How much should I charge?

Blade Borge

Blade Borge

Well-known member
I'm a new cameraman. Guy wants me to do a two camera shoot of him demonstration an hour long lesson in egg carving. I would also edit, compress and upload onto internet. The only editing would be switching from close up to medium shot. Running time is an hour.
 
750 editing, media and (if you have) cameras included. if you have to rent add the rentalb cost to 650. it should take one evening to cut right?
 
What? here in Norway freelancers normally takes from $45 to $91 an hour... And if this guy is new, then he shouldn't charge so much.
 
You should charge what the market will bear. First gig I ever did a few years back I charged 125 bucks an hour. I offered the guy a discount since he actually only needed me for about 20 minutes (plus dropping the footage off at fedex to go to CNBC in his pre-paid envelope). He told me that 125 bucks was pretty fair for me just to show up with my camera. He wrote me the check without even blinking.

I don't know any pro shooters who work that cheap, much less for 45 bucks an hour.
 
I would definitely say it depends on the market you're in.
Keep in mind Timur is in New York, Gopher is in Oklahoma, and Alekstef is in Norway - and look at the variance in their quotes.

It also depends on what you mean when you say you're a 'new' cameraman.

When I started I was getting whatever I could for jobs - sometimes as little as 25 an hour (granted that was longer ago than I care to admit).... now, depending on the job, I generally charge around 750/day for production work (camera package included) and a little less than that for post.

When I started out I was so paranoid about not having enough work that I had a tendency to underprice myself. The best piece of advice I ever got on pricing was from a videographer friend of mine who told me that if everyone I talked to hired me then that meant I was pricing too cheap - he always aims to have about 25-30% of his potential clients tell him its too expensive. Granted, you need to be able to have the leads coming in to cut that much work loose - but the good side of that is that eventually you stop getting calls from people who want you to shoot their project for $10 a day and a meal.
:thumbsup:

Take a look around your local market and try to get a feel for where the rates are.
 
The economics of that do work out. Although it took me a while to realize it. If you only get 4 clients a month instead of 6, but they are paying you more ber hour (or day), you get the same amount, with less hours.

Plus, people who are willing to pay pro rates tend to nickel and dime you less.

I did a 2-camera shoot a few weeks back that was 2 hours of shooting and setup (2 lights and a shotgun) and about 3-4 of editing. I charged $1050. That's here in Denver, which is a middle of the road market, I'm guessing.

But, all of this only counts if you can deliver a quality product. If you are low-balling yourself because you are unsure of your skills, thats a different story.
 
The weird thing is that everything is expensive in Norway... I had not thought it was so expensive to book a freelancer for an hour..
 
A 2 camera shoot should be around $1500 for that. An hour of cutting together camera angles is going to be a decent amount of time spent. We shoot cooking shows the same way with a run time of 24 minutes straight through and with an intro and outro included you are going to be sitting there for a while especially when there are audio goofs that you have to edit out and around.
 
For field productions work A lot of guys around here (Texas) charge a half-day rate. Which is 60% of your day rate plus gear. You may get to the point where you don't do half days in advance. For example if someone wants to book me at the end of next week for a half day I try to avoid that because what will happen is someone will call for that day and the next so you loose two days for one half. Unless you can give it away don't take the job. Of course when work is slow or your just starting in that market you take anything!

My advice is unless you are just starting in the freelance world or the client gives you a ton of work take half day jobs on short notice. Just m.t.c.
 
alekstef said:
What? here in Norway freelancers normally takes from $45 to $91 an hour... And if this guy is new, then he shouldn't charge so much.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with that, if you can do the job charge the rate for the job. When I go to firestone to get my car worked on they have a sign that advertises the labor rate let's say 75.00/hr, nowhere does it say 55.00/hr for inexperienced mechanic. In no other job market that I know of do you discount your rate because of inexperience. Now if your hungry for work you may discount your rate to get clients, but that creates a hurdle down the road to raise your rates. so IMO if you can do the job charge the rate, if not don't attempt the job.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
When I started out I was so paranoid about not having enough work that I had a tendency to underprice myself. The best piece of advice I ever got on pricing was from a videographer friend of mine who told me that if everyone I talked to hired me then that meant I was pricing too cheap - he always aims to have about 25-30% of his potential clients tell him its too expensive. Granted, you need to be able to have the leads coming in to cut that much work loose - but the good side of that is that eventually you stop getting calls from people who want you to shoot their project for $10 a day and a meal.
:thumbsup:

Take a look around your local market and try to get a feel for where the rates are.
Click to expand...


Jeez - I actually am in that situation right now! I'd like to get rid of my CHEAPO clients, but I sometimes get paranoid at having no work at all.

Thanks for passing on this advice. It's absolutely right.
 
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