Short-form clips run $30–$60 per video. Long-form YouTube editing runs $50–$200 per finished minute. Podcast editing runs $50–$200 per episode. Monthly retainers for consistent volume run $1,000–$3,500, depending on scope.
Why "it depends" is the honest answer, and the useful one anyway
Every pricing page in this industry eventually says "it depends," and it's true, but it's not an excuse to withhold numbers. What it actually depends on is knowable: format, complexity, provider type, and volume. Once you know how those four variables move a price, "it depends" turns into a range you can actually use to judge a quote, instead of a shrug.
Rates by provider type
The same video costs a different amount depending on who's cutting it, and the gap isn't random. It tracks overhead, backup coverage, and how much of the price is the edit itself versus everything around it.
| Provider | Short-form (per video) | Long-form (per minute) | What the rate includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelance marketplace | $10–$40 | $20–$100 | Just the edit, usually no account backup |
| In-house editing agency | $30–$60 | $50–$150 | Dedicated editor, revisions, quality check |
| Full-service studio | $50–$90 | $100–$300+ | Account management, motion graphics, sound design |
| In-house full-time hire | Salaried | Salaried | Fixed cost regardless of volume, roughly $50k–$90k/yr in the US |
These are working ranges based on typical market rates, not a survey result, and any individual quote can land outside them for a good reason. Treat them as a sanity check on a quote, not a hard ceiling or floor.
What actually moves the price within each range
Two projects in the same format and the same provider category can still land at opposite ends of the range. Complexity is the biggest driver: a static talking-head video with minimal graphics costs less than a piece with motion graphics, multiple locations, and a full sound design pass. Raw footage volume matters too, since an editor sorting through three hours of footage for a five-minute video spends real time just finding the story before any actual cutting starts. Turnaround speed adds a premium in most shops, since a rush job compresses an editor's ability to work around other commitments. And revision scope shifts price at the margins, since "two rounds included" and "unlimited revisions" are functionally different products even at the same headline rate.
A rush turnaround, under 24 hours, typically adds 25–50% to a standard quote. If your deadline has flexibility, saying so upfront is one of the easiest ways to bring a rate down without changing scope.
Per-video, per-minute, or retainer: which pricing model fits
Per-video pricing works cleanly for short-form content, where runtime doesn't vary much project to project, so a flat rate is easy for both sides to reason about. Per-minute pricing fits long-form work better, since a six-minute video and a twenty-minute video are genuinely different amounts of labor, and a flat per-video rate would either overcharge the short one or undercharge the long one. A retainer earns its place once volume is consistent enough, usually four or five videos a month or more, that a standing rate beats renegotiating scope every time, and it typically comes with a modest discount over paying per piece.