If you’re reading this, you’re probably putting together a budget. Good. That’s the right place to start, and it’s a more honest question than most people are willing to ask out loud.
The trouble is that almost every answer you’ll find online begins with “it depends.” Which is true, and also completely useless when you’re trying to plan a quarter. So let’s do this properly. Real ranges, what sits behind them, and how to work out where your project lands.
The short answer
A brand video in Australia typically costs somewhere between $3,000 and $50,000 or more. That’s a wide gap, so here’s how it usually breaks down.
$1,500 to $5,000. A freelancer or a one-person operation. Often a single camera, a quick shoot, and a fast edit. Fine for a simple talking-head piece or social cut when the stakes are low and the brief is tight.
$5,000 to $15,000. A small studio or a proper crew. This is the range where strategy starts to enter the picture, where you get a director thinking about the story rather than just the footage, and where the result actually looks like your brand instead of a stock template.
$15,000 to $50,000 and up. A full production. Multiple shoot days, a proper crew, talent, location, and a post process that earns its keep. This is brand storytelling at the level you’d put on a homepage or run as a paid campaign.
Most founder story videos and case study pieces, the kind we make most often, land in the middle band. Not because there’s a rule, but because that’s the point where the quality matches the job you’re asking the video to do.
Why the range is so wide
A brand video isn’t one thing. It’s a stack of decisions, and each one moves the number.
Strategy and pre-production. This is the part people forget, and it’s the part that decides whether the whole thing works. Who is this for? What does it need to make them feel? What’s the one idea it has to land? A studio that charges more usually charges more here, because this is where the thinking happens. Skip it and you get a nice-looking video that does nothing.
Crew. A solo shooter is cheaper than a director, a camera operator, a sound recordist, and a producer. Sometimes one person is genuinely all you need. Sometimes a single missed audio take or a botched lighting setup costs you the whole day, and that’s the false economy nobody warns you about.
Talent and time on camera. Are we filming you, a real customer, or a hired actor? Coaching a nervous founder into a relaxed, watchable performance takes skill and time. That’s labour, and it’s labour that makes or breaks a founder piece.
Shoot days. One location and a half-day is one number. Three locations, a full day each, and travel is another entirely.
Post-production. The edit, the colour grade, the sound mix, the motion graphics, the captions. This is where a good video becomes a great one, and it’s also where cheap quotes quietly cut corners you won’t notice until it’s live.
The cheap video trap
Here’s the bit worth being honest about. The lowest quote is rarely the cheapest option.
We see it constantly. A founder takes the $2,000 quote, gets a video that technically exists, and then can’t use it for anything that matters. So it sits on a hard drive. Six months later they pay again to do it properly. The “saving” cost them the original spend, the lost time, and a season of having nothing to show.
A brand video isn’t a cost you’re trying to minimise. It’s an asset you’re trying to make work. The right question isn’t “what’s the cheapest way to get a video?” It’s “what does this video need to do, and what will it take to do that?”
How to work out what you actually need
Before you ask anyone for a quote, get clear on three things.
What’s the job? A homepage hero film that has to make a first impression carries more weight than a quick social clip. The job sets the budget, not the other way around.
Where will it live, and for how long? A video that anchors your website for two years is worth more than one cut for a single campaign. Spread the cost across its real lifespan and the premium option often looks cheaper, not dearer.
How much does getting it wrong cost you? If this video is fronting a product launch or a sales pitch, a flat result isn’t neutral. It actively works against you. That’s the real risk you’re budgeting against.
Once you can answer those, the right number tends to reveal itself. You stop comparing quotes on price alone and start comparing them on fit.
What you’re really paying for
The footage is the easy part. Anyone with a decent camera can capture footage.
What you’re paying a studio for is judgement. The instinct to know which story to tell, how to get a real performance out of a founder who’d rather be anywhere else, and how to shape ninety minutes of rushes into ninety seconds that actually move someone. That’s the difference between a video that fills a slot and one that does a job.
So when you’re weighing up quotes, look past the day rate. Ask what thinking comes with it. Ask to see work where the story carried the piece, not just the production value. That’s where the real value sits, and it’s the part the cheap quote leaves out.
A sensible starting point
If you’re budgeting for a brand or founder video that needs to genuinely represent you, plan for the $8,000 to $20,000 range and treat anything below it with healthy scepticism about what’s been cut to hit the price.
And if you’re not sure what the job even is yet, that’s the right place to start the conversation. Work out what the video needs to do first. The number follows from there.
*Trying to work out what your brand actually needs before you spend a dollar? That’s where we start too. [Get in touch] and we’ll diagnose it with you.*
