Video Quote Comparison Tool

Video quotes are hard to compare because almost nobody quotes the same thing. One vendor prices a shoot day. Another prices a finished video. A third prices a package of deliverables with a runtime cap. Put three of those next to each other and the totals are not measuring the same quantity, which is why the cheapest number on the page is so often the wrong one to act on.

The fix is to reduce every quote to the same unit before you compare anything. This tool uses two. Cost per finished video answers what one deliverable costs, which is the unit that matters when you are buying a batch. Cost per finished minute answers what one minute of screen time costs, which is the unit that matters when runtimes differ, because a quote for one three minute explainer and a quote for six thirty second ads are not comparable on total price and are directly comparable per minute. Both are simple division, and both numbers are built entirely from figures you typed.

Unit cost alone is still not enough, because a total only means something once you know what it buys. That is what the scope matrix does. Sixteen line items is roughly how a complete video quote breaks down, and ticking what each vendor actually covers turns a vague sense that one quote seems light into a specific list of what it leaves out. A quote missing the script, the color grade and the music license is not a cheaper version of the others. It is a smaller project that will be topped up later.

How to read the result

Start with the spread. If the highest cost per finished minute is more than roughly twice the lowest, the working assumption should be that the scopes differ rather than that somebody is overcharging. Go to the gap list and check what the expensive quote includes that the cheap one does not. Frequently that single step explains most of the difference, and occasionally it reveals that the expensive quote is the better value one.

Then read the two gap cards. Items quoted by some vendors and not by others are the ones distorting your comparison right now, because they are the reason two totals are not like for like. Items quoted by nobody are a different risk: they are the ones most likely to arrive as a change order after you have signed, since every vendor has either assumed you do not need them or assumed you will supply them yourself.

Finally check revision rounds and the usage rights term, which are the two things buyers most often skip. A quote with no revision rounds is a quote where every change after delivery is billable. A quote that does not state a rights term is not granting you unlimited use, it simply has not answered the question, and talent and music usually carry their own separate terms on top. Send the generated question list to every vendor rather than only the one you are suspicious of, because the answers are only useful when they come back in the same shape.

Where the numbers come from

Every dollar figure on this page is one you entered. The tool holds no price list, no industry averages and no benchmark ranges, and it will not tell you whether a quote is fair, because a per-minute figure that is high for one format is low for another and publishing a single range would mislead more people than it helped. What the tool does is arithmetic you can check yourself: two divisions, a count of ticked boxes, and a ratio between the highest and lowest unit cost. The sixteen line items are how quotes are conventionally itemized, not a specification any vendor is failing to meet.

If you would rather work forward from a brief than backward from quotes you already hold, the video production cost estimator prices a project from its type, length and deliverable count, and the production timeline calculator dates the delivery. For background on how studios differ before you request quotes at all, the guide to choosing a video production company covers what separates them.

Once you know what you are buying, the scope questions get easier to answer concretely. Commercial and explainer production is where color grade, sound mix and music licensing carry the most weight, while UGC and vertical ad work lives or dies on deliverable count and how many aspect ratios you receive. Envy Creative quotes flat per deliverable, which is why the per video column above is the one worth asking every vendor to fill in.