Guides
17 videography services and packages: the four to start with
Seventeen videography service packages written as deliverable sets, the four that suit a new company, where tiers fit and how to cost the ones you choose.
What to take away
- Pick three or four of the seventeen shapes, not all of them. A menu you can say out loud in a minute is a menu a client can remember.
- Each shape is written as a deliverable set rather than as a shoot. The deliverable set is the part that decides what it costs you.
- Each row lists cost drivers, not fees. What a package is worth depends on your city, your post ratio and your client mix, and a borrowed figure is worse than none.
- Every shape assumes one shoot produces several deliverables. That is where the economics of packaging actually live.
Seventeen shapes, read as a pick list
Treat each shape as a deliverable set, not a shoot day. Each row below names what the client receives, where it goes wrong and what drives its cost. Adapt runtimes and version counts to what your clients actually use; the structure is the transferable part.
Package entry: three lines
- What the client receives
- Production shape behind it
- What most often goes wrong
What changes for 2027 sits on the buyer side, not in the craft. Check whether your clients now ask for vertical cuts and captions burned in.
Where they do, state the aspect ratios and caption formats in each line. Recheck version counts and turnaround each year, then reprice anything you cannot still deliver inside the stated rounds.
| Shape | The client receives | It goes wrong when | Cost drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Founder story | One master and one vertical cut composed on the day, from one interview setup and workspace b-roll | The founder has not been told the questions in advance | One setup, one master edit, one vertical recut |
| 2. Customer testimonial set | One cut per subject plus one combined piece, from three or four subjects in one day | Subjects arrive late and the day collapses | Subject count, one edit each, one combined cut |
| 3. Service explainer | One master plus a captioned social cut, from a scripted half-day shoot | The script is approved after the shoot | Script sign-off date, screen capture, captioning |
| 4. Recruitment film | One master, one shorter cut for job listings, stills pulled from the footage | Nobody arranged consent from people in the background | Interview count, consent checks, stills pulls |
| 5. Event highlight | One highlight cut and a set of vertical clips, with fast turnaround | The turnaround promise ignores the approval chain | Coverage hours, same-day capacity, clip count |
| 6. Full event archive | A per-session cut and a short highlight, from a multi-camera record | Audio is taken from a camera instead of the desk | Camera count, session count, desk audio feed |
| 7. Livestream with recorded fallback | The stream plus a cleaned recording | Nobody tested the venue's actual upload path | Rehearsal, operator hours, the cleanup pass |
| 8. Product demonstration | One master and a silent version for retail screens | The product arrives on the day and is the wrong finish | Lighting setup, angle count, the silent render |
| 9. Social content batch | A stated number of vertical cuts with captions, from one shoot day | Each piece gets its own separate approval round | Cuts per day, captioning, approval rounds |
| 10. Training module set | Per-module masters with captions and a version without titles | Subject-matter experts rewrite content after recording | Module count, chaptering, captions, title-free version |
| 11. Internal communications update | One cut per cycle to a fixed template | It slowly becomes a brand film without a change in fee | Cycles per year, template build, fixed edit pass |
| 12. Case study film | One master and a written transcript | Results claimed on camera cannot be evidenced | Interview day, site day, transcript, evidence |
| 13. Brand film | One master plus cutdowns | Revision rounds are not written down | Prep days, shoot days, grade, sound, talent |
| 14. Multi-location campaign | A master per site plus one combined piece | Travel days are not treated as consuming capacity | Days per site, travel days, per-site master |
| 15. Documentary short | One piece and a trailer | It is priced like a brand film | Shooting days, archive, finishing, trailer cut |
| 16. Content retainer | Deliverables to a stated cap, with a rule for unused capacity | There is no named approver | Days per month, deliverable cap, unused-capacity rule |
| 17. Edit-only service | A stated cut list with a stated number of rounds | The supplied material is unusable and nobody agreed what happens then | Footage volume, cut list, rounds, unusable media |
The four that suit a new company best
Shapes one, two, three and nine suit a new company best. They share one location, one setup, a repeatable question or script structure, and a moderate finishing load per shoot hour.
Four shapes for new companies
Entry
- Founder story
- One location
- Customer testimonial set
- Repeatable questions
- Service explainer
- Script structure
- Entry nine
- Standardized kit
Shared shape
- Founder story
- One setup
- Customer testimonial set
- Moderate finishing
- Service explainer
- Half-day shoot
- Entry nine
- Recognizable portfolio
They also build a portfolio a client can recognize themselves in, and they let you standardize kit and technique quickly. The gear that supports them is narrow, which is the point of starting with them.
Choosing from evidence
Pick from evidence, not from taste. Ask which shapes you already deliver well, which produce repeat clients, and which generate the fewest revision rounds. The last is the most predictive and the least discussed.
You can list all seventeen. You cannot deliver them well, because each carries its own kit, technique and edit shape. A company running four package types is faster and more profitable than one running twelve.
What every shape needs before it is sellable
Whichever shapes you choose, each needs the same seven lines written down. Without them a package is a hope rather than a product, and the reasoning behind treating a deliverable set as the product is in how videography services are packaged.
Seven lines before sellable
- Number of files, each labeled
- Runtime and tolerance per file
- Aspect ratio, composed or reframed
- Captionsburned in, sidecar, none
- Alternate versionsmusic, titles, end card
- Revision rounds included, and what closes one
- Delivery format, destination and date
Before it is sellable
- Every deliverable, named one by one.
- The runtime of each deliverable.
- The version count, including aspect ratios and caption versions.
- The revision rounds included, and what a further round costs.
- Turnaround, measured from the client's approval of the cut.
- The shoot days and shoot hours the fee covers.
- Who approves, and what happens when the rounds run out.
One shape through the seven lines
The seven lines become concrete when you fill them in for one shape. Here is the service explainer, written the way it would appear in a quote, using only what the shape itself fixes and leaving your own rates out.
| Line | Service explainer |
|---|---|
| Deliverables | The master and one captioned social cut |
| Runtime | Written beside each file, set by where the client will post it |
| Versions | Aspect ratios and caption format stated for each cut |
| Revision rounds | The number included in the quote, and the price of a further round |
| Turnaround | Counted from the client's approval of the cut |
| Shoot | One scripted half-day |
| Approver | One named person, who signs the script before the shoot day |
The approver row matters most for this shape, because the usual failure is a script approved after the shoot. Anything the table cannot fill from the shape itself, such as runtime and the price of a further round, is yours to set from your own rates before you quote.
Where tiers fit
Tiers do not suit every package. They work where the same shoot can produce more deliverables, and they fail where the difference is another shoot day, which is a different package rather than a higher tier.
Shape three, the service explainer, shows where tiers fit. The base tier is the master plus one captioned social cut. The middle tier adds two cutdowns and stills from the same shoot day. The top tier adds a second edit pass and a transcript.
A line that needs a second shoot day is a new package, not a tier. The method for assembling shapes into tiers is in how to package videography services.
What to leave off, and price separately
Leave off music and stock, because their cost depends on the client's use rather than your work.
A track can carry more than one right, held by different parties. In practice that means a synchronization licence for the composition and a master use licence for the recording, each with its own path. Treat music as a named pass-through, and take anything commercially significant to a qualified attorney.
Leave off, price separately
- Music and stocknamed pass-through
- Travel beyond stated radius
- Raw footage transfer
- Extra revision rounds, priced not absorbed
The music licensing rules for client work decide which party holds which right, so settle them before the package price is quoted.
Costing the ones you choose
Track cost and contribution per package rather than across the business, or one shape will quietly fund another. The IRS says your recordkeeping system should clearly show income and expenses, and per-package costing is built on top of it.
A worked example, using shape nine. Add one shoot day, the edit hours for the stated cuts, the captioning pass and one approval round. Divide by the cuts you deliver and you have your cost per clip.
If each clip needs its own approval, add a round per clip before you quote. Every input is your own: what a shoot day costs you, what an edit hour costs you, how long a captioning pass runs.
Which of these pay once all of that is counted is the subject of which video work actually pays.
Publishing the menu honestly
Anything you publish about a package is an advertising claim. The FTC substantiation policy expects a reasonable basis for a claim before it is made. An entry package advertised to make the middle one look reasonable, but never actually sold, does not meet that standard.
Common questions
Should each package have three tiers?
Not necessarily. Tiers work where the same shoot can produce more deliverables. They do not work where the difference is another shoot day, which is a different package rather than a higher tier.
What about a package for a client type rather than a deliverable?
That is a marketing wrapper on the same list, and it works well. What must not change is the underlying deliverable specification, because that is what your costing and your scheduling depend on.
Can I change the runtimes in the table?
Yes. Adapt runtimes and version counts to what your clients actually use. Keep the structure of deliverables, production shape and failure point, and recheck version counts and turnaround each year.
