Guide
One rate, six line items, five of them negotiable
A creator quotes you one number. Inside it sit six separable line items. Concepting, the shoot, deliverables, revisions, usage rights and whitelisting. This page unbundles all six, shows how to cut five of them without changing anything on screen, then multiplies the result by the published win rate. You will finish holding a cost per winner.
- Separable line items inside one quoted number
- 6
- Cost per tested ad to cost per winner, at published rates
- 13-20x
- Calendar a commissioned batch takes, start to delivery
- 9-10 days
Send the six rows back as a table and ask for a price against each
Unbundling is how you compare offers. It is also how you cut a budget without cutting what appears on screen. Nobody minds being asked.
Good creators price this way internally already. The ones who cannot break the number down are usually the ones whose number was a guess.
A table also makes two quotes comparable. Organic-only with no revisions is not the same purchase as twelve months of paid usage across several markets.
Quotes diverge most on deliverables and usage. Those two rows explain most of the gap between any pair of numbers you are holding.
- Concepting. Who writes the script and the hook. If you supply it, this should come out of the price.
- The shoot. Their time, their setup, their location, and how many separate setups the brief demands.
- Deliverables. How many finished videos, at what lengths, in which aspect ratios.
- Revisions. How many rounds are included and what counts as a round.
- Usage rights. Organic only, or paid media. For how long. In which markets.
- Whitelisting. Whether the ad may run from their handle rather than your brand page, which carries its own fee.
Six line items, and how to cut each without touching the screen
Every row here is negotiable separately. The single number is the only version you cannot negotiate.
| What you are paying for | How to cut it | |
|---|---|---|
| Concepting | Their script, their hook, their angle | Supply both and ask for the line to come out |
| The shoot | Time, setup, location, number of setups | Book one setup with more scripts in it |
| Deliverables | Finished cuts at set lengths and ratios | Buy the raw take and cut the variants yourself |
| Revisions | Rounds, and an undefined idea of a round | Define a round in writing before the shoot |
| Usage rights | Paid media, term, markets, platforms | Short licence now, extension priced upfront |
| Whitelisting | Running the ad from their handle | Skip it unless the handle is the point |
The short licence you bought to save money is the one that wins
A video for organic posting and the same video licensed for paid media are different products. Twelve months across several markets is a third product again.
The trap is buying a short licence on a creative that then wins. Now you are re-licensing under time pressure with nothing to negotiate with. Or you pull a profitable ad off the account.
The reasonable posture is a short licence for exploratory batches, with an extension option priced upfront for anything you would be sad to lose.
Ask two more questions while you are there. Does the licence cover editing and derivative cuts? A video you may run but not shorten is a fixed asset rather than a testing asset.
And does it cover the raw take? That is where the hook variants live, and it is routinely excluded by default.
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
Multiply your per-video cost by thirteen to twenty, then talk about budget
Headline rates are almost useless for comparison. The packages differ. Convert every option to one figure. The loaded cost of one creative that goes live and gets read.
That means dividing by usable deliverables rather than promised ones. Then add your own costs. A pack of six where two came back off-brief is a pack of four at the price of six.
Then apply the base rate. Published benchmarks put the winner share at 5 to 8 percent, per Motion's analysis of 550,000+ Meta ads.
So your real cost per winner is your cost per tested ad multiplied by thirteen to twenty. That multiplication should be driving the budget conversation. Almost nobody does it.
Run it once on your last quarter and the meeting changes character. A quote that looked reasonable becomes a number you defend against how many winners it produced.
What one winner costs, in units of one tested ad
Multiply your unbundled per-video cost by this. It is the only figure that connects creative spend to revenue.
- One tested ad1x
- One winner at 8 percent13x
- One winner at 5 percent20x
The fee earns itself on the face you cannot get, not on the twelfth cutdown
A creator earns the fee when you need something you cannot produce. A face your audience does not associate with you. A setting you do not have. A demonstration needing a second pair of hands.
The fee is harder to justify on repetition. Twelve near-identical vertical cuts, differing by opening line and length. High coordination cost. Low creative variance.
Watch where the days go, not only the dollars. A brief, a contract, a shipment, a shoot scheduled around their week, a delivery, a revision request and a re-delivery.
Nine or ten calendar days is normal. Nobody is at fault. It is what coordinating two independent businesses costs. It is also why volume built on commissioning stalls.
Price those days in testing slots rather than in hours. Ten days of calendar is a slot you did not fill. For most accounts one slot is worth more than the shoot fee attached to it.
Run that comparison once before you argue about the rate again.
Nine days of coordination, and nobody is at fault
This is the cost of scheduling two independent businesses against each other, not a criticism of anyone in it.
- Brief and contract2 days
- Product shipped2 days
- Their shoot day1 day
- Delivery2 days
- Revision and re-delivery2 days
Buy the source from people, cut the variants yourself, and check the licence first
The split most teams settle on is buying strong source material from people, then producing the variants in house. Cutroom is built for that second half.
Buy the raw take. It is the cheapest row in the table. Upload it here for one batch of 100 credits. Back it comes as a finished 9:16 MP4, cut, captioned and covered with footage.
Then the deliverables row collapses. Delete a line and the cut rebuilds. Change the pace and it re-cuts. Trim the opening. Each variant exports at 20 credits per output minute instead of being quoted as a new job.
That is the row nobody else removes. A marketplace sells you finished cuts. An editor sells you hours. This turns one purchased take into the whole batch, on a Tuesday, with no re-delivery.
Two checks first. Your licence has to cover editing and derivative cuts. Plenty do not. The take has to be somebody speaking, up to three minutes.
Every export is a 9:16 MP4 and there is no timeline underneath. Both are facts of the format rather than settings you can change.
Questions people ask
- Should I pay per video or per shoot day?
- Per shoot day is usually better value when you have many scripts ready, because the setup cost is spread. Per video is safer when you have one idea and want a specific outcome. Either way, define what counts as a deliverable in writing.
- What is a fair number of revision rounds?
- One or two, with a clear definition of what a round is. Most disputes come from an undefined round rather than a stingy one. A precise brief with the exact opening line and a pacing reference removes most revision requests before they happen.
- Do I own the footage?
- Usually not by default. Most agreements license usage rather than transfer ownership, and raw footage is often excluded. If you want the raw take so you can cut variants later, negotiate it explicitly and expect it to cost something.
- How do I keep costs down without lowering quality?
- Supply the script and the hook, book fewer setups with more scripts each, buy raw footage plus editing rights instead of finished cuts, and keep the licence short with an agreed extension price. Those four moves cut the invoice without touching the screen.
- When is cutting the variants yourself the wrong plan?
- When your licence excludes derivative cuts, or the source is a silent product montage rather than somebody speaking. Buy finished deliverables in those two cases and budget the coordination days honestly.
Buy the raw take, not the finished cuts. One batch of 100 credits turns it into the whole set, and the coordination days never happen.