Budgeting video across a financial year

Budgeting video for a year works best when you set the strategy budget first and let it decide the production spend, rather than picking a total number and hoping the plan fits inside it. Start with a media strategy engagement from $5,000, then allocate the rest against either standalone projects or an ongoing retainer, depending on how often you need new material.

Most businesses that budget for video the other way around, picking a number that feels reasonable and then working out what it buys, end up with a plan shaped by the budget rather than by what the business actually needs video to do. That produces a lot of content and not much impact. A better starting point is the plan, with the budget built around it.

Start with the strategy line

Whatever else is in the year's plan, the strategy engagement comes first, because it decides everything downstream: how many videos, what kind, for which channels, in what order. Treat it as the foundation line item rather than an optional extra tacked onto the top of a production budget. We cover exactly what that engagement includes in what a media strategy engagement includes.

Then decide: retainer, or a run of projects

Once the plan exists, the rest of the year's budget usually splits one of two ways. A retainer, at $5,000 to $10,000 a month with a minimum six-month term, suits a business that needs a steady cadence, one new piece of proof or content roughly every month, rather than a single annual hero video. A run of standalone projects, each priced from $2,000 to $20,000 depending on scope, suits a business with a handful of distinct needs across the year: a recruitment push in one quarter, an annual report video in another, a new service launch in a third. Both are valid ways to spend the same total. The difference is whether the need is continuous or occasional, and it's worth settling deliberately rather than defaulting to whichever structure you bought last time.

Build in production days, not just deliverables

When you're planning against a financial year, it helps to think in production days rather than finished videos, because one well-briefed day, at around $6,000, can produce far more than a single asset if it's planned that way. A quarter's budget that assumes one shoot day produces one video will run out faster than a quarter's budget that assumes one shoot day feeds a hero piece, several supporting cuts and a run of short-form content. Plan the pyramid of outputs before you allocate the spend, not after.

Leave room to measure and adjust

A year-long plan should include time and budget to check what's actually working, not just to keep producing. Watch-through rates, page conversion for videos placed at decision points, and leads that trace back to specific pieces all tell you whether the next quarter's spend should shift. We've written more on how to track that properly in measuring video ROI: the three-layer stack. A budget with no review point baked in is a budget you'll repeat next year without knowing whether it worked.

Budgeting for photography alongside video

If the year's plan includes photography, budget for it separately from the video line rather than folding it in as an afterthought. A photography session carries a $350 creative fee plus $110 per retouched image, or packages from $2,000 for businesses refreshing images regularly, team headshots as people join, updated site photos each year. It's a smaller, more predictable line than video, and it's often worth scheduling alongside a video shoot day where the brief allows, since a crew already on site for one can usually capture the other without a second visit.

A rough shape for a year

For a business starting from close to zero, a workable financial-year shape looks something like: strategy first, a foundation piece or two in the first quarter, then either a retainer cadence or two to three further standalone projects across the remaining three quarters, timed against real business moments, a recruitment campaign, an event, a new service, rather than spread evenly for its own sake. The exact split depends entirely on what the strategy work turns up. See the full pricing structure this is built from on our strategy page.

If you're putting a budget together for the year ahead and want it built around an actual plan rather than a guess, get in touch and we'll help you shape it.