$5,000
How much does it cost to hire a video production company to make the video you actually want?
Everybody asks it! Almost nobody in this industry will answer it.
So I'm going to — and yes, this is going to annoy the same “keyboard warriors” who lost their minds when I put my rates on my website.
But before the number, there's a better question …
First: Which Tier Do You Actually Want?
Do you want Netflix quality?
Do you want a 1990s corporate training video?
Or do you want something a middle schooler could shoot and cut on CapCut over a weekend?
Because that is where price actually starts!
The entire foundation of "what does a video cost" sits on the quality you're asking for. If you want high picture quality and high sound quality, 4K or 5K, a lot of B-roll, real interviews, maybe actors, maybe a script — all of that takes time. And time is money. Netflix-tier work means scripting it, storyboarding it, engineering crispy-clean audio, layering sound effects and music, and grading it so it holds up anywhere you put it. That's a creative commercial or a real brand film, and it's built, not grabbed.
On the other end …
there's what I lovingly call the uncle-with-a-phone approach. Grab a phone, shoot it, post it. That's where the price goes down … and down … and down!
Why Editing Looks Cheap (But Isn't)
Here's what's warped everyone's sense of pricing. Phones got incredible. Instagram has an editor. TikTok has an editor. CapCut exists. All of it makes editing feel like a drive-thru — pull up, order, out in ninety seconds.
But the edit you're actually picturing in your head isn't the drive-thru edit. If you want the quality you're imagining, the price reflects the hours it genuinely takes to get there. That gap between "editing looks instant" and "the result I want" is where most sticker shock comes from.
What Actually Drives the Price
It isn't the camera. It's the concrete stuff …
Pre-production and planning — scripting, storyboarding, logistics before anybody rolls
Shoot days — how many, how long
Gear and crew — what the production genuinely requires
Editing hours — the real ones, not the drive-thru ones
Color grading — where footage becomes a look
Revisions — how many rounds you want
Turnaround time — the days between a signed contract and your deadline
That last one moves the number more than people expect!
If it's a rush job, you're asking the price to go up, and that's just math. Everybody wants it now.
But quality takes planning, and the planning and process are exactly what make the video keep working for you months later instead of dying after one post.
Why I Publish My Rates…
I understand the counterargument.
“Nobody wants window shoppers, and window shoppers can be the toughest clients in the world.”
But in my case, transparency wins! A full-fledged production with Gavin (Bison) Media starts at $5,000. If you just need something simple — an interview cut into one clean piece with the dead air pulled out — it goes down from there. That number is on my website. It's on my Google profile.
It's on everything!
Why? Because I think a client deserves to know what they're walking into before we ever get on a call. I'd rather be the creative business that's transparent and brutally honest, and then prove that what I'm putting into the production pays that business back long term. So no, I'm not going to say "it depends" and leave you hanging.
Think about it this way:
when you hire a plumber, you know roughly what it costs before they ever cut a hole in your wall. So why shouldn't a video production company give you the same courtesy?
Pick Your Tier, Pick Your Price!
That's really the whole answer.
Netflix tier is the work I love and the work I do.
The 1990s corporate training tier would be a waste of your money even at five bucks.
And the CapCut tier? A middle schooler can knock that out by Friday.
Pick your tier and you've picked your price … Call them rates, creative fees, or creative-plumber rates — I don't care what you call them! I'm just not going to hide them.
So how much does a video production really cost?
With Gavin (Bison) Media, working across Wisconsin, Illinois, Hawaii, and anywhere else the work takes me — you actually know! That's usually where I come in!
