Per video pricing buys you predictability, and it works when every video looks like the last one. Hourly pricing buys you flexibility, and it works when footage, length and ambition change from week to week. The catch with flat rates is that the editor has to price for your messiest video. You either overpay on the clean ones or get corners cut on the hard ones.
What does a per video price actually include?
A flat rate is a bet. The editor guesses how long your typical video takes, adds a cushion for the bad weeks, and quotes one number. If your podcast always arrives as two clean camera angles and one audio file, that bet is easy and the price can be fair.
Trouble starts at the edges. A flat quote rarely says what happens when the recording runs 90 minutes instead of 45, when you send three hours of b roll (supporting footage cut over the main shot), or when you want a third round of changes. Each of those becomes an extra charge, a slower turnaround, or a quieter cut.
A flat rate is only flat until your footage stops looking like the footage it was priced for.
Ask any per video editor to write down the limits: maximum raw footage length, finished length, revision rounds, and whether captions, graphics and music are in or out. If they cannot answer, the price is not as fixed as it looks.
When does paying by the hour go wrong?
Hourly pricing puts the risk on you. A slow editor, a vague brief or endless small notes all show up on the invoice. Most of the bad stories we hear from people who switched editors start with an hourly bill that doubled with no warning.
The fix is not to avoid hourly work. It is to require an estimate before each job and a check in if the estimate is going to be blown. In our own work, a short form reel tends to take 1 to 2 hours and a podcast episode 4 to 6, though footage volume, graphics and revisions move those numbers. An editor who cannot give you ranges like that has not done enough of your kind of work.
The other fix sits on your side. A clear brief, a selects list (the takes or moments you want used) and one consolidated round of time coded notes save more hours than any negotiation will.
How do you compare a flat quote with an hourly one?
Convert both into the same unit: what a normal month of your content costs, messy weeks included. Pull your last eight videos, note the raw footage length and how many changes you asked for, then price that month under each offer.
- Raw footage limit per video, and the charge above it
- Revision rounds included, and what counts as a round
- Captions, motion graphics, color and music licensing: included or extra
- Turnaround time, and whether rush work costs more
- Whether the same editor works on every video
That last point matters more than the pricing model. An editor who has cut your last twenty episodes knows your pacing, your lower thirds and your intro, and gets faster every month. Swapping editors every few videos costs you hours on either model.
The cheapest editor is the one who already knows your show.
What would we do if we published every week?
We sell editing as a monthly pool of hours, so weigh our view with that in mind. We chose hours because the brands we edit for rarely send the same job twice in a row. One week it is a clean podcast episode, the next an ad with five versions for testing, then a testimonial built from a rambling interview.
If your output is one fixed format and nothing else, take a per video price with written limits and stick with it. If you mix formats, repurpose long recordings into clips, or want to try new ideas without renegotiating each time, buy a block of hours each month and ask for an estimate on every request.
Either way, check the estimates against the invoices for the first two months. If they line up, you have an editor you can trust, and the pricing model matters far less than it seemed.
