Commonly $75–$250+ per hour or a few hundred to a few thousand per event — and since events can't be reshot, the cheapest option carries a risk the price tag doesn't show. Here's the honest breakdown.
Hourly commonly runs $75–$250+ depending on experience and market — remember editing bills on top, usually two to four hours per hour shot. Packages (coverage + edited highlight film) commonly run a few hundred for small events to several thousand for full-day productions with multiple shooters. Corporate events price above social ones; conferences with multiple rooms need multiple cameras and the budget follows.
Hours on site, number of shooters, deliverables (a highlight reel? full ceremony? same-day edit?), audio needs (speeches and toasts need real microphones, not camera mics), and turnaround. The invisible driver is redundancy: pros carry backup cameras and record to dual cards because events don't repeat. That's part of what the higher quote buys.
Ask for two full event films, not highlight reels. Ask who exactly shows up — studios subcontract. Ask how audio gets captured for the moments that matter. Ask the delivery date in writing, and what happens to raw footage. And ask about backups — the one answer that separates professionals from a person with a nice camera, because your event has no second take.
Commonly a few hundred to over a thousand dollars all-in once editing is counted — hourly rates are only the visible half. Get the total quote for the finished, delivered video, and confirm what it includes: highlight length, full-speech coverage, and revision rounds.
For small single-room events, usually. For anything with simultaneous moments — multiple rooms, a stage plus a crowd, a ceremony plus reactions — one shooter physically can't catch both. That's what second-shooter fees actually buy: coverage of the moment you'd otherwise lose.
No retakes. Pros price in redundancy — backup bodies, dual recording, extra batteries — plus the pressure premium of capturing once-only moments with real audio. A promo shoot can be redone tomorrow; your event can't, and the pricing reflects who carries that risk.
For casual memories, sure. For anything you'd be upset to lose — speeches, a launch, a milestone — the risk math changes: one corrupted card or dead battery and it's gone. If budget is tight, hire a pro for the critical hour and let phones cover the rest.