Commonly $50–$250+ an hour, or a few hundred to several thousand per finished project — and the honest answer includes a case where you shouldn't hire one at all. Here's how the pricing actually works.
Hourly commonly runs $50–$250+, depending on experience and market. Hourly sounds cheap until you realize shooting is the small part — editing usually takes two to four times as long as the shoot itself, and it's all billable.
Day rates commonly run a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars, and usually cover the shoot only. Editing is billed on top unless the quote says otherwise — always ask.
Per-project is the most honest structure for business video: one price for a finished, delivered video. A short business promo commonly lands anywhere from a few hundred dollars from a solo shooter to five figures from a production company.
Gear matters less than it used to — a modern phone shoots usable footage. What you're really paying for is judgment: knowing what the video needs to say, planning the shots before the camera rolls, and cutting it so people actually watch to the end. A beautiful video with no point costs the same to make as one that brings in customers.
Location, travel, extra crew, licensed music, and revision rounds all add real cost. Get the revision policy in writing — “unlimited revisions” usually means “priced into a higher quote.”
Honest answer: not every video needs a camera crew anymore. AI-assisted video generation has gotten good enough for certain kinds of marketing content — short social ads, product explainers, concept pieces — at a fraction of a shoot's cost. It's the wrong tool for anything that needs to show your real face, your real shop, or real customers. A good video partner will tell you which is which instead of selling you the expensive option by default.
Video here is priced per project, planned around one real point the video has to make, with AI-assisted production used where it honestly delivers the same result faster — and a camera used where it doesn't. The same pipeline produces the marketing videos for AO Audit. You get a quote for your actual project, not an hourly meter running while someone figures it out.
Because editing is most of the work. A one-day shoot commonly produces hours of footage that someone has to watch, select, cut, color, and mix into a few minutes people will actually sit through. Two to four hours of editing per hour of shooting is a normal ratio, and it's all skilled labor.
For some things, genuinely yes — a modern phone shoots good footage, and authentic-feeling content often outperforms polished content on social. Where it falls apart is planning and editing: knowing what to say, what to shoot, and what to cut. That judgment is what you're actually hiring.
For short social ads, explainers, and concept pieces — often yes, at a fraction of the cost of a shoot. For anything that needs your real face, your real location, or real customers on camera, no. The right answer is usually a mix, chosen per project instead of one-size-fits-all.
Three things: what's the total price for a finished, delivered video (not just the shoot day) — how many revision rounds are included — and who owns the footage afterward. The answers separate professionals from hourly meters.
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