Commercial video production costs start around $5,000 and scale to whatever a brand is willing to invest. The most expensive commercial ever made was Chanel No. 5's "The Film" — roughly $33 million, shot in 2004. For most serious enterprise clients, the real conversation starts around $75,000 to $150,000 for a multi-day campaign.

That's a wide range. The reason it's wide is because the variables that drive cost are real, and they compound fast.

I've been producing commercial video and photo content for 13 years. My team has worked on productions for brands like Winn-Dixie, AdventHealth, The Capital Grille, and a handful of Fortune 500 brands you'd recognize — including some of the largest retailers and consumer brands in the country. When I break down pricing, I'm doing it from thousands of hours on set. Not a theory. Not a spreadsheet.

Here's where the money actually goes.

The 3 phases every production budget breaks into

Every production budget follows the same structure. The percentages shift by project, but this is close to accurate for most commercial work.

Pre-production: 15 to 20% of total budget. Planning. Creative strategy, scripting, location scouting, casting, call sheets, shot lists. It's the phase most clients want to compress. It's also the one that saves the most money if you take it seriously.

The more you figure out before shoot day, the fewer expensive decisions you're making on a running clock. Good pre-production means knowing where every shot lives before you ever turn on a camera. What channel is this for? What's the audience? What variations do you need? What's the most efficient order to shoot? The brands that skip this end up paying for it in production — or they spend a fortune on a beautiful shoot that nobody can use.

Production: 40 to 50% of total budget. The shoot itself. Crew, equipment, locations, talent, travel, catering. The meter is running. Every hour on set costs money. The better your pre-production, the fewer expensive hours you waste here.

Post-production: 25 to 35% of total budget. Editing, color grading, sound design, music licensing, motion graphics, revisions. This is where footage becomes something people actually watch. And it almost always takes longer than people expect.

I've seen too many productions where everything else was right but the post fell apart. The edits were off. The color felt wrong. The sound design was thin. Motion graphics looked like a template. That undoes every dollar spent on a beautiful shoot. You cannot skimp on post.

What each video type costs in 2026

These ranges reflect a professional crew. You can find cheaper. Cheaper usually means fewer people, less experience, and more problems on set that eat into your timeline.

According to industry research from Clutch and Advids across 80+ clients and agencies, the average US production project lands around $42,000. Enterprise brands producing at the highest quality tier — multi-day shoots, SAG talent, broadcast distribution — typically run $75,000 to $250,000 per campaign.

The range is real. And it's not arbitrary.

5 things that drive the price up

If you're wondering why one quote comes in at $10,000 and another at $60,000 for what looks like the same thing, it's probably one of these.

Crew size. A 3-person crew handles a lot. A 10-person crew handles more — and does it faster, with better lighting, cleaner audio, and more coverage. More people means more capability on set. It also means more daily rates, more meals, and more coordination.

Number of shoot days. This is the biggest multiplier. A single shoot day is manageable. A 3-day shoot across 2 cities triples your production costs and adds travel, lodging, and per diems on top.

Location. Your client's office is usually free. A public location in a major city can run $1,000 to $5,000 per day in permits before you've hired a single person. New York and Los Angeles command a 30 to 50% premium over secondary markets for the same scope of work.

Talent and usage rights. Non-union talent for a regional spot might cost $500 to $1,500 per day. SAG-AFTRA talent on a national campaign with extended usage can run $5,000 or more per day. And usage licensing — how long you run the content, on what platforms, in what markets — is its own line item. It's one of the most underestimated costs in any production. A local campaign might license images for a few thousand. A national buyout in perpetuity costs dramatically more.

Post-production depth. A talking-head interview with lower thirds and a music bed is a few days of editing. A 30-second spot with motion graphics, color grading, sound design, and 3 rounds of revisions is 2 to 4 weeks of work. Same deliverable length. Very different cost.

If you're doing a video shoot, consider adding photography

Here's something most clients don't think about until it's too late: once your crew is on set and the lights are up, adding a dedicated photographer is one of the most efficient investments you can make.

You're already there. The talent is already dressed and warmed up. The location is already lit and prepped. The marginal cost of adding a photographer to capture stills — hero shots, campaign imagery, social assets — is typically $8,000 to $15,000 on top of your video budget.

Compare that to booking a separate photo shoot later. Now you're paying for a full production again. New location fees, talent fees, styling, everything. Coming back is almost always more expensive than batching it while you're there.

The same logic applies in reverse. If you're already booked for a photo shoot and the project warrants it, adding a video crew for B-roll, social clips, or behind-the-scenes content can return a lot of value for a relatively small line item.

Think of it this way: the shoot day is the expensive part. What you capture while you're already there is the upside.

How we think about your budget

A lot of agencies and production companies treat a client's budget like something to spend. If the number is $50,000, the goal becomes spending $50,000.

That's not how we work. We treat your budget like something to steward.

In practice, that looks like a few things.

We maximize shoot days. If we're already on location with a crew, we look for every additional piece of content we can capture. B-roll. Social cuts. Behind-the-scenes footage. The cost of shooting more while you're already set up is a fraction of coming back another day.

We batch content. Instead of 3 separate productions across 3 months, we plan one production that delivers content for the whole quarter. Lower total cost. More consistent look and feel.

We plan obsessively in pre-production. Every hour spent planning saves roughly 3 hours on set. That's not a guess. It's a pattern we've seen repeat itself on every project for 13 years.

Questions to ask before hiring a production company

The answers to these tell you most of what you need to know.

1. Can you walk me through your pre-production process? If the answer is vague, that's a red flag. Good production starts with a clear plan.

2. How do you handle budget overages? Things happen on set. Weather, talent issues, equipment problems. You want a partner who has a plan for when something goes sideways.

3. What's included in your quote? Music licensing, revision rounds, raw footage ownership. Get specifics before you sign.

4. What does your crew look like for a project this size? Know who's showing up on set and what they do. A DP with 10 years of experience costs more than one with 2. Both can be the right call depending on the project.

5. How do you approach usage rights? Where you can run the content, for how long, on what platforms — that gets negotiated, and it should be settled before production starts, not after.

6. Do you have experience in my industry? A production company that's shot grocery campaigns thinks differently than one that mostly does tech demos. Industry familiarity means fewer surprises on set.

What's this going to cost?

The honest answer: probably more than you expect if you've never done it before. And probably worth it if you pick the right partner and plan the work before you shoot it.

For a single-day brand video with a professional crew in 2026, most projects land between $15,000 and $30,000. Enterprise campaigns with multi-day shoots, SAG talent, and broadcast-level post typically run $75,000 to $250,000.

There's almost always a way to get what you need at your budget. The first step is an honest conversation about what you're trying to accomplish — before anyone starts talking about crew sizes or deliverables.

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McClain McKinney is the founder of Chalant, an Orlando-based production agency producing commercial video and photo content for brands nationwide. 13 years on set. Clients include Winn-Dixie, AdventHealth, The Capital Grille, and Fortune 500 companies.