RATES & PRICING · SEPTEMBER 26, 2026

Video Editing Rates Per Minute: What to Charge Now

Per-minute pricing is a quoting shortcut, not a rate

A client asks what you charge. You say a number per finished minute. They hear a price for a thing they can count. You have just agreed to be paid for output length while doing work whose cost has almost nothing to do with length.

That is the whole problem with video editing rates per minute. A two-minute brand film with a graphics package can eat four days. A sixty-minute podcast multicam can be done before lunch. Same unit, twenty times the work.

Per-minute still has a use: it is the fastest way to quote a repeatable format for a repeat client, and it is how a lot of buyers think, so refusing it outright costs you jobs. The fix is to never set the number per minute. Set it per hour, per format, per edit ratio — then divide. This guide shows the arithmetic, gives rate bands by format, and lists the four things that must sit outside the per-minute price or they will quietly delete your margin.

The published rate guides — Twine, Content Beta, Krock — all end up in the same place: there is no single per-minute figure, because a finished minute is not a unit of work. The ratio is.

Start with the edit ratio, not the finished minute

The only number that predicts your hours is how much raw footage you have to get through per finished minute of cut.

Ask for it before you quote. Two questions do it: how many hours of raw footage are there, and how long is the finished video meant to be? If the client cannot answer either, you are not quoting yet — you are guessing.

Rough working ratios:

Podcast or interview, locked-off multicam: 1.2:1 to 2:1. An hour of raw becomes 45–55 minutes of cut. Fast per minute, slow per project.
Talking-head YouTube with b-roll: 6:1 to 12:1. Ninety minutes of rambling becomes ten tight minutes.
Documentary, event, or unscripted brand content: 20:1 to 60:1. This is where per-minute pricing kills people.
Short-form vertical cut from existing long-form: effectively unbounded — you are searching, not cutting. Price per clip, never per minute.
Scripted corporate or advert, storyboarded, planned shoot: 3:1 to 8:1 of usable footage, but the hours go into polish, not selection.

Write the ratio into the quote. "Priced on up to 3 hours of raw footage for a 10-minute cut." When four extra cards of footage appear, you have a clause, not an argument.

The arithmetic: hourly rate to per-minute price

Set your hourly number first. In the US, UK, Canada and Australia, an experienced freelance editor with a reel and a client list is generally working somewhere between $50 and $120 an hour — the rate roundups from Pixflow and VEEDYOU describe the same spread. Pick your honest number. Not your aspirational one, and not an agency's.

Then estimate hours per finished minute for the format, and multiply.

Worked example — 10-minute YouTube episode. 2.5 hours of raw. You know from the last six that it takes you about 9 hours: 2 hours reviewing and selecting, 4 hours assembly and pacing, 1.5 hours b-roll and sound, 1 hour colour and titles, 0.5 hours export and delivery. At $70/hour that is $630. Divided by 10 finished minutes: $63 per minute. Quote $650.

Worked example — 90-second brand film. Storyboarded, 6 hours of footage, lower-third package, licensed music, two rounds of client notes. 14 hours at $85 = $1,190. That is $790 per finished minute — and it is the correct price. If you had quoted "my rate is $80 a minute" you would have billed $120 for two days' work.

That gap is the entire argument. Run the arithmetic per job for two months and you will have a real per-minute number for each format you actually sell.

Rate bands to check yourself against

Per finished minute, for an experienced editor working direct with clients rather than through a platform:

Podcast / webinar / multicam interview: $10–$30 per finished minute. A 60-minute episode lands at $600–1,500 depending on clean-up, chapters and show notes assets.
Talking-head YouTube with b-roll and captions: $50–$100 per finished minute. A 10-minute episode: $600–1,000.
Corporate / explainer / case study, light motion graphics: $200–$500 per finished minute. A 2-minute piece: $500–1,200.
Brand film or advert with a graphics package, grade, sound design: $500–1,200+ per finished minute.
Short-form vertical: price per clip, $60–$200 each, with batch pricing from ten up. Never per minute — you would be charging $2 for a day of scrubbing.

If your numbers are well under these and your work is good, the problem is usually where you are finding the work, not what you are worth. The same pattern shows up in 3D artist rates per render, per model and per hour: unit pricing looks tidy and hides the labour.

Four things that never live inside the per-minute price

Quote the per-minute figure for the edit. Everything below is a separate line, priced separately, or you are doing it for free.

Revisions past the included rounds. Two rounds included, stated in writing, with a definition: a round is one consolidated set of notes, not eleven messages over four days. Round three onward at your hourly rate. This single line is worth more than any rate increase.

Motion graphics and titles beyond the template. Animated logo stings, kinetic type, data visualisation, anything built rather than dropped in — quote as a flat add-on. $150–$600 depending on complexity.

Licensing and assets. Stock footage, music, sound effects, fonts. Either the client buys them and sends the licence, or you bill them at cost plus a handling fee. Never absorb them.

Rush. Under 48 hours, or anything that requires a weekend, carries 25–50%. Charge it every time, or every job becomes urgent. Freelancemile's breakdown of what clients are really paying for makes the same point: turnaround is a cost driver, not a favour.

Also worth a line: footage handling. Ingest, proxy generation, syncing 400 clips from four cameras and a field recorder. On a big multicam that is half a day before you cut a frame.

How to quote it without inviting a squeeze

Lead with the project total. Show the per-minute figure only as a derived number, and only if they asked for it.

"For a 10-minute episode from up to 3 hours of raw: $650, two revision rounds, delivered in 5 working days. That works out around $65 a finished minute at this length and footage volume."

Three things happen. The total is what they approve. The conditions are attached to the number, so "can we make it 14 minutes" reprices automatically. And the per-minute figure is visibly a result, not a price list they can shop down by asking for a longer video.

For retainers — four episodes a month, or twelve shorts — discount 10–15% for guaranteed volume and a fixed delivery calendar, not more. You are buying predictability, not selling cheap. Four YouTube episodes at $650 is $2,600; at a 12% retainer discount, $2,290 a month for work you can schedule. That is a better business than chasing six one-offs.

And hold the number. The rate reference from PRST and every other guide agree that editors who discount to win a first project rarely get back up with that client. The second project is quoted against the first.

Check your rate against what clients are actually posting

Rate guides tell you what editors say they charge. What you need is what buyers are asking for this week — the format, the length, the turnaround, and increasingly the budget, written by the client in their own post.

That is what IntentPond is: a feed of public posts where somebody asks for video editing to be done, swept continuously, each one with a drafted reply you edit and send yourself. Read twenty of them in your format and your per-minute number stops being a guess. You see who wants 60-minute podcasts done for $400 — skip those — and who is briefing a 90-second brand film and has a real budget line for it.

It is also a faster read than a marketplace bidding war. If you have been grinding through proposals, the comparison in Upwork alternatives that actually pay covers where the same work shows up without the race to the bottom.

Browse every client post in your trade free — a client's contact is $13/week or $39/month. Every post is readable in full, with its draft, in the feed and by email; the client's contact, the link to the post and the author's profile open on a plan. $13/week or $39/month, renews automatically, cancel any time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a fair video editing rate per minute?

It depends entirely on format and edit ratio. Roughly: $10–$30 per finished minute for podcast and multicam interview, $50–$100 for talking-head YouTube with b-roll, $200–$500 for corporate and explainer work with light graphics, and $500–1,200+ for brand films with a graphics package and grade. Derive your own by estimating hours for the job, multiplying by your hourly rate, and dividing by the finished length.

Should I charge per minute, per hour, or per project?

Quote per project. Calculate per hour. Express per minute only if the client asks and only for formats you have done repeatedly. Per-minute pricing works for predictable, repeating deliverables like a weekly podcast; it fails badly on short-form, documentary, and anything with a high footage-to-finished ratio.

How do I price short-form vertical clips?

Per clip, not per minute. $60–$200 each depending on captions, sound design and whether you are sourcing the moments yourself or being handed timecodes. Offer batch pricing from ten clips up. Charging per minute for a 30-second clip prices a full day of scrubbing at under $50.

How many revision rounds should be included?

Two, defined in writing as one consolidated set of notes each. Anything after that bills at your hourly rate. Define a round explicitly — otherwise a client sends notes in fourteen separate messages and calls it one round.

How do I raise my per-minute rate with an existing client?

Raise it at a natural boundary: a new series, a new quarter, or a retainer renewal. Give 30 days' notice, name the new number, and tie it to something concrete you now include — captions, a graphics template, a faster turnaround. Do not apologise or explain your costs. If they leave, your rate was doing the filtering it is supposed to do.