Writing videography quotes: a template plus priced examples

What to take away

The eleven sections a quote needs

Eleven sections sounds heavy. In practice it is two pages. The shortest section, the exclusions list, often does more work than any other line.

The table above says what each section must state. The copyable version below is the same eleven sections as a form. Paste it into a document and fill the blanks.

The deliverable schedule, written properly

A weak version says "social cutdowns". A usable version says, for every single file:

The seven lines are runtime, aspect ratio, resolution and frame rate, captions, audio mix, version and destination. Written out for the two-minute master of a brand film, the file looks like this:

Seven lines per file feels excessive until the first client asks for "the same thing but square" a week after sign-off. That is when you point at the schedule.

Priced example one: a two-day shoot with four cutdowns, $6,800

Say your cost per working hour is $65. That figure is wage plus burden plus fixed-cost share, and it is the term most often guessed at.

Anchor the wage inside it against something external, such as the wage estimates published by occupation and metropolitan area, then add burden and fixed-cost share on top. Recent tables put median hourly wages for camera operators in film and video in the high twenties. The remaining $35 covers burden and fixed-cost share.

The floor is what the job costs you. The quoted fee is the floor plus your margin. The $2,040 margin is 30 percent of the $6,800 fee, a markup of about 43 percent on the floor. If the client cuts the budget, cut scope from the table, not from the margin line.

The pass-through lines come from prices you can check.

Priced example two: a single interview plus a vertical cut

A one-day job with one deliverable and one vertical reframe.

The vertical reframe is priced as its own line because it is its own work. A reframe that is not separately priced is a discount you never decided to give. Post is 19 of the 31 labor hours here, so the edit is most of the job.

Priced example three: the same two-day shoot, from variables

Take the two-day shoot from example one. S is 20 shoot hours across both days, including travel. P is 10 pre-production hours. R is your measured post-to-shoot ratio, 1.2 on this project type. D is the deliverable multiplier for four extra versions of an existing cut, 1.5 here.

Labor hours are P plus S plus (R times S times D). That is 10 plus 20 plus 36, or 66 hours. At $65 an hour, $4,290.

Add pass-through of $470, which is the $150 music license, $200 permit and $120 parking and media from example one, and the floor is $4,760. Add the margin and you are back at the $6,800 quoted fee.

Then show the client a structure, not the arithmetic. Clients buy a shoot day, a set of files and a number of revision rounds. They do not buy your ratio. The derivation belongs in where the margin actually goes; the quote shows the result.

Payment terms and pass-through

A deposit should cover what you spend before delivery, not a token percentage. Media, licenses, crew and travel are paid by you long before the final invoice. If the deposit does not cover them, you are financing the client.

Pass-through costs should be named and either included with a stated cap or excluded and billed at cost. Both are defensible. Absorbing them quietly turns a cost you can bill into a cost you carry.

Keep the receipts. The IRS guidance on what records a business should keep describes a system that clearly shows income and expenses with supporting documents behind purchases and assets. Pass-through spend is the category that goes missing without one.

Worker classification, sales tax and deductions vary by state. Confirm with your state labor agency, your state department of revenue and a CPA.

Rights, raw files and the archive line

The license clause says what the client may do with the finished work: where, for how long, and in what territory. A piece licensed for internal use and then run as a paid advertisement is a different job.

The raw-footage clause says whether camera originals are transferred, in what form, at what cost, and whether your obligation to keep them ends on transfer. Decide it once, in the template. A videography business plan should state the raw-footage rule before the first client asks for originals.

The archive clause says how long you keep project media and what happens after. Storage is a cost with no end date, so give it one.

Music sits alongside these and is not a shopping decision. One piece of music can carry more than one right, each with separate licensing paths, and the terms of the library you actually use govern. Take anything commercially significant to a qualified attorney rather than to a forum.

What the quote may claim in public

If a version of this quote becomes a published price list, the FTC's advertising guidance for small businesses applies: claims must be truthful, not misleading, and supportable.

Common questions

Should the quote show a line-item breakdown?

Show structure, not internals. Shoot days, post stages, deliverables, pass-through and rights are useful to a client. Hours by task invite a line-by-line negotiation about how fast you should work.

How long should a quote stay valid?

Long enough for a normal approval cycle and short enough that your costs have not moved. Whatever you choose, print the date. An undated quote is valid forever, which is the client's preference and not yours.

What if the client only wants a number?

Give the number and attach the deliverable schedule anyway. The number is what they read; the schedule is what you both rely on when the fifth cutdown is requested. Deriving that number is a separate exercise, set out in pricing a project so the edit is paid for.

Do I need a separate contract?

A quote that has been accepted in writing can form part of an agreement. The terms that matter most here, rights and liability above all, deserve a proper contract reviewed by an attorney in your jurisdiction. Do not treat a template found online as legal advice, including this one.

Where do gear and crew lines belong?

In the production plan, gear is named by role and function, not by brand, because a "two-camera interview setup with lavalier and boom audio" tells a client something. A model number tells them nothing and dates your quote.

What you carry is a separate decision, covered in the kit checklist for a first shoot and the camera, audio and lighting setup guide. The quoting model behind all of it is in how video projects are priced.