What should I charge for making a Business Commercial?

Question

I am the founder of SoundVisionMedia, and we specialize in Digital Audio and Video Production. We have always had very good business since October of 2007.

We want to begin filming commercials for local businesses in our area, so they can begin to bettter promote their business. Be it Law, a Restaurants, or Economical resources, we would like to help and suit there needs.

We will be making the commercials with the Top of The Line, Canon HV20 with many Professional Add-Ons. Along with either Sony Vegas 8 Pro, or Final Cut Pro. Undecided at the moment. Along with Adobe After Effects.

What would be a good price to charge for a commercial. Say if I wanted to say this is the price no more, no less, no matter what, what should my Basic Business Commercial Price be?

Please tell me what you all think we should charge......

Thanks!

Answer 1

cost of materials,labour charges,studio charges,filming charges and also what's your worth and charge that by the hour

Answer 2

Ring your competitors. That's what I will be doing today for my business venture.

Answer 3

It depends what range of services you'll be providing.

If the client has written the commercial and has their own staff to act in it, and you're just turning up with a camera, then that's clearly a very different proposition than if you're establishing the brand values, and coming up with the storyboard, and recruiting the actors...

I have a client who pays about £400 + travelling expenses for commercials - but their business is overseas property, so the cameraman/producer knows he's going to get a nice trip out to somewhere exotic, and well looked after while he's out there, so gives them a bit of a deal.

Answer 4

What does it cost (manufacturing, production, wages and overheads) and how much markup (profit) do you want to make... once you know these two figures, the price becomes clear.

Copying someone else's pricing structure without intimate knowledge of their methodology is lazy and just asking for failure... don't do it, either of you. I suspect it won't be easy to come up with a "one size fits all" solution for the kind of work you are undertaking, Joshua, but maybe a "rate card" (based on a daily rate? with a rough estimate of how long each part of the process takes? like a menu) would be the way to go. It is a good idea to understand the market you are going into, but pricing based on competitor's pricing really isnt a good move.