What video production actually costs in Bangalore

Ask three studios in Bangalore what a brand video costs and you can get three numbers that are an order of magnitude apart, for what sounds on the phone like the same job. There is no published rate anywhere to check them against, so most people pick the middle quote and hope.

This is what the number is actually made of, written by a studio that would rather you knew.

Why almost nobody publishes a price

Two reasons, and only one of them is respectable.

The respectable one is that the same four words describe completely different jobs. “We need a reel” can mean recutting footage you already have on your phone, or it can mean a location, a crew of six, a model, a stylist and three days of post production. A single published price for that is either a lie or a number so wide it tells you nothing.

The other reason is that a published price can be compared, and comparison is the one contest a studio with nothing else to offer would rather avoid. If the only thing separating two quotes is the number, the cheaper one wins, so the fix is to keep the number private until the relationship is warm enough to survive it.

The effect either way is the same. You are asked to judge a quote with no reference point.

The four things that actually move the number

Almost every quote you will ever receive is these four inputs in a trench coat. If you can read them, you can read any quote.

1. Whether anyone has to point a camera at anything

This is the single biggest jump in the whole range, and it is bigger than most people expect. An edit of footage that already exists is one person and a timeline. A shoot is a day of several people’s time, a location, equipment, travel, and food, before a single frame is cut. Moving from “edit what we have” to “come and film it” can multiply a quote several times over on its own.

This is also why the honest first question from a studio is what footage you already own, and a bad sign is a quote that arrives before anyone asked.

2. How many people are standing on set

Every person on a shoot is a day rate. A director, a camera operator, someone on lights, someone on sound, a stylist, a model, an assistant. A lean shoot might be two people who each do three jobs. A full one is eight people who each do one. Both are legitimate. They are not the same price and they do not produce the same footage.

3. How long the post production actually runs

Cutting a talking head to ninety seconds is a few hours. Motion graphics, product renders, 3D, sound design and colour are days of skilled work each. A quote that treats “editing” as one line item is hiding the part of the process where most of the real hours go.

We cover this in more detail on the content creation service page, including where 3D earns its cost and where it is theatre.

4. What you are allowed to do with it afterwards

A video you post organically and a video you put media spend behind are commercially different objects, even when the footage is identical. Paid usage means usage rights for anyone recognisable on screen, and it usually means a different edit. A piece that holds attention organically rarely works as an ad without a recut, because an ad has to earn the first two seconds from a stranger who did not choose to see it.

If a quote does not mention usage or an ad version, it is quoting for the organic post only. That is not dishonest, but it is not the whole job either, and you will find out when you try to run it.

What a cheap quote usually leaves out

Low quotes are rarely a scam. They are almost always a narrower scope, and the narrowing happens in predictable places.

• The concept. The cheapest tier is almost always execution only. You send the idea, they cut it. If you do not have a person whose job is thinking of ideas, this is the line that quietly becomes your problem.
• Revisions. One round is normal. Look for what round two costs, because round two is where most projects actually finish.
• The ad cutdown. Almost nobody includes it, and it is the version that has to work hardest.
• The raw files. Ask who owns them. Ask whether you get them. It matters the day you change studios.
• Anyone senior. A cheap quote often means the person who sold you the work is not the person doing it.

None of that makes the cheap option wrong. It makes it a different purchase, and you should know which one you are making.

What we charge, since it would be strange not to say

Having spent an article arguing that prices should be visible, here is ours. One custom reel, concept written for your brand and then made, delivered in seven days, for $297. It comes off your first month if you carry on with us, and if you do not like it we refund it and you keep the file.

Brands that continue move to eight pieces a month, with 3D and motion included where the work calls for it. The full breakdown of what sits inside that is on the content offer page.

The more useful thing, though, is not our price. It is that our entire portfolio is public. Not a showreel of best moments, every piece we have made for a client, start to finish, on the portfolio page. A price only means something next to the work it buys, and most studios will show you thirty seconds of theirs.

How to judge the quote in front of you

Four questions, and they work on any studio in any city.

• Is anyone shooting, or is this an edit of what I already have?
• How many people are on set, and who among them is senior?
• What is included after the first cut, and what does the second round cost?
• Does this include a version built to run as a paid ad?

A studio that answers those four plainly is telling you what you are buying. One that deflects is quoting for something narrower than you think, and the gap will surface later, usually in a week when you needed the video.

If you want a second opinion on a quote you have been sent, send it over. We will tell you what it covers even if the answer is that it is a good deal and you should take it.