and you just have to have information that's the one thing that you must have when you're doing anything in this field but thank you for watching this video and listening to me rant about rates and contracts and all that stuff for the last however many minutes i truly appreciate it and with that appreciation comes gifts for you obviously because that's the kind of guy i am in the video description below i've typed up a contract template for you guys to start sending people right now today just fill in the blanks and you are good to go if you have not subscribed to my channel or like this video or drop a comment in the comment section below i would urge you to consider all three of those things also there is a link tree link in the video description below that will take you to a bunch of stuff that will support this channel support me in a very small way but mainly it supports you a lot of cool little editing things in there for you guys to pick up and a small small portion of those editing things whichever one you decide to choose click the link in the description below a small portion of that will go to me to help this channel keep growing and keep funding and all the knowledge and everything that i'm trying to give you guys i don't ask for very much but hey click the link in the video description if you see something that jumps out at you awesome subscribe drop a thumbs up on this video comment in the comment section below all of this stuff makes me a happy camper thank you again for watching this video and i will see you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: Learn How To Edit Stuff

Views: 51,429

Keywords: learn how to edit stuff, notiansans, how much should i charge for editing, what to charge for video editing, how much do video editors make, charge for video editing, video editing cost, video editing charge, get paid for editing, how much do editors charge, how much do editors make, How Much Should You Charge For Video Editing, how much to charge, video editing, how much, charge, video editor, video editing rates, editing rates, video editing contract, contract template, LHTES

Id: qb3n3NOhbQ0

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020