What to charge for a reel, from your own numbers

A rate does not come from the account you admire: it comes from what the piece costs you and what you need to earn. Put in your real hours and your hourly rate, add the things that are a price rather than a cost, and read both figures at once: what you charge for the piece, and what you end up earning per hour.

Your hourly rate

Where it comes from

What you need to bill in a year

Your own pay plus what the business costs to keep running: social security, your accountant, software, gear, and the month when nothing comes in.

Days you work in a year

Weekends, public holidays and time off taken out.

Hours a day

Billable hours

The rest goes on selling, quoting, admin and fixing things. Spreading your pay across every hour of the year is what turns a rate into a loss.

What one piece really takes

Concept and script

Finding references, writing it and pitching it is time too.

Shooting

Editing and captions

Revisions

The ones you end up doing, not the ones the contract allows.

Publishing and reporting

Uploading, scheduling, handling the first comments and saying how it went.

Costs and margin

Direct costs of the piece

Travel, location, licensed music, props, or someone helping you on the day.

Margin

Not profit: it is the cushion for the job that goes wrong, the client who pays late and the quiet month.

What you charge today for one piece

Optional. Leave it at zero if you have no rate yet.

What is a price, not a cost

Exclusivity You do not work for their competitors for an agreed period. What you are selling is who you turn down.+15%
Paid usage rights The piece will run as an ad. It is agreed per platform and per period, and charged separately from the edit.+25%
Second cut The same footage edited for another format or another network, not an automatic crop.+20%
Rush delivery It jumps ahead of work you had already planned, and your calendar pays for that.+30%

The percentages are a starting point, not a tariff. Push them up when exclusivity runs long, when paid usage has no end date, or when the deadline eats a weekend.

The arithmetic

Price of the piece

196,01 €

This is a price before IVA, the Spanish value added tax. Invoicing a Spanish company may also carry an IRPF withholding, the income tax held back on the invoice, which comes off the total, so what reaches the bank is less than this. Check it with your accountant.

What you would earn per hour

49 €

The price minus direct costs, divided by the hours. It is the figure to look at when someone asks for a discount.

Hourly rate applied

42,61 €

It comes from what you need to bill divided by the hours you can genuinely bill.

Hours per piece

4 h

The invisible half, scripting, revisions and publishing, usually weighs more than the shoot.

The market. This arithmetic knows what the piece costs you and knows nothing about what your city, your sector or that particular client pays for the same thing.
The size of the account and what the piece will earn it. The same reel is worth more to a brand that sells with it than to one that never measures it, and that difference is not in your hours.
The rights you are selling. Use on their own channels, use as an ad, use on their website or an assignment with no end date are different prices for the same file.
Tax. The result is a net price and, invoicing a Spanish company, it may carry a withholding; neither the IVA nor the withholding is yours, even though both pass through your account.

Frequently asked questions

How do you work out an hourly rate?

Divide what you need to bill in a year by the hours you will genuinely bill, which are far fewer than the hours you work. Spreading your pay across every hour of the year is the mistake that puts a rate under cost before you start.

What margin makes sense?

The one that lets you survive a bad month. Margin is not profit: it covers the shoot that falls through, the client who pays late and the time you spend selling, which nobody is invoiced for.

Does the price include IVA?

No. It is the net price, the one that goes on the invoice line before tax. Invoicing a Spanish company may also mean an IRPF withholding, which you do not collect and which comes off the total. The rates depend on your situation, so confirm them with your accountant rather than copying them from a calculator.

Why charge separately for exclusivity or paid usage?

Because they are not work, they are permissions. They take you no extra hours and they give the client something worth money: that you do not work for their competitors, or that they can run your piece as an ad for months. Thrown into the rate for free, they are the one thing you can never sell again.

Fourteen days to decide

Connect one account, schedule a week and see whether it fits. If it does not fit, cancel before day 15 and nothing is charged.

Start free See pricing