The Budget Discussion
OK, so what do we define as a “reasonable budget?”

Well, quite frankly it’s all over the map.

Historically, slide shows and videos have approximated the cost of a new car. The cost of a simple 10 minute show in 1972 was about the cost of a pretty nice Chevy. 

Thanks to the advent of new lower-cost high definition technology, the new car analogy is still valid today. Budgets range from around $10k for an equivalent Chevy to around $100k for a Porsche SUV. So somewhere in between is where you’ll find a reasonable budget for a video, presentation or Website.

Another way to look at ballpark budgets is on a dollar-per-minute basis. One rule of thumb we use is $2,000/finished minute, plus or minus $1,000. That’s a wide range, but that’s because each client’s story can be expressed in an infinite number of ways! For Web sites or PowerPoint, we can discuss dollar-per-page or dollar-per-slide ballparks.

Rather than optional extras on a car, the budget varies with time and complexity in producing the show. Sometimes a 5 minute show can cost more than an hour long show, depending on the logistics of acquiring or creating the show’s assets, and how detailed it becomes in putting it all together. 

At Advent Media, we use a budget estimator to determine how much time we can assign to the various stages of production based on a given budget. This tells us how well the client’s budget fits with expectations, and allows us to offer guaranteed fixed pricing once treatment and budget are approved.  If we can know beforehand what kind of budget our client has, we can tailor the process to get the maximum impact for every dollar spent.

The final point regards the “treatment.” Without a definitive treatment document that fully describes the parameters of the show, presentation or Website, a budget is merely an estimate. At Advent Media, we believe in quantifying our budgets with a specific scope of work, resulting in a no surprises, no excuses experience for everyone! Because this involves a considerable amount of time, clients may be asked to pay a pre-production fee, which will be applied to the total budget. If you are comparing production companies, be sure they have quantified the budget with a treatment!