Guides · Video production
What a brand film costs
in Chicago.
Most production companies make you ask. Here are our numbers, what each one buys, and the five things that move a quote up or down.
The three starting points
Everything we make for a brand falls into one of three shapes, and each has a floor. These are the real prices on our video production page, not a range we negotiate from.
| Shape | From | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Single production | $3,000 | One shoot day. One finished piece plus the short versions cut from it, and the stills pulled from the day. |
| Campaign or launch | $4,500 | A launch, a season, a moment. Several locations, several formats, several ad versions for paid social, and a plan for how they run. |
| Monthly content | $6,000 a month | A retainer. A crew that knows your brand shoots on a schedule, and content stops being a project. |
Anything that does not fit those three is quoted custom, and plenty of our best work lands there. Skit and narrative work always does, because writing and casting are their own jobs.
The day rates underneath
If you think in shoot days rather than projects, these are the reference rates for social media video. A half day is $2,200 and gives you one main video plus three short cuts. A full day is $3,000 for one hero piece and five to seven short-form versions. A day and a half across more than one location is $4,500 for one hero and eight to ten short-form pieces.
The short versions are not an add-on. They are why a brand film pays for itself: one day of shooting feeds a month of posting.
What moves the number
- Crew size. A one-camera interview with a director and a sound recordist is the floor. A second camera, a gaffer or a drone pilot each add a person and a day rate.
- Locations. Every extra location is a load-in, a load-out and travel time. Two locations in a day is normal. Four is a day and a half.
- Talent. Your own people on camera cost nothing. Casting actors or hiring a host is quoted on top.
- Animation and graphics. Lower thirds and simple titles are included. Motion graphics, animated explainers and anything drawn from scratch are quoted by the second.
- Speed. A standard edit comes back in about two weeks. A rush is possible and costs more, because somebody else's edit moves.
What does not move it: shooting in our own studio. We own a two-room studio in Chicago, so a controlled interview or product shoot carries no location fee.
What is always included
Pre-production (a call, a shot list and a schedule), the shoot day with our own crew and gear, the edit, color, sound mix, one round of revisions, and delivery in the sizes your channels need. Music is licensed, not borrowed. You own the finished films.
If you want to see what the work has done for other brands before you spend anything, the video case studies have the numbers: Hardcore Italians went from 50,000 to over a million followers on content we made, and Monaco Cocktails saw a 20,000% engagement lift on a campaign we shot.
How to get an exact quote in one email
Tell us four things: what you are making (a film, an ad set, a monthly feed), who it is for, where it will run, and when it needs to land. With those we can quote most projects the same day. The brief form asks for exactly that.
Questions people ask.
Is $3,000 really the floor for a brand film in Chicago?
Do you charge for the studio?
How long does a brand film take from brief to delivery?
Can I just book a half day?
Price a film.
Tell us what you are making and when you need it. We reply within one business day.