How Much Does it Cost to Edit a Video?

If you’re wondering what it’s going to cost to edit your video footage to turn it into a vivid, engaging piece of content that your audience will love, the answer is — it all depends. Hiring a video editor is a big step towards finalizing your video project, but the costs involved are all but easy to define. In fact, if you’re wondering, “how much does it cost to edit a video?” Chances are you’ve struggled to find the answer.

This happens because industry video editing services range in price based on the cost of video editing per hour and on individual video editing per minute rates which really vary with several factors such as the style of editing and the style of video content being rendered, the complexity of the edits involved, the technical expertise of the editor, and the total amount of raw footage that the editor must review just to start the editing process. To help you budget for video editing we have broken down the video editing costs below.

Determining the Cost of Video Editing

An editor will look at several factors in determining an estimate or quote for your editing services including things like how challenging the video project will be and how much footage they must review before they can truly get started with the project.

Another factor that they look at is how intricate the finished video is expected to be. More raw footage and a shorter video will likely require added transitions and advanced understanding to ensure that the video delivers the appropriate engagement and effects desired. When you ask the video editor, “how much does it cost to edit a video?” they’re thinking about all of the different potential factors involved in the process.

This includes:

• The amount of raw footage to sort through.
• The expected duration of the final video project.
• Whether there will be motion graphics, animations, or other special effects involved.
• Whether they are any text overlays or other forms of text graphics involved.
• The complexity involved in the editing of the footage. Poor quality image capture may require more extensive editing for a professionally-produced finished project.
• The amount of color grading required.
• Whether image stabilization is required, and how much.

Cost of Video Editing Per Hour

Once your video editors review the project and individual needs for the video they can come up with an estimate of how many hours will be involved in the project. This is used for the editor to determine a baseline estimate of the cost based on their standard cost of video editing per hour.

Typical editor day rates run between $50 and $175 per hour. Thus, a video that is expected to involve 10 hours of editing can cost between $500 and $1,750 to edit. Talk with your editor about their cost of video editing per hour and the estimated total number of hours involved in producing your video or, to learn more about what it will cost to edit your video, give Beverly Boy Productions a call!

Video Editing Per Minute Rates

Once you have an hourly cost it’s relatively easy to come up with the estimated video editing per minute rates that are involved. Per-minute rates are estimates of the video editing cost for the total number of minutes your final video is. For example, a video that will be 3 minutes long and will cost $3,000 to edit has a cost of $1000 per finished minute to edit.

Typically, when you ask “ how much does it cost to edit a video?” you can expect an answer that delivers the cost per finished minute in these terms. The average cost of video production per finished minute is between $1,000 and $10,000 or more but this price includes all production-related expenses including pre-production, filming, and post-production editing.

Want to learn more about the cost to edit a video and how hourly editor rates figure into the total cost of editing? Give  Beverly Boy Productions a call! We’ll help you out!