Activity › Forums › Creative Community Conversations › Pricing Question for TV spot
-
Charley King
August 31, 2005 at 3:09 pmNot knowing the market, makes it hard for me but I feel $100 an hour might be underpriced Figure how much you need for overhead, equipment, rent, utilities, etc for the business. My last job was at $350 an hour plus markups for tape, all out of pocket expenses, etc, for a linear suite. Oh, that was 9 years ago. I understand things are different for on-linear. Equipment costs much less. Don’t forget adding a fee for the announcer. Oh, music, we charged $75 needle drop for 30 or less, and $150 for over 30.
I’m sure I am forgeting something, but what the hey. Ya gotta start somewhere.
Oh, in answer to what does a 30 second spot cost? I always answered with what size is a grey suit?
Charlie
-
John Cuevas
August 31, 2005 at 5:58 pmHard for me to answer your question, exactly, as the rates will vary from area to area.
Here in the midwest, city of 650K, 350 and hour per Avid edit. 150 for graphics. So if you were just compositing for 7 hours and 1 hour of edit. 1050, plus music and VO. That wouldn’t be the least I have put a spot on the air, but it would be close.
Since you guys are new still, building good relationships and being known as the guys who can get it done, are probably more valuable at this time.
-
John Cuevas
August 31, 2005 at 7:03 pmJust thought of something that might help you and your new venture out. First join the Chamber of Commerce. Company I’m with has been around 17 years, recently joined the Chamber and the contacts and new work/clients it’s generated have us thinking of adding 2 more people to the team.
Also, coincendentally we moved to a new building after joining. After we were settled, we threw a party/walk-through for clients, old and new. In the invitation we put bring a business associate that you think might like to meet us. Responce was incredible, reconnected with some of our clients, made new ones and our regulars were happy to get free booze. We had our new demo running in every room. Let people play with some of the equipment, gave tours of the facility.
Good luck to you and your associates, hope you succeed.
Johnny -
Person Lastly
September 2, 2005 at 3:47 pmokay, create a day rate and a bidding form (your head is spinning now)
figure what your ‘time’ is worth (let’s just say $100/hr for just starting out), plus materials, deliveries, dubs, pencils, gas, coffee, operating costs, maintinence, tax etc. and call it a 10 hr day. i think you should be chargine at least $1200-$1400/day as a startup.
the next step is find a bidding program (excel based usually) that you can send to a client have them sign. this will actually help you out a lot since all the line items represent a different expense. a line item for dubs, one for misc, one for labor, one for the avid or fcp, (pad certain line items that don’t represent other costs you incur) this way the client can see what you are worth broken out. they love this. not just an invoice. also think of creating an overage form for things that come up during the edit that take you over the bid amount. this is very very important to have.
and get the first 50% upfront. you’ll be lucky to get the final 50% within 60 days after master. be careful with this for cashflow reasons. once you become busier, get an office so clients can actually come in and work with you, and include this new expence into your bid prices, etc. it’s basic business 101.
so now for future work you can really break it out from your past experiences into your future work be review your actual costs against the bid amounts. you probably saying “but i just want to do the editing” and i say, after your really get going, hire (or make a partner) a production manager/producer to take care of the client relations/bids/phones/food/bookwork/etc. they are worth their weight in gold. and you look cool for having one.
again, as stated, welcome to the biz. you have a business license don’t you?
-
Steve Pankow
September 3, 2005 at 5:53 pmHere in market 130 (Mid-Oregon) Avid rates for local retail are about $140/hr. depending on the volume of work, so I’d say you were undercharging a bit. Five years ago I was doing digital linear online here for about $350/hr. on longform corporates, but those days are gone…
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up