Contents
I. How Much Does Video Editing Cost, and Why?
1. How Much Does Video Editing Cost in Various Video Production Segments?
a. Video Editing Cost for Ads or Music Videos
b. How Much Does YouTube Video Editing Cost?
c. Assessing the Cost of TikTok and Instagram Reels Video Editing
d. How Much Does a Minute of Video Editing Cost?
II. How Much Does Video Editing Cost in Different Countries?
1. Cost of Video Editing in Poland and the EU
2. How Much Does Video Editing Cost in the CIS and Former CIS Countries?
III. Conclusion
Today, anyone can buy a MacBook and learn how to use Adobe Premier Pro. This has lowered the entry barrier into the content production industry, and the number of freelance video editing specialists has increased, driving down the average cost of video editing. If you need to edit a wedding video or TikTok content, you can hire a freelancer with lower hourly rates. However, if you want to create a commercial, corporate film, or music video, you should work with a video production company that provides video editing services. How much does video editing cost, then? Let’s find this out!
How Much Does Video Editing Cost, and Why?
There are several factors that influence video editing costs, including an editor’s experience, skills, and location. It also matters whether an editor works independently or is permanently employed by a production company. If you are an independent musician or company just getting started with video marketing, you may be tempted (or pressured!) to cut the cost of video editing – after all, filming itself is not cheap! And bizarrely edited videos frequently go viral on social media, so why try? In this case, collaborating with a freelancer or video editing novice could be just what the doctor ordered.
Creating professional-looking video content is another story. Poor editing can ruin your video, preventing it from conveying the intended message and leaving your audience confused. Then, it is recommended that you contact a professional – preferably someone from a reputable video production team that provides comprehensive post-production services, has access to licensed video editing software and stocks, and signs legally binding contracts ensuring that work is completed on time and in accordance with your specifications. Here’s how much the video editing cost per hour varies depending on an editor’s experience:
- A beginner editor earns up to $11 per hour
- An editor with up to three years of experience charges approximately $22 per hour
- Editors with three to five years of experience can make up to $55 per hour
- An editor with experience in top-tier commercials, TV series, or films earns around $110 per hour
How Much Does Video Editing Cost in Various Video Production Segments?
It’s hard to precisely estimate the cost for video editing tasks across different segments, such as content for social media and YouTube, video commercials, corporate films, music videos, or TV series. To create effective video content for these channels, an editor must not only have exceptional technical skills, but also understand the unique characteristics of each platform. For example, social media videos are eye-catching, have specific aspect ratios, and last about 60 seconds. Video commercials, on the other hand, are heavily reliant on storytelling, last 15 to 60 seconds, and may use a lot of visual effects.
The time it takes to edit video content for different media varies, too. SMM videos require faster turnaround times, so your editor may only make basic cuts and apply simple visual effects, which will take a few hours. High-end commercials frequently involve multiple rounds of client feedback and revisions, so the project timeline can sometimes span several weeks. To optimize the video editing services cost, you should thus find a professional with significant experience in the desired segment, be it YouTube videos or music video production, so carefully examine your candidates’ portfolios.
Video Editing Cost for Ads or Music Videos
Sifting through large amounts of footage, performing heavy color correction, applying visual effects, and designing custom motion graphics can increase the overall video editing cost. For example, editing typically adds $150-750 to the drone video cost in commercial and corporate video production. In small- and medium-budget music videos, for example ICEON – Michelle, the average cost of video editing is around $1,000, which includes actual editing, color correction, and cleanup. While you are at it, check out our article on how much it costs to shoot a music video.
If you are curious about the video editing cost per minute, we will go over it in more detail later. Don’t switch! Estimates for video ads are typically made on a per-hour basis to reflect editors’ fixed rates. Once you have a final estimate, you can easily calculate the video editing cost per minute of content. Because of the short form of commercials, editing them costs significantly more per minute compared to music videos, documentaries, TV series, or films. However, when considering the total project fee, the sums will vary greatly due to different runtimes.
It’s also important to note that finding a skilled beginner capable of editing video ads to a high standard is quite rare. Even if you do, the cost of editing would start at around $17 per hour. There’s no upper limit to what editors can charge, but typically, you can expect to pay $28 to $45 per hour for a moderately skilled professional, while experienced editors may charge between $50 and $110 per hour. Scroll down to learn how much it costs to transform raw footage into visually appealing content that gets millions of views on YouTube or Vimeo.
How Much Does YouTube Video Editing Cost?
When clients inquire about the cost of video editing for YouTube, the YOPRST team usually cuts the figures mentioned in the previous section in half. However, this does not imply that editing content for YouTube is easy. If anything, the editor should have a basic understanding of marketing and user experience design in order to create well-paced videos that keep the audience’s attention and incorporate prompts like “subscribe” and “hit that like button” in the appropriate places to organically grow YouTube channels. That’s why we recommend that you entrust this task to a professional.
If you work with a video editing specialist from the United States or Western Europe, expect to pay between $15 and $100 per hour. Junior YouTube video editors are paid less than $50 per hour, whereas skilled editors can earn up to $100 or more. When choosing an independent specialist or company specializing in YouTube content production, look closely at their portfolio. You can still see the total number of views and likes and gauge the audience’s sentiment in the comments. To reduce the cost of video editing, consider hiring talent from Central or Eastern Europe (more on that later).
Assessing the Cost of TikTok and Instagram Reels Video Editing
As cringe-worthy and foolish as they appear, TikTok videos and Instagram Reels have become one of the most popular content formats across all digital channels. On Instagram, for example, Reels have an average engagement rate of 1.23%, outperforming other post types by a wide margin. TikTok engagement rates, meanwhile, range from 2% to a whopping 18%. So, whether you are a business or a major-label artist, promoting on these platforms is critical. Your business will benefit from creating TikTok videos. The question is, how much does video editing cost in this case?
To create reels and shorts, customers usually partner with freelance editors or digital agencies offering turnkey video production services. Working with an agency has multiple advantages: for instance, you won’t have to develop concepts yourself or worry about renting equipment and casting actors. What are the downsides in this case? Higher video editing costs, of course! While independent content creators might charge you a little over $20 per hour of editing, agencies’ rates may exceed $50 per hour for the same work. And rates vary greatly depending on the project.
On rare occasions, you can even learn how to edit Instagram and TikTok videos yourself using tools such as Adobe Premiere Rush, Splice, and KineMaster. However, we do not recommend taking this route if you want your TikTok and Instagram content to appear expensive and professional. Major fashion brands, for example, hire video editors who spend anywhere from eight hours to three days producing polished short-form videos with advanced visual effects and color grading. That is why, when estimating the cost of video editing, you should always take your specific requirements into account.
How Much Does a Minute of Video Editing Cost?
As previously stated, we can only calculate the cost per minute of video editing based on completed projects and editor’s fees. To calculate an estimate, we divide the total fee by the number of edited minutes of video content. For example, suppose we are creating a three-minute music video. The editor worked on it for eight hours and earned $390. As a result, we can divide $390 by three minutes to get an estimated cost of $130 per minute for music video editing. But keep in mind that this is a rough estimate that should be applied very carefully to future work.
Similarly, we can calculate the price of video editing services in the advertising segment. Ad production is one of the most expensive segments, with fees significantly higher than those for music videos or corporate films. A healthy budget to shoot a quality commercial starts at $5,500 and can reach several million dollars (if we are talking about Super Bowl level ads). For a 30-second commercial, which cost $660 to edit, the video editing cost per minute would amount to $1,320. But I would like to point out that this rate is close to the minimum, usually the prices are much higher.
In other segments, such as corporate videos, the price would be somewhere between advertising and YouTube editing. Corporate films typically have smaller budgets, so fees are lower. A typical corporate video is about two minutes long, with an editing time of two hours and a fee ranging from $220 to $330. Therefore, the video editing cost per minute for corporate videos could be $110-165. Our “How much does video editing cost?” guide would be incomplete without mentioning the average cost of video editing across popular segments, which is $330 for one minute of finished content.
How Much Does Video Editing Cost in Different Countries?
The cost of video editing varies by country, reflecting average specialist fees. For example, Ukrainian video editors will charge less than those in Poland, and Polish video editing specialists will charge slightly less than their German counterparts. But there’s a catch. Thanks to the increased Internet and data transfer speeds, as well as the proliferation of video conferencing and team collaboration tools, the differences in the average video editing costs across the globe have flattened. In the past, you had to somehow transfer gigabytes of information over a distance, which made the job difficult.
Today, you can hire a local video production company while outsourcing video editing and other postproduction tasks to a specialist on another continent, as long as you have clear expectations and can effectively coordinate the creative process. This is easy to do using inexpensive CRM systems. The YOPRST team has worked on such projects, editing video content shot by other crews, and the results have exceeded our customers’ expectations. As a result, the claim that content creation has become an increasingly global process is not exaggerated.
Cost of Video Editing in Poland and the EU
The cost of video editing in Poland is generally moderate compared to other EU countries. Polish video editors charge rates similar to those in Germany but may offer significant discounts to secure business deals. Competition in the market has increased due to the influx of artists from Ukraine and Belarus. Additionally, Polish video production teams usually possess a stronger command of English compared to their colleagues from other EU countries, which gives them a competitive edge and justifies higher video editing rates. They are simply easier to work with.
In contrast, professionals in Germany, Italy, and France are less likely to speak English, preferring to use their native languages. The language barrier can sometimes complicate content creation. To navigate this challenge, you may consider outsourcing video editing tasks to Scandinavia or the Netherlands, where English is widely spoken, but the cost of video editing will be higher. Overall, video editing fees in Europe tend to be lower than in the US or East Asia.
Experienced video editors in Europe typically charge between $22 and $55 per hour.
Though rates can be higher for complex creative projects. Experience is also an important factor in determining an editor’s rate. The more projects the artist has done, the higher the rate he asks for. In major projects, an editing director may be involved to guide the overall concept and vision, collaborating closely with the rest of the production team. This increases the project timeline and, subsequently, the video editing cost. But at least you can be sure of the quality of the work, since an additional specialist always benefits the project. Here are the fees by country:
- In Poland, video editing costs range from $16 to $44 per hour
- In Germany, rates range from $27 to $55 per hour
- In France, the cost of video editing is from $38 to $66 per hour
- In the UK, video editors can charge anything from $55 to $165 per hour
How Much Does Video Editing Cost in the CIS and Former CIS Countries?
The cost of video editing in Belarus and Kazakhstan is significantly lower than in Europe. However, as in the EU, the absence of “virtual borders” – that is, widespread adoption and decent Internet speed—has helped to smooth out the difference. Residents of the CIS and former CIS countries, such as Ukraine, have significantly improved their English in recent years, making this region an ideal location for outsourcing video editing while keeping costs low. Currently, a specialist from one of these countries can charge anywhere from $6 to $60 per hour for regular projects.
For example, YouTube and social media content or music videos. Commercial video editors typically earn between $220 and $660, which is nearly equal to editors in Europe. While the region has plenty of editors, there are not many editing directors. The distinction between the two occupations is that the former excels at tasks such as cutting videos, splicing scenes, and deciding which visual effects to use, whereas the latter aligns the edits with the director’s creative vision. Without further ado, here are the video editors’ hourly rates:
- In Ukraine, video editing costs between $16 and $55 per hour
- In Belarus, editors’ rates range from $11 to $44 per hour
- In Kazakhstan, where the video production market is currently booming, the average cost of video editing fluctuates between $9 and $33 per hour
Customers sometimes choose more exotic locations within the CIS region, such as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. While tapping into this talent pool can produce unexpectedly good results, these markets have their specifics. Tajikistan, for example, remains at rock bottom, as the only person creating videos there is the dictator-president. Uzbekistan is following the path of Kazakhstan, with local creatives producing interesting music videos despite their lack of expensive equipment. So, if you need to edit content for a music video, Uzbekistan could be a good option.
The primary reason for considering CIS countries, particularly Asian ones, is the low cost of video editing, which is sometimes comparable to the price of coffee in Paris. Local filmmakers and editors’ enthusiasm makes up for the fact that they are not yet on par with their European counterparts or editors from Ukraine and Belarus. For commercial projects, the average cost of video editing ranges from $6 to $22 per hour. If you are on a tight budget, hiring editors or full-stack production companies from the CIS region may provide satisfactory results.
Conclusion
Because of the industry’s low entry barriers, the cost of video editing in simpler segments, such as content for social media and YouTube, is gradually falling. Similarly, the proliferation of freelancer platforms, the development of neural networks and the growing adoption of new technologies have expanded the market for video editing services. That is why it is impossible to answer the question “How much does video editing cost?” without taking into account a variety of factors, the most important of which are the project type and the expertise of the editor.
Rates in the professional segment have remained stable as the number of high-level specialists grows gradually. However, the tools that editors must master in order to provide excellent service are constantly expanding. If you need professional assistance calculating a reasonable cost estimate for your video editing project, please contact YOPRST. As a full-cycle video production company based in Central Europe, we are adaptable enough to meet your budgetary needs and skilled enough to handle different video editing projects of any complexity.