How to price explainer videos so the margin survives
Tiers, revision fees, retainers and rush work — with the numbers underneath them.
Pricing is where agencies lose the money they made on production. Animated explainer video costs under £5 to produce and is worth hundreds to the client, so the only question that matters is what the explanation is worth to them — not how long it took you. Price the outcome, cap the revisions, and put the rush fee in writing before anyone asks for one.
Three tiers, no more
Clients choose faster from three options, and most pick the middle one. Name them after what the client gets, never after production effort.
| Tier | Contents | Price | Your cost at Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | One 60-second explainer, one revision, one format | £350 | £4.90 |
| Complete | One 90-second explainer, three social cuts, two revisions | £900 | £19.60 |
| Programme | Four videos a month, brand on file, 48-hour turnaround | £1,200/month | £19.60/month |
Never price by the second
The moment you quote per second, the client starts editing your invoice instead of your script. Quote a flat fee per finished video. If they want a longer film, move them up a tier rather than adding minutes to a meter.
Charging for revisions
Include one round, charge for the rest. This is not greed — it is the only thing that keeps a £350 job from becoming a three-week conversation. A revision fee of £50 to £95 is normal and is usually paid without complaint because the client can see how quickly it comes back.
For cold leads you can set a revision price per lead. The change request only reaches your work queue once it has been paid, so nobody is doing free work by accident.
Rush and out-of-hours
You can deliver same-day. That is worth money, so sell it: a 50% surcharge for delivery inside four hours is defensible when the alternative quote is four weeks. Publish it up front and it becomes a revenue line rather than an argument.
Retainers beat one-off sales
A single video is a transaction; four a month is a business. Retainers work because clients always have another thing to explain and because the brand settings are already saved, so the second video takes half the time of the first.
- Keep the monthly number round and the deliverable count fixed.
- Roll one unused video over, never two — it keeps the queue honest.
- Review the rate every six months against what they are getting.
Four ways agencies lose the margin
Watch for these; each one is more expensive than the production cost of every video you will make this year.
- Unlimited revisions with no fee attached.
- Quoting hours instead of outcomes.
- Discounting to win a logo, then never raising the price.
- Bundling video into an existing retainer for free as a goodwill gesture.
Price your first package
Free to write and rewrite. Credits are only used when you generate.
Common questions
- What is a fair price for a 60-second explainer?
- Agencies commonly sell between £300 and £1,500 depending on market and client size. Studio quotes for the same length usually start around £2,000.
- Should I tell the client what the tool costs?
- No more than a design agency itemises its software licences. You are selling the script, the judgement and the finished asset.
- How do I charge for revisions to a cold lead?
- Set a revision price against that lead. They see the price on the video page, pay for the change, and it reaches you as paid work.
- Should video be inside my existing retainer?
- Only as a fixed number of videos with a stated price attached. Unlimited video inside a fixed retainer is the fastest way to make the service unprofitable.
- What about usage rights?
- Write your terms once — where they can use it and for how long — and they are shown at checkout on every lead sale.