Factors Determining the Cost of Video Editing

There a lot of things that will determine the cost of your video editing project. A few of the major ones are discussed below.

• Length of the raw footage

  The length of the footage plays an important role in affecting the video editing rates. A professional video editor often spends a lot of time to obtain the best editing outcomes. They must thoroughly go through the footage provided by the client, which can either be lengthy or irregular. It requires patience as well as time to carry out the post-production process, which is why they might cost more.

  If the video has been previously edited, you might think that the work can be completed a bit faster and the cost will be less. But sometimes, this type of footage can become extremely challenging for the new editor since they will require time to review and familiarize with the editing done by the previous editor. In that case, the rates might again go up.

• Type of video to be edited

  The footage type is a common factor affecting the rates and you may already know this. A video can be of different types, such as corporate, wedding, family, brand, animated, and so on. Depending on the type, the cost may vary from one video to another. Let’s take the example of three different footage types to help you understand how the rates differ.

  Example 1: Corporate/ Brand Video
  Editing a corporate or brand video is often expensive. Here, the video editor needs to work based on a given script, which will contain specific directions and branding guideline. In this case, the challenge is to carry out the editing in a way that aligns with the brand image. Despite being expensive, this video is hugely in demand.

  Example 2: Family Video
  For family videos, people don’t often hire a professional. Most of the time, they personally shoot the footage. Thus, as compared to a professionally captured video, a non-professional video will take more time to edit and hence, will cost accordingly. It is because a cinema-quality video will comparatively take less time to edit since editors can identify the useful tracks in a short time.

  Example 3: Wedding Video
  A wedding video is always expected to be nice and polished. The color and lighting need to be perfect and videos should be capable of conveying a story. So, wedding video editors need to have high attention to detail so that they can give the footage a cinematic look.

  Now the best part of wedding video editing is that the footage is usually captured by professional videographers. They will surely use good equipment and will know how to shoot a perfect wedding video. The shots will be steady, frames will be right, setting will be correct, all of which will make the wedding video editing easier. So, you can expect that the cost of wedding video edits won’t be too high.

• Number of cuts per finished minute

  If a video has more cuts per finished minute, editing will take more time. The editor estimates their time based on the number of cuts (aka transition) per finished minute and that includes additional time for the transitions, color correction, and other tasks associated with each additional cut added to the finished minute of video. Expect to pay a higher rate for a more complex video that includes added cuts per finished minute.

• Use of motion graphics in the video

  Finally, editors know that the addition of special effects and graphics will greatly add to the amount of time it takes and the level of technical experience it takes for them to edit your video. If you’re having a video created that includes motion graphics, expect the editing to take significantly longer to finalize.

Aside from these, there are other factors, such as

• Presence of text overlays
• Use of stock images, animation, etc.
• Color grading
• Image stabilization
• Specialized elements like interactivity introduced
• Whether the finished video will need uploading, transcoding, rendering, or digitization
• Number of people involved in the video post-production process
• Whether urgent delivery is required

Typical Workflow for Video Editing

• Importing video and other source material, logging and identifying selects
• Rough cut
• Input and revisions
• Color enhancement and sound mix
• Final review and delivery of compressed video.

What are the Average Video Editing Rates?

The hourly rates video editors and post-production professionals charge are based on the project complexity. The most experienced professionals and studios out there could charge per hour, per minute or even based on subscription model.

According to Salary.com, video editors in the United States will be charging around $34 to $50 USD per hour. But in countries like India and the Philippines, the average editing cost per hour will be $6 to $10 USD based on the complexity. Get Quote.

So, how do you calculate the entire cost of the video to answer the question “how much should I pay for video editing?”

A general rule of thumb is that a minute of finished video could require about an hour of editing time. Once again, this is an estimate. If you are looking forward to a highly artistic and abstract video, the amount of editing time will go up.

Conclusion

Over the years, we have edited videos of different types for clients belonging to small or large-scale organizations. So, you may consider using our custom video editing services too which is either fixed per editor monthly or hourly. If you’re going to ask “which is better?” All we can say is it depends on your budget. It’s hard to give an exact number since the range of video editing cost is very broad.

However, if you tell us your video editing needs we can come up with a customized pricing solution.