How Much Should You Budget for Video in 2027?

Somewhere right now there's a marketing lead with next year's budget open. Most lines have real numbers in them. One line says video, and next to it is a question mark.

It's the hardest line on the sheet. Ask three production companies what video costs and you get three different answers, all of them starting with "well, it depends."

So let's make it simple. Here's how we'd size it if we were sitting on your side of the table.

Start with the year, not the project

This is the mistake, and it's an expensive one.

Most teams budget video one project at a time. Something comes up in March, they scramble for a quote, pay a premium, and do it again in June. Five times a year, five separate quotes, five crews learning your brand from scratch.

Budget for the year instead. When you know you need twelve pieces of content, you can make them in one or two days instead of five. Same content, a lot less money, and it all matches. Which it never does when five different people made it.

Rough numbers to build with

Real ranges, so you have something to type in the box.

A single video project usually starts around $4,000. Most brand work lands between $6,000 and $20,000. Bigger multi-day campaigns run $30,000 and up. Photography starts lower, around $2,500. If you already have footage sitting on a drive, editing alone can start near $800.

Events price differently. A recap day runs $2,500 to $4,000. A full day with interviews is closer to $5,500 to $6,500. Multi-day coverage goes $10,000 and up. We broke that down further in what event video costs, and our whole pricing page is public if you want to build from real numbers.

What people forget to include

This is where budgets break. The shoot is the part everyone remembers. It's the other stuff that shows up later and blows the line.

Editing. Post takes longer than the shoot, every time, and a cheap quote usually got cheap by leaving it out.

Versions. One video isn't one file anymore. It's five or six different cuts for the places you post it. Ask for them up front or you'll pay for them later.

Licensing. If you're using talent, music, or footage past a certain window, that has a cost and it's easy to miss.

Storage. Somebody has to keep the files. It adds up more than people expect.

What percentage should video be?

People ask this a lot and there's no honest universal answer. Anyone who gives you one is guessing.

Better question. How much of your marketing depends on people seeing something? If your brand lives on social, runs events, or sells anything visual, video is not a slice of the budget. It's the thing most of the other slices need to work.

So size it against what it feeds, not against a percentage someone put in a blog post. If video carries your social, your events, your site, and your sales deck, budget it like infrastructure.

Project money or retainer money

Worth knowing there are two ways to hold the budget.

Project money is what most teams use. You set aside a number and spend it as things come up. Simple, and fine if your year is a few big moments.

A retainer works better when you need content all the time. You pay monthly, the team knows your brand, and you stop renegotiating every job. If you're posting weekly and constantly asking for one more thing, that's usually the cheaper shape.

A real example

Say you're a mid-size brand. Two events next year, a leadership video, some product content, and enough social to stay visible.

Budgeting project by project, you'd probably quote each one separately and land somewhere north of $60,000, with a different look every time.

Plan it as a year and it changes. One content day covers the leadership piece, the product content, and a stack of social cuts. Your two events get proper coverage. Everything comes from the same team, so it all looks related. You end up closer to $40,000 with more usable content, because you weren't paying five crews to figure out your brand five times.

That's the whole argument for planning it in one go!

Ask for the number that matters

One more thing before you send it up the chain. Your CFO won't care how many videos you made. They want numbers, so build the ask around what the content is for. Pipeline. Recruiting. Ticket sales for the event. Attach video to something the business already counts and the line stops being a question mark.

And be a little generous with yourself. Budgets that are too tight get spent on the cheapest option, which is usually the one you redo in six months.

Anyway. Budget season is short and next year comes fast. Whatever number you land on, decide it now, while you still have room to plan around it instead of reacting to it.

Raised Media Co. is a New York City visual production company. Video, photography, and web design, built for brands.