11 replies
Hello all,

I am sorry if this thread is a little scattered, but I am a little excited/nervous/etc.

Let me begin by telling you my story. I am a partner in a video production company. For the past two+ years, we have slowly been building our clientele, mainly by producing videos for local companies for broadcast on local cable stations. This was nice, but we needed to try to make more income, basically, we needed to make enough to survive.

I began contacting different marketing and SEO companies and telling them that we would produce videos for their clients, which they could sell to their clients for a profit. Up until today, we have had no luck.

Today I was contacted by a company that wants a minute and a half video produced for each of their 100+ products! Herein lies my problem...

I have no idea what to quote this man. Typically, our rates are a follows, $600 for a basic :30 second video - meaning we shoot, edit, add voice over, and any necessary text, we provide a digital and a hard copy of the master, and this is it. $900 for a basic 1:00 minute video with all of the above features, and $1200 for a basic 2:00 minute video with all of the above features. We charge an additional rate for complex motion graphics.

Now, I know i cannot charge $1000 per video. As nice as it would be to have $100,000, I really don't see this guy paying this amount of money for these videos.

Do any of you have any advice as how to go about quoting for these videos?

Any advice would be great!

Thanks!

Matt
#charge
  • Profile picture of the author matt5409
    Hi Matt

    You already have a sliding scale going on i.e. you charge less (in real terms) the longer the video, can you not apply a similar sort of thing to this project?

    Alternatively offer a large number of them as complementary - nobody likes to give anything away for free but such a large order should yeild some special treatment - and you never know who he knows to pass your details onto.

    Couple of ideas for you - best of luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author ConnorMcCreesh
      Pricing is always difficult. It sounds to me like what you are doing is very professional so I would just make sure you know exactly what he wants first. You may charge $300 per video but if he does not want you to go and record things etc. then there is less reason to charge that much.

      Also if you find a template to follow for each video that should shave your creation time down.

      Really videos online start at about $40, but these are not to the level you are creating. Now off course this is all depending on the time it takes you to make them, but I would suggest around $100 or so per video. So charging him $10,000 should not be out of the question. ( you can say $200 but you are giving him a discount for a bulk buy!).

      Once again it all depends on how long it takes you to make the videos. For 100+ products are they all going to be 100% unique? Also you will want to know their budget. Perhaps just tell him you are unsure, tell him what you usually charge and that you are willing to do a discount but don't name your price, see what he says!

      Hope this helps! ,
      Kind Regards,
      Connor
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      Hopper, The Instagram Scheduling Tool - Established Tech Startup with 1500+ Users.

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    • Profile picture of the author Goin Green
      $300 a video sounds like quite a deal for him..50% discount...Mabye you can gain some information on his budget.

      Depending on the relationship, think of what you can negotiate..or if it looks like a possiblitity of repeat business give him a cheaper cost..

      PM me if you want some help running some numbers..

      "Its not what your worth its what you negotiate.."
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Harper
    You can offer this guy a discount based on volume. As was said above, figure out how scalable the production of these videos are.

    If you can create a template or "donut" that your just plug your video into, that will save a ton of editing time. Same thing with the shoots--if you can knock out a bunch at once, then you've dramatically reduced your setup time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Harper
    One more thing: I find that it helps you negotiate a higher price when you explain to the client what is involved in producing videos.

    They don't know what they don't know. And if you don't educate them, it seems like magic.

    The more you inform, the more appreciation they'll have for the value that you provide.
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  • Profile picture of the author masterjani
    My best idea for you is Get the total no of orders,And deduct say for example 100 orders means deduct 5 orders amount as discount.Don't lesser the original orders rate that helps for long term
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  • Profile picture of the author mscherrah
    Thank you all for your speedy replies, I am really stumped here, but you all have given some great insight. What we are thinking of doing is explaining to him exactly what goes into the productions (there isn't a way to make a template for these videos because each product is unique and needs its own production), how the motion graphics are made, what goes into editing these, and all of the time that goes into the whole process. Then we were thinking of quoting a set price for a certain number of videos, and adding some "on the house"

    for example, we will do 75 videos at $300 per, and 25 for free.

    Does this sound like an okay quote, or does it sound like either we or the company is getting screwed here?
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Keep this in mind:

    IF I go to a local retailer to buy 1 car, he's going to sell it to me for 25K.

    IF I go there there to buy 100 cars, he'll probably give me a HUGE discount BUT he will never sell them for 2.5K just because I buy 100 of them.

    Make a discount? YES. Definitely.

    But keep in mind you can find yourself working for FREE if you drop your prices too low. I imagine you wanna grab this deal, but keep in mind business is just business.

    We cannot drop our prices bellow the line where we profit.



    Disclaimer: I never had a proposal like that.
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    People make good money selling to the rich. But the rich got rich selling to the masses.
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    • Profile picture of the author mscherrah
      Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso View Post

      Keep this in mind:

      Make a discount? YES. Definitely.

      But keep in mind you can find yourself working for FREE if you drop your prices too low. I imagine you wanna grab this deal, but keep in mind business is just business.

      We cannot drop our prices bellow the line where we profit.



      Disclaimer: I never had a proposal like that.
      This is what I am trying to figure out...

      How to come up with a price that sounds fair to the client, but also allows us to make a profit. This project will take us approximately a month (possibly longer) to complete, and I need to know that I am not, like you said, "working for free"
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      • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
        Originally Posted by mscherrah View Post

        This is what I am trying to figure out...

        How to come up with a price that sounds fair to the client, but also allows us to make a profit. This project will take us approximately a month (possibly longer) to complete, and I need to know that I am not, like you said, "working for free"
        I know. It's a tough call, but you have to do some math.

        Wishing you grab that deal!

        Signature
        People make good money selling to the rich. But the rich got rich selling to the masses.
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  • Profile picture of the author mscherrah
    Thank you all for the insight, I will keep you posted on what happens. In the meantime, if any of you have any more helpful tidbits, I would gladly use them.

    Thanks!
    Matt
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