If you’re a wedding videographer like me, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about how you should price your wedding films.
I know that whenever I was starting my wedding filmmaking business, I was constantly stressing about whether I was charging too little, which meant I wasn’t making enough money to survive, or charging too much and pricing myself out of couples wanting to book me.
So I want to give you some clarity and share three big mistakes new wedding videographers make with their pricing, as well as how to fix them. Underneath all of it sits one bigger question: whether to put full pricing on your website.
And because I want to help you out even more, I’ve put together a free guide to help you book more couples for your wedding videography business. It’s completely free.
Mistake 1: Not Charging Enough To Cover Your Fixed Costs
What do I mean by fixed costs? They could be a lot of things, but for your business they’re things like buying or renting or repairing gear, the gas you burn driving to and from a wedding, a hotel room you have to book the night before or after. In essence, a fixed cost is anything you have to pay to run your business.
Story for you. Whenever I was getting started as a wedding filmmaker, I had zero clue about the concept of fixed costs. I was completely winging it. There were no YouTubers making tutorials about wedding filmmaking for me to watch.
So when I filmed my first wedding, which I charged $500 for, I had zero concept of what it actually cost me to film and edit and create that film. In reality it cost me a lot more than $500, because that wedding was in Dallas, Texas, a three and a half hour drive from where I was living. Thankfully I got to stay at my grandma’s house for free so I didn’t have to pay for a hotel. But whenever you factor in that I had to buy gear just to be able to film it, it cost me more than $500 to even show up.
What most new wedding filmmakers forget too is that editing is where you’re going to spend the bulk of your time. Sitting in front of your computer, cutting together clips, downloading music. Music licensing is another fixed cost, but more important than that is the actual time you spend editing.
Your time is valuable and you should be charging for it.
I speak to and coach a lot of wedding filmmakers, and they start their business without even considering what their time is worth. Whenever I ask them about their fixed costs they’ll say something like, hey Matt, I charged $1,000 for this wedding video, and look, it only cost me $700 or $800 to film it, so I’m doing good, that’s $300 profit.
But then I ask them how long it took to edit, and how much they charged the couple for that time. And that’s when I get the blank stare, where they realize, oh. I didn’t charge for that.
So suddenly you have an editing job where even novice video editors are charging, let’s say, fifty bucks an hour, and new wedding videographers are charging nothing. It’s like the couple pays you to film their wedding and then they get the editing for free.
My point is that this is not sustainable. So as you look at your pricing, regardless of whether you’re brand new and have filmed one wedding, or haven’t filmed one at all but you’re planning on it, or you’ve filmed dozens, I want you to look at your fixed costs and make sure you are actually making money.
If you’re making very little to no profit, especially if you’ve been filming weddings for a while and have already done five or ten of them, that is a sign your business is in big trouble and you need to rework your prices ASAP. Otherwise you’re not going to be in business for long.
Mistake 2: Not Charging What Your Market Can Afford
What this means is that where your wedding videography business is located is going to affect how much couples are willing to pay for your films.
I’ve coached a lot of wedding filmmakers over the years, and while a decent portion of them live in bigger cities like Dallas or Chicago or Miami, we’re talking a million plus people, plenty of them live in smaller towns. Maybe you’re in the suburbs an hour or two from a big city, or maybe you live way out in the country and you like it that way, but driving to a bigger city takes you three plus hours.
Regardless of where you live, what you need to keep in mind is that the population of your surrounding area affects how much couples are willing to pay to have you film their wedding. If you live in a smaller town, there are literally fewer people there getting married.
Case in point. Whenever I was starting my business I went to Texas A&M and I was living in a town of approximately 100,000 people, of which approximately 50,000 were college students. I very quickly discovered that while there were some weddings happening in my town, I was hitting a cap on what I could charge. Most couples there were wanting to spend one to two grand for me to film their wedding, and while there were exceptions, I kept hitting a pricing ceiling where I’d say three thousand and people just didn’t want to pay it.
So if you’re like me and you live in a smaller town, you may be experiencing this, where you’re trying to raise your prices but it feels like none of the couples are biting. And while you get lucky a few times a year with a bigger budget couple, it isn’t happening often enough for your business to feel sustainable. That sucks, right?
Well, here’s how I fixed it, and here’s how you can fix it too.
I expanded my market. Instead of focusing on wedding films in my small town of 100,000 people in College Station, Texas, I realized that if I was willing to drive an hour and a half southeast, I’d be in one of the largest cities in the world. Houston.
I soon discovered that Houston is home to one of the most thriving wedding videography markets on the planet, with budgets that completely dwarfed my small town. I’m talking about couples willing to pay five to ten grand or more for a wedding and not bat an eye. A lot of that comes down to there being exponentially more people in Houston, and those people having a higher cost of living, so they have higher budgets to spend on a wedding film.
And keep in mind, the only thing I had to be willing to do to start taking advantage of that higher paying market was drive an hour and a half.
So if you’re struggling with couples who don’t want to pay you more, you need to charge what your market can afford, meaning that if you’re in a smaller town you may find yourself maxing out at one or two thousand dollars because there aren’t many couples getting married with budgets higher than that. But there is nothing stopping you from expanding your market and travelling further.
Maybe you need to be willing to drive an hour or two. Or maybe you’re like some photographer friends of mine who live way out in West Texas, hours away from everything, but who still run a successful wedding photography business because they’re willing to drive to bigger cities like Dallas and Austin to photograph the majority of their weddings.
Here’s another secret. There’s no reason to limit how far you’re willing to travel. Sure, I started by expanding to Houston because it was only an hour and a half away. But soon after, I expanded to filming weddings across the whole state of Texas, which gave me access to Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, all thriving wedding markets. Then when couples started reaching out from other states and countries, I expanded even further, because I knew I had airports nearby.
So charge what your market can afford, and don’t be afraid to expand your market if you want to raise your prices.
Mistake 3: Not Using Add Ons
Add ons are anything extra you can offer your couples to raise the price over the initial cost of their wedding film. So once you’ve figured out your fixed costs, and then figured out what your market can handle, this is how you make more money on top of that.
While you’re here, take a look at Editing MISTAKES Keeping You From Making Good Wedding Videos.
For example, let’s say a couple asks you to film them a five minute wedding film, which you’re happy to do. A great add on would be a full ceremony edit, where you create a separate video showing their entire ceremony from beginning to end.
While you’re doing this, I want you to think like McDonald’s. Yes, the fast food restaurant. Or, if you’re from Texas or the southern US like me, think about Whataburger, which is arguably a lot better than McDonald’s.
What happens whenever you visit a fast food restaurant? You order a burger and the worker immediately asks, do you want fries with that?
Those fries are something the restaurant has already made. There’s a worker back there making fries basically 24/7, just waiting for people to buy them. And McDonald’s and Whataburger know that the odds are, if you buy a burger, you’re probably going to want fries too. It’s a great opportunity for them to make a few extra dollars, and for you to be happier, because you’re eating delicious french fries. Come on. Everybody loves french fries.
For you as a wedding filmmaker, whenever a couple books a wedding film, you need to be offering add ons. And while these may not be french fries, which could arguably be very tasty, and I do think there could potentially be a market where you offer french fries with the wedding video edit, and then the couple sits down eating fries instead of popcorn to watch their wedding film. I’m just saying. It’s a great idea.
Anyways, you’re going to make a lot more than two dollar french fries, because you could be charging $300, $500 or $700 for a full ceremony edit.
And just like the fast food restaurant with fries, for the couple this is a no brainer. Do you want fries with your burger? Of course you do. Do you want a full ceremony edit with your wedding film? Of course you do. The couple just said yes to you filming their wedding. Human psychology says they’re most likely going to say yes to the ceremony edit as well.
Keep the french fry analogy going too. Just like there’s a worker in the back always making fries so they’re ready to go, you as the wedding videographer have already filmed the ceremony. It’s sitting on your hard drive, and you were already going to use a bit of it in the wedding film, so putting together a full ceremony edit is not going to take you much time at all. You’ve already gone through that footage once. It’s very easy to throw together.
So there’s really no reason not to offer it, because it’s very low effort for a high paying result.
Last fast food analogy. Don’t limit yourself to just french fries. If you’re at McDonald’s, they don’t stop there. “Do you want fries with that” is just the start. Then there’s the drink. Do you want it large? Then there’s dessert. Do you want the apple pie?
Do you see how many add ons they offer? You should do the same. Have a curated selection you can offer your couples once they book, and make sure you actually offer them, because the odds are they’re going to say yes and you’re going to make a greater profit.
Download My Free Quick Tips Guide
So there you have it, three mistakes new wedding filmmakers make with pricing, and how to fix them.
Let me know in the comments how you’re doing with pricing your wedding films, as well as anything else you’d like me to cover to help with your wedding filmmaking business.
And if you haven’t downloaded my quick tips guide to booking more wedding film clients, it’s completely free.
Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day!