Video Editor Rate Calculator

What video editors actually charge

Limited public dataEvery figure below carries its source, year and — where the publisher discloses it — sample size.

What we could not verify: BECTU's post-production ratecards and the Motion Picture Editors Guild scales — the two best sources — are both member-gated. We excluded two widely-cited public figures because their samples (six and five observations) cannot support a median.

Hourly, project or retainer?

Varies sharply by segment dominates this field.

Broadcast and agency work runs on day rates, reinforced by UK ratecard culture. Branded and long-form work is quoted as a project fee. Ongoing social content is retainer or per-deliverable. Hourly persists mainly with small clients and on marketplaces.

Scoping rule of thumb

1–4 hours of editing per finished minute of video. The most practical number on this page: it converts a client brief into an hours estimate, which is what you actually need to quote a project. (Upwork)

Realistic billable hours

25–30 hours a week. Convention rather than measurement. Editing is billable-dense — long focused sessions — but client review latency creates dead time between rounds that is rarely billed.

This is the input people get most wrong. A 40-hour week does not contain 40 billable hours — pitching, admin, invoicing and marketing all come out of it first, and the difference between assuming 40 and assuming 27 changes your required rate by more than any other single number on this page.

Overheads specific to this field

Three pricing mistakes specific to video editors

1. Unlimited or unspecified revision rounds. Editing is the most revision-heavy discipline here, and an uncapped round count is the single largest destroyer of margin.
2. Quoting per finished minute without capping source footage volume, and not charging for media management. Ingest, transcode, proxy generation and archive are real hours that disappear into "the edit".
3. Folding motion graphics, colour grading, sound mix and aspect-ratio versioning into the base price. Clients assume all of it is included unless your quote separates it.

Common questions

How much should a freelance video editor charge?

Marketplace rates $10–$60/hr, median $35. Entry $15–30 · intermediate $30–60 · expert $60–150+ (Upwork, 2026). That is a market reference, not your number — your rate depends on your target income, your overheads and how many hours you can actually bill. The calculator on this page works it out from your own figures.

Should a video editor charge hourly or per project?

Varies sharply by segment dominates this field. Broadcast and agency work runs on day rates, reinforced by UK ratecard culture. Branded and long-form work is quoted as a project fee. Ongoing social content is retainer or per-deliverable. Hourly persists mainly with small clients and on marketplaces.

How many billable hours can a freelance video editor expect?

Roughly 25–30 hours a week. Convention rather than measurement. Editing is billable-dense — long focused sessions — but client review latency creates dead time between rounds that is rarely billed.

Next steps

Once you have a floor rate, two things decide whether it holds. First, whether the market bears it — the guide to setting your freelance rate covers finding your ceiling and positioning between the two. Second, what you keep after tax, which varies enormously by country: our Freelance Tax Index compares the total burden across 15 countries, and several charge you money even in a zero-income year.