This is a complicated question. It depends on a lot of things. The answer can range from $0 for a project up to maybe even $1,200 a day. That’s the highest rate I’ve heard, but I’m sure there are people who charge even more. Now what constitutes the vast difference of these answers when bidding. Well there are four factors in deciding what to charge. Experience (the biggest), Production Budget, Time to Execute Task/Length of Employment, and Equipment. If you take these things into account, you’ll know what to charge.
Some Backup drives of Fourwind Films projects
The biggest factor on what to charge is whether or not you’ll get hired. This has a lot to do with your experience. If you’re fresh, only have cut home videos and never worked with a client before, you may need to do one or two for free before someone will pay you to do it. It’s like that in every art form. I think a lot of people in the industry forget this, but your first projects, the first time you’re doing a task, you need to keep your rate low and you’re educating yourself on what it’s like to have this sort of client. You may also be learning on the job, hence it’s likely going to take you longer. Now, I’ve been a professional Editor for 20 years. Really I don’t charge $0 for anything editing-wise anymore, unless it’s a friend’s project that I love or something, but that’s extremely rare. But when you start out, you need to be able show that you’re not going to waste a client’s money before you get paid. Movies are expensive and time consuming to make. There’s a lot of uncertainty. So most Producers want an experience person who’s already done the specific task they’re asking for. So, I suggest only your first 1-3 years to work on anything for free and only in cases where you may be doing something new. Soon after, start charging something.
Make sure whatever your experience is, that you’re going to be able to be sustainable. A lot of time for figuring out a starting rate in this year of 2025, I’d start with at least $250 for an 8-10 hour day (12 hour days are just silly in Post-Production or in most jobs, raise your rate if it’s more than 10 hours a day). This rate is for beginners with very minimal experience. For example a starter’s salary for working on social media or internet videos for smaller companies. You’re still likely much slower than folks with experience. On top of that, the product you put out will likely be not as good. The more experience the faster you are at making changes (if you work at it) and the higher quality product you’ll put out (if you work at it). Hence, you can charge more as you’ll get more done and likely have a better product.
I tend to believe after 10 years of doing the same job, you’re pretty close to the top of the totem pole. Meaning if you’ve cut for 10 years Editing wedding videos, you can charge top dollar. If you’ve cut 10 years in documentary features, charge top dollar. This doesn’t always translate if you switch what kind of video you edit.
Mr. David Ruano and Justin Joseph Hall on the red carpet of the New York Latino Film Festival for Prologue
So then you may ask, what is top dollar? I follow pretty closely based on the Editing Guild’s standards. These are what unions charge per person per day. This is very informative. It ends up being around $800 or a bit more a day for top editors in their fields, which is around what I charge.
So you have the opposite ends of the spectrum in 2025 when this article was written, $250-$800 a day for an editor for their experience. This is basically a living wage salary to start up to the union limits. Obviously if you have less than 10 years under your belt, you slowly raise your rates until you get to the top dollar rates. This has been my experience and has worked well.
How do you slowly raise rates? I suggest at the beginning of a project if you have a new client, just try it out. Raise them slowly. If you have a lot of work and are busy, it’s a great time to test raising rates.
For example, if you have a project that’s difficult to fit into your schedule, try bidding it higher so if you get it you're happy to complete it for the extra money. If the client ends up saying yes, you’re gonna be really busy, but you may have permanently established a new rate for yourself.
Another good time to raise rates is if you have a repeat customer. They’re coming back to you and probably don’t want to use someone new. Because for Producers, anything new is something unknown which they want to avoid. So raising a rate slowly with an older customer is a great way to test and establish a new rate.
Now experience, as I said, was not the only factor in determining rates. Production Budget is also important. Ask yourself if the production realistically has enough money to pay you. If it’s a friend’s short film, maybe asking for your normal commercial rate doesn’t make sense. If it’s a commercial for a big brand like AT&T, for sure they have the money! So you can always have a sliding scale and negotiate with the contractor who wants to hire you.
So what’s the best way to do this? I suggest to start with a higher rate and be willing to come down if needed. Most of the time I just give them my rate. Much of the time clients say it may be too high, I may come down, and may not. You sort of have to read the situation on how close you were to what they were thinking. Great producers come back with an offer pretty quickly. If it seems like you may be losing the job if you bid too highly, tell them you’re willing to negotiate to fit the Post-Production budget that they’ve allocated. You can bargain likely in being more strict about notes and deliverables so it doesn’t take longer than expected and you can still feel like the project was worth your time. In other words, always define how much work you can get done in the time allotted.
Another huge factor for a bid on a job is how long will you be employed? How long will it take to finish the job? I tend to give discounts the longer the job is. Because if I’m working, I don’t have to search for more work. They say that applying for jobs is like a job. And it is! You’re marketing yourself. It’s tiring and uses your resources. So if a gig is longer than a week, I give a discount. If it’s longer than a month, I’ll give more of a discount. If it’s even longer, possibly even more of a discount.
Sometimes your bid has to be for a whole project. So you may also wonder how to bid that. If you know about how long it takes you to complete a project, I usually estimate that then add an extra 20% for unknowns. So, like if it’s going to take me a week, I’d charge my rate for 6 days total, because you never know what wrench might get thrown into your perfect Post-Production plan. The first person I assisted for, Nathalie Gage, taught me that early in my career and I’ve always found it useful. It helps you to stay calm when clients want changes and makes sure you’re appropriately paid. It’s always good to build that buffer into the original bid, as it’s easier than having to go back to the client for more money, as they may have assumed certain notes were included in the original bid. So when also doing a bid for a whole project, make sure to define in written word what exactly that includes.
Audio recorder and color control equipment
When doing time estimates, don’t forget to include render, color, or any other tasks you may be working on if it’s being bid as a project. Remember, even if you’re not editing or constantly sitting at the computer for a render, it’s using your computer’s processing power and you may not be able to do other tasks or work for other clients in the meantime. That, in fact, brings us to what to charge for your equipment.
It’s important to think about the equipment that you have that the producers want you to have for a job. If you’re on set editing and are required to bring your own laptop, your own power station, or whatever, charge for that. If you have to provide your own hard drives, charge for that (and backups). If you’re using special equipment like an expensive color monitor or a powerful computer to handle 8K footage on a quick edit, charge extra for your powerful computer. Software and online services like Dropbox and frame.io are also appropriate to charge for in certain situations. Tell the client why you're charging and see what they say. You can always say, “No problem, I just can’t provide file transfer services without a fee, we’ll have to use yours.” So these terms for equipment especially are always negotiable. I usually charge about 3-5% of the cost of the piece of equipment if I charge for it. It’s just a simple way to calculate the number.
All in all, stick to the range based on your experience first and foremost, consider the client’s budget, the time it will take to execute the project with buffer time, the length you'll be employed, and finally any specialty equipment costs. With these in mind you’ll have no problem bidding out professional Post-Production gigs.
For any questions please write Justin Joseph Hall directly at justin.joseph.hall@fourwindfilms.com
