Last checked: October 2026 (every price opened on 25 Oct 2026). Published by Increditors, a video editing agency, and includes our own services.
A mid-tier videographer’s day rate is $600 to $1,200 for 8 to 10 hours, per Vidico. A half day costs 60% to 75% of that, about $360 to $900. Hourly rates run $100 to $150 in the US and $50 to $96 in the UK on Upwork. A 3 to 5 person crew day is $2,500 to $8,000.
Three variables set a videographer’s rate: experience ($250 to $3,500+ a day), market (the US hourly midpoint is about 1.7 times the UK midpoint) and the day you book (a half day costs more per hour than a full one). This guide prices the day, half day and hour by market tier from Vidico, NeedaCrew, Upwork, Thumbtack and the BLS, each read on 25 Oct 2026. It does not price packages.
- What a day rate covers
- Day rates at a glance
- Half-day vs full-day rates
- Hourly rates by market tier
- US and Canada city multipliers
- Crew day rates by role
- Overtime, prep days and kit fees
- Employed wages as a floor check
- The sourced price table
- Where editing fits
- How we picked (and our disclosure)
- FAQ
- About this guide
What a videographer day rate covers
A day rate is a flat fee for one working day of filming, normally 8 to 10 hours. It usually covers the operator, their camera kit and setup, and usually not editing, travel, a second shooter or licences. Buyers who search for one are mostly asking: is this quote in line with the market?
This page prices the unit of time (day, half day and hour) by market tier. It leaves out packages and whole-project pricing, which other Increditors pages cover: the videography pricing guide (rate card with packages), what a videographer costs (whole-job budgets) and the video production pricing guide (by project type). We are a video editing agency that edits rather than shoots, so none of the rates below are ours; each comes from the source named in its row.
💡 Pro tip: Ask two questions before comparing day rates: how many hours does the day include, and who edits the footage? A $700 day that is 8 hours and shoot-only is not comparable with a $900 day that is 10 hours and includes a rough cut.
Videographer day rates at a glance
Vidico’s September 2026 videographer guide splits US freelance rates by experience, the cleanest single source for the day and the hour side by side.
Source: Vidico, How Much Do Videographers Charge (article dated 21 Sep 2026) and Vidico, Video Production Cost, both read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026. Figures reflect the US market.
Two sense checks agree. Thumbtack lists a national average fixed price of $600 to $870 for video producers (a job price, not a day rate; its cost page is dated 26 August 2020), and Video Editing Company’s commercial cost page states professional crew day rates of $750 to $2,500+ per person.
Half-day vs full-day rates
Booking half a day does not halve the price. Vidico states that a half day usually costs 60% to 75% of a full day, which gives these figures (our arithmetic).
Half-day ranges are our arithmetic: 60% of the low end and 75% of the high end of Vidico’s day rate. The per-hour ratio is 0.60 or 0.75 divided by 0.50 of the hours.
A half day buys half the time for 60% to 75% of the money, so each hour costs 1.2 to 1.5 times what it does on a full day. Setup, travel and breakdown do not shrink with the shoot.
A second data point agrees: a Berkeley studio on Thumbtack priced a four-hour package at $300 and an eight-hour package at $500, which is 60% (our arithmetic). That page is dated 26 August 2020, so read it as evidence of the ratio, not of today’s dollars.
When a half day is the better buy
- A single-subject interview or testimonial that fits in four hours on site, including setup.
- A shoot with location, talent and script already locked, so no time is lost waiting.
- Pickup shots to patch an existing edit.
If the shoot needs two locations or a lighting reset, book the full day: stretching a half day with extra setups is the expensive way to buy time.
Videographer hourly rates by market tier
Hourly rates show location most clearly. Upwork publishes a typical hourly range on a page for each country, and we opened ten of them on 25 Oct 2026.
Source: Upwork videographers, United States and the Upwork videographer pages for Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Poland, India, the Philippines and Pakistan, read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026. Upwork’s own cost page gives a worldwide median hourly range of $10 to $53. Tier labels are ours.
$100 to $150
$53 to $107
$50 to $96
$50 to $90
$46 to $88
$34 to $69
$21 to $40
$20 to $40
$15 to $29
$10 to $24
Midpoint = (low + high) / 2 of each Upwork range, our arithmetic. Read 25 Oct 2026. Marketplace profile rates, not quotes for a booked shoot.
The US midpoint of $125 is about 1.7 times the UK midpoint of $73 and 5.7 times the Philippines midpoint of $22 (our arithmetic). The developed-market group (Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia) clusters between $46 and $107, so UK and Canadian buyers should not anchor on US numbers.
⚠️ Marketplace rates are not shoot-day rates: Upwork lists profile rates for freelancers who may film, edit or both. Use the hourly table to compare markets and the day-rate bands above to budget a shoot.
We found no UK day-rate card we could open on 25 Oct 2026, so the Upwork UK range of $50 to $96 is the only dated UK figure here. Our video editor hourly rates and video editing pricing survey cover the edit side.
US and Canada day rates by city tier
NeedaCrew, a crew booking platform, publishes 2026 US and Canada day rates with city multipliers against a Los Angeles 1.00x baseline. We group its cities into three tiers and apply the multiplier to a $1,000 reference day and its $800 to $3,000 DP range (our arithmetic).
Multipliers from NeedaCrew, Film Crew Day Rates by Role and City (2026), read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026. Adjusted figures are our arithmetic. NeedaCrew states these as realistic ranges as of May 2026.
The spread is narrower than people expect: moving from Tier 1 to Tier 3 takes 10% to 20% off a rate, not 50%. Vidico adds that New York and Los Angeles run well above the national average, and that studio or location rental of $500 to $3,000 a day varies by market, so the premium compounds when a shoot needs a space as well as a crew.
⚠️ Do not double-adjust: NeedaCrew’s base table is already pitched at a mid-sized US market, so applying a multiplier to a figure that already reflects a regional price can understate a big-city quote. Use the multipliers to compare cities, not to rebuild a quote.
Crew day rates by role
Once a shoot needs lighting and sound, each role has its own day rate. NeedaCrew’s quick reference (non-union, 10 to 12 hour day, May 2026):
Source: NeedaCrew, read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026.
A worked crewed day (our arithmetic)
A three-person interview crew of a DP, a sound mixer and a gaffer costs $2,000 at the low end of each range ($800 + $600 + $600) and $5,400 at the high end ($3,000 + $1,200 + $1,200). NeedaCrew warns that day rates are only 60% to 70% of the real cost of crew once kit fees, overtime contingency and payroll costs are added, so the budget line becomes roughly $2,857 to $9,000 ($2,000 divided by 0.70 and $5,400 divided by 0.60).
Vidico independently puts a 3 to 5 person crew at $2,500 to $8,000 per day, and camera rental at $500 to $1,500 a day. The sources agree on the order of magnitude: a crewed day is a four-figure line before talent, location and editing.
Overtime, prep days and kit fees
The day rate is where the quote starts. NeedaCrew sets out the conventions most non-union crew contracts follow:
- Overtime: hours 1 to 10 at straight time (day rate divided by 10), hours 10 to 12 at 1.5x and hours past 12 at 2x. Some contracts use a 12-hour baseline.
- Prep and travel days: prep days are typically half rate and travel days are typically 8 hours flat at straight time.
- Kit fees: crew who bring their own gear charge a separate daily fee, from $25 to $50 for a PA up to $300 to $750 for a sound mixer.
Our arithmetic using NeedaCrew’s overtime rules: a $500 day that runs 14 hours costs $850, which is NeedaCrew’s own worked example and the check we ran on our formula.
Freelance videographers who quote a flat 8 to 10 hour day may not apply this scale, but a day that runs long is where disputes start. Write the hours and the overtime rule into the booking.
💡 Pro tip: Vidico lists a second camera operator at $500 to $1,000 added to the day, and drones or specialty lighting at $25 to $110 an hour or a flat gear fee. Ask for these as separate line items.
What employed camera operators earn: a floor check
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes pay for employed workers, a floor to compare freelance rates against.
Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Film and Video Editors and Camera Operators, read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026. The OOH combined group median is $75,100 a year, or $36.10 an hour.
An 8-hour day at the median hourly wage is about $288 (our arithmetic). A $600 to $1,200 freelance day is therefore 2.1 to 4.2 times an employee’s day. Vidico says freelancers cover their own gear ($15,000 to $40,000 for a professional kit), insurance, downtime and self-employment taxes.
Vidico puts $20,000 to $30,000 of gear on top of an in-house salary, while a day rate only runs on shoot days.
The sourced price table
Every figure below was read on the named page on 25 Oct 2026. Rows we could not retrieve were dropped; none are estimates.
That is 17 dated figures here; the tables above add 10 Upwork country ranges, 11 NeedaCrew roles and 6 BLS measures. The full set, with source URLs, is in a dataset we hold.
Where editing fits in a day-rate budget
A day rate buys footage; turning it into a finished video is a second line. Vidico says a one-hour corporate presentation can need five to ten hours of editing, which at its $60 to $150 editor rate is $300 to $1,500 on top of the shoot (our arithmetic).
Increditors is a video editing agency with Clutch 5.0 from 12 reviews, 1,700+ videos delivered and 340+ clients, including Emerj, TuMeke and a GoDaddy pilot. Read the TuMeke case study and our other case studies. For published editing prices see the video editing cost guide and how to hire a video editor.
For retainer editing on a B2B or SaaS account, Video Editing Company is a premium, dedicated-team option and a division of Increditors. Neither of us shoots, so pair either with a videographer priced from the tables above.
✅ Our own bias: We sell editing, so we benefit when you separate the shoot from the edit. If you need cameras and crew, hire a videographer and use these rates to keep the quote honest.
How we picked (and our disclosure)
We opened each source on 25 Oct 2026. A source entered if it published a public figure for a videographer or crew by the day, half day or hour, or a wage that anchors one. We dropped what we could not use:
- ProductionHub: its home page and blog index carry no public videographer rate listing, so it is not used.
- Thumbtack videographer page: it returned no content to our script, so we used its video production cost page (examples dated 26 August 2020).
- Upwork Romania page: no rate sentence, so Romania is not shown.
- BLS OEWS profile pages: the URLs redirected, so wages come from the Occupational Outlook Handbook page for May 2025.
Every half day, overtime total, hourly midpoint, ratio and budget we calculated is marked “our arithmetic”; every other figure is a number on the provider’s own page.
⚠️ Disclosure: This guide is published by Increditors, a video editing agency, and includes our own services. Video Editing Company is our division, so it is not independent. Data date: 25 Oct 2026. No vendor paid for placement and none reviewed this page.
FAQ
What is the average day rate for a videographer?
Vidico puts a mid-tier professional at $600 to $1,200 for an 8 to 10 hour day, a beginner at $250 to $500 and a specialist at $2,000 to $3,500+. Thumbtack’s $600 to $870 national average is a job price, not a day rate. Read on 25 Oct 2026.
How much does a half-day videographer cost?
Vidico says a half day usually costs 60% to 75% of a full day, which is about $360 to $900 at the mid-tier rate (our arithmetic). A Thumbtack-listed Berkeley studio shows $300 for four hours and $500 for eight, a 60% ratio, on a cost page dated 26 August 2020.
What is the hourly rate for a videographer?
Vidico gives $50 to $150 an hour for freelance videographers. Upwork shows $100 to $150 for the United States, $50 to $96 for the United Kingdom and a worldwide median of $10 to $53.
Does a videographer day rate include editing?
Usually not. Vidico says most videographers bill filming by the day and editing separately at about $60 to $150 an hour, so five to ten hours of editing is $300 to $1,500 on top of the shoot (our arithmetic).
How much do day rates vary by city?
NeedaCrew uses Los Angeles as 1.00x, New York at 0.95x to 1.00x, Atlanta and Chicago at 0.85x to 0.90x and Austin and Miami at 0.80x to 0.90x. Vidico notes New York and Los Angeles run well above the national average.
How is overtime charged on a day rate?
NeedaCrew describes a 10-hour baseline day, with hours 10 to 12 at 1.5x and anything after hour 12 at 2x, so a $500 day that runs 14 hours costs $850. Confirm the hours in writing.
📅 Last checked and changelog: Last checked October 2026. Changelog: 25 Oct 2026 — first published (day, half-day and hourly rates read 25 Oct 2026).
About this guide
The Increditors editorial team is the group of editors and strategists behind our video work for marketing teams and founders, with 1,700+ videos delivered. We build price guides from the vendors’ own pages and name every source and date.
Ready for Video That Actually Converts?
Tell us about your footage and we will put together a custom plan.
Clients, on camera
