A brand asks what you charge for a 60-second video. You pick a number that feels defensible, say it slightly too quickly, and spend the next two weeks wondering whether you left money on the table or talked yourself out of the job.
Every freelancer has done this. The fix isn't confidence. It's having built the number beforehand, from things you can point at.
This is how to build it.
Why "what's your day rate?" is the wrong first question
A day rate that isn't derived from anything is a guess wearing a suit. Worse, it's a guess you'll be anchored to for years, because the second client asks what you charged the first one.
There are two numbers in every video quote, and conflating them is the most expensive mistake in this business:
- The production fee. What it costs to make the thing. Your time, your gear, your crew, your overhead.
- [Usage rights](/glossary/usage-rights). What the client may do with the thing: where, for how long, in what media.
The first is a cost. The second is value. They scale completely differently, and a single blended number lets the client buy the second one for free.
Part one: the production fee
Step 1: Find your real billable days
Start with the number people get wrong: how many days a year you can actually charge for.
There are about 260 working days in a year. From those, subtract:
- Holiday you intend to take
- Public holidays
- Sick days you'll have whether you plan them or not
- Admin, pitching, invoicing, editing your own portfolio, chasing payment, and the meetings that don't become jobs
That last line is the killer. For most working freelancers it's a third to a half of all working time, and it's completely invisible in a day-rate calculation that assumes 260 billable days.
Be pessimistic here. Optimism in this cell is the single most common reason freelancers are working constantly and still broke.
Step 2: Total what the year has to produce
Add up:
- The salary you want to take home
- Tax (at your actual rate, not a hopeful one)
- Business costs: insurance, software subscriptions, accountant, phone, transport
- Gear depreciation. A camera body is not a one-off purchase, it's a rolling cost. Divide its price by the years you'll realistically use it and put that number in.
- A buffer for the quiet month, because there will be one
Step 3: Divide
Target annual total ÷ realistic billable days = your floor day rate.
Floor, not price. This is the number below which you're subsidising the client.
Step 4: Build the shoot, not the guess
Now quote the actual job by counting days rather than picking a number:
- Pre-production: briefing, recce, scripting, scheduling
- Shoot days
- Post: edit, revisions, grade, sound, delivery
- Project management, which is real work and is almost never quoted
Add hard costs at cost, listed separately: crew, gear hire, location, travel, music licensing, insurance.
Now you have a production fee that survives the question "how did you get to that number?" That's the question that separates a rate from a bid.
Part two: usage
Here's the part most freelancers give away.
The production fee pays for making it. Usage pays for the value the client extracts. Two clients can commission the identical two-day shoot and the finished films can be worth wildly different amounts to them: one runs it on a single Instagram account for a month; the other runs it as paid media across four markets for two years.
Charge for that difference. Price usage along four axes:
| Axis | Cheap end | Expensive end |
|---|---|---|
| Media | Organic social only | Paid social, web, broadcast, out-of-home |
| Territory | One country | Worldwide |
| Duration | 6 months | Perpetual |
| [Exclusivity](/glossary/exclusivity) | None | Category exclusivity |
There is no universal multiplier table, and anyone who gives you one is selling something. Rates vary enormously by market, category, and how much of the client's media budget rides on the asset. What's universal is the structure: quote production and usage as separate lines, and make each axis explicit.
Two rules that always hold:
Perpetual worldwide rights are not a rounding error. They're the client asking to use your work forever, everywhere, and they should be priced as such, or granted for a defined term with a renewal fee.
Always carve out portfolio use. A broad asset-exclusivity clause can quietly prevent you from showing your own work. That clause costs you the next job, which is a far bigger number than this one. Get it in writing, every time.
Part three: the conversation
Quote a structured number, not a range. A range invites the client to hear the bottom of it. If you need flexibility, give options (three defined packages) rather than one blurry span.
Itemise. A single figure is a thing to negotiate down. An itemised quote is a thing to negotiate scope on, which is a much better conversation. "We could drop the second shoot day" is a discussion you can win. "Can you do it for less?" isn't.
When asked for your rate first, ask about scope first. Not as a tactic: because you genuinely cannot price a job you haven't scoped. "Happy to. Tell me about deliverables, usage and timeline and I'll come back with something itemised today" is a professional answer, not a dodge.
Discount scope, not price. Cutting your rate teaches the client your rate was fictional. Cutting a deliverable keeps the rate intact and makes the trade visible.
Talk about their number. Ask what they've budgeted. Many clients will tell you, and the ones who won't were going to be difficult about money regardless. This is not weakness. It's the fastest way to find out whether the conversation is real.
What about "exposure"?
An unpaid job in exchange for visibility is a job whose payment is a reported number: someone is telling you what the exposure will be worth, and nobody is measuring it.
Occasionally it's genuinely worth taking: a portfolio piece you couldn't otherwise make, in a category you're trying to break into. If you take it, take it for that reason, with the deliverable and the usage defined exactly as tightly as a paid job. What you should never do is accept a reduced fee and full usage. That's not a favour, it's a discount on the expensive half.
Proving your rate
The strongest position in a rate conversation is a body of work with visible outcomes attached.
That's the whole idea behind booking-gated ratings in the Creator Network: a rating there only exists because a brand booked you, you delivered, and they paid. It can't be bought, farmed or invented, which is what makes it worth something when you're justifying a number.
Invoicing through Acumin takes no commission. It takes none because it never touches the money. Acumin records invoices; it doesn't process payments, hold funds or transfer anything. What you quote is what you're paid, because nothing sits between you and your client. The value of running billing through it is that the delivery, the rating and the invoice end up attached to the same record.
How to use this tomorrow
Open a spreadsheet. Three cells: realistic billable days, total annual requirement, and the division.
Look at the result. If it's higher than what you've been charging (and for most people reading this it will be), you now know by how much, and you know how you got there.
That last part is what makes it sayable out loud.
Related: How to pitch a brand covers the document this number goes into. How to hire a videographer is the same transaction from the other side, which is worth reading to understand what the person receiving your quote is actually weighing.