Commercial Video Production Cost

Both ends land inside Vidico's local 30-second band of $3,000–$15,000, before talent, location fees, music licensing or any media. The check works in both directions. A local quote far outside that band is worth reading line by line to see what it is paying for.

2. Spreading one shoot across its deliverables

Few brands shoot a single 30-second spot and stop there. Say a regional shoot at Vidico's $15,000–$50,000 band yields six deliverables: a 30-, a 15- and a 6-second cut, each delivered in 16:9 and 9:16.

$15,000 ÷ 6 = $2,500 and $50,000 ÷ 6 = $8,333 per deliverable, if the extra edits cost nothing. They cost something, so the real figure sits a little higher. The lesson holds anyway: planning every version before the shoot costs less than coming back for a second day.

3. The same money spent as media

Production and airtime compete for the same total. For scale, take the bottom of the regional band, $15,000, and spend it on Meta ads instead. Impressions equal spend ÷ CPM × 1,000, the CPM formula turned around, and the two published Meta CPM benchmarks give very different answers.

The higher CPM is 1.8 times the lower, so neither number is a forecast for your account; see what counts as a good CPM for why the sources disagree. What the sum shows is scale: a regional-tier production budget is also a meaningful media budget on its own. The split between the two deserves a decision rather than whatever is left over.

What drives commercial production cost

Runtime barely moves the price. The lines below do, roughly in the order they appear on a production quote. None has a sourced benchmark on this page, so the notes describe how each one scales rather than what it costs.

Concept, script and storyboard

Creative development is billed before anyone picks up a camera. An agency charges for the idea, the script and the boards, and every revision round after sign-off adds hours. A locked script is the cheapest cost control there is, because changes on set or in the edit are billed at crew rates.

Talent and usage

Cast size, union status and usage terms drive this line. Under union commercial contracts, performers are typically paid a session fee for the shoot plus further use payments tied to where the spot runs and for how long. Non-union talent is usually paid a negotiated fee covering an agreed usage period. A famous face adds an endorsement fee that can dwarf the rest of the budget.

Crew days and equipment

Each shoot day repeats the whole crew, the camera and lighting package, and catering, so days multiply cost faster than anything else. Two scenes at two locations usually mean two days. Overtime past a standard day is billed at a premium, which is why a realistic shot list matters more than a long one.

Locations, sets, permits and insurance

Location fees, film permits, a built set or a studio rental, and production insurance sit here. Shooting on public streets in large cities typically needs a permit, and a studio adds build and strike days. A product filmed on a tabletop costs far less than the same product in a dressed room.

Post-production and music

Editing, colour grading, the sound mix, graphics and any visual effects or animation make up post. Music is its own line: stock tracks are licensed cheaply, a known song is negotiated with its publisher and label, and an original score is commissioned. Heavy visual effects or 3D animation can move a spot up a whole tier.

Versions and deliverables

Every extra length, aspect ratio, caption file and broadcast master means more editing and more quality control. Stations and platforms set their own delivery specifications, so ask for them before the edit locks. Planning every version up front, as in the second worked example, is how shoots stay efficient.

Agency fees and markup

A full-service agency adds its creative and management fees on top of what the production company charges. Ask for a quote with creative, production, talent, post, music and agency fees on separate lines. Then you can see which part of the number is labour and which is margin.

Production and airtime are separate budgets

A production quote buys the finished spot and the rights to run it on agreed terms. It does not buy a single broadcast or impression. Airtime is bought separately: from TV stations and networks by market and daypart, or from online platforms in an auction usually quoted as a cost per thousand impressions (CPM).

Every production figure on this page is on that production-only basis, so keep media on its own line of the plan, even when one agency handles both.

Online: impressions priced per thousand

Online media is sold by auction, and no ad platform publishes an average price for its own inventory. Third-party benchmarks fill the gap and disagree; here are five for common online-commercial placements.

These are context for sizing a media budget next to a production budget, not targets. The number that matters for your plan is the CPM in your own ad account once the spot is running.

TV: airtime priced by station, daypart and audience

Broadcast and cable airtime is sold by the station or network and priced by market, daypart and the audience a programme is expected to deliver. We found no current, independently sourced national average we could verify, so this sheet prints none. For a real number, request a rate card from the station's ad sales team or brief a media buyer, who plans and books the schedule.

Where the two budgets touch

Usage terms link them. Talent and music are often licensed for a set term and set media, so running a spot nationally for a year can cost more at the production stage than running it on social for a quarter. Settle the media plan before you sign talent and music.

The 4A's survey and the averages that outlived it

For 25 years the 4A's, the US trade body for advertising agencies, surveyed its members on what TV commercials cost to produce. Its last edition reported an average of $354,000 (MediaPost, 4As Scraps Annual Ad Production Cost Survey, 2014-02-11) for a 30-second spot, on 2011 data. No edition has appeared since the 4A's discontinued the survey in 2014.

"Who shoots just a 30-second commercial (alone) anymore?"

Bill Duggan of the Association of National Advertisers, quoted by MediaPost in 2014

Duggan's question explains why no neutral average replaced the survey: a commercial is now a family of cuts and placements, not one spot. The 2011 figure is history, useful for scale, and it sits inside Vidico's current national band of $50,000–$500,000+. It is not a 2026 benchmark.

Be wary of figures credited to a recent edition of the 4A's survey, or to industry surveys that link nowhere. Several cost pages still quote them, but a survey that ended in 2014 cannot report on later years. If a number has no source you can open, leave it out of your budget deck.

What AI-generated footage changes in a commercial budget

AI changes two lines in a commercial budget: what the footage costs to produce, and how many variants you can afford to test. It changes nothing about airtime or strategy, and it does not replace real product footage where accuracy matters or a celebrity endorser.

The Playcut side: plan prices and credits

Playcut is a paid studio with no free plan or trial, and the Playcut pricing page lists every tier. Monthly plans are Hobby at $9 with 500 credits, Pro at $29 with 2,000, Studio at $79 with four seats and 6,000 credits, and Agency at $149 per seat with 10,000 pooled credits per seat. Annual billing gives two months free. Credit packs never expire: 600 credits for $9, 2,500 for $35 and 5,000 for $65.

What a spot costs in credits

Video is billed in credits per second of footage, so the model sets the budget. Veo 3.1, the default video model, costs 160 credits a second at 720p or 1080p, so one 8-second clip is 1,280 credits. A 30-second spot assembled from four of those clips is 5,120 credits before any retakes: inside Studio's 6,000 monthly credits, but beyond Pro's 2,000.

Spoken actor clips cost far less. Playcut's Act tool, which animates an AI actor speaking your script, charges 7 credits a second on its default tier plus a 15-credit scene step, so a 10-second clip at 720p is 85 credits and Pro's monthly credits cover 23 of them. To model your own mix of models and lengths, use the AI video credit calculator.

Budget for selects, not just clips. You will not keep every generation, and Playcut does not publish a keep rate, so measure your own. Failed or cancelled tasks are refunded, but a finished take you reject has still used its credits.

Testing volume is the real change

A shoot gives you a handful of cuts to test. Generated footage lets you test many hooks, openings, actors and aspect ratios against each other, then put media behind the ones that win. That is the case the AI UGC ads page makes for short-form social ads, and it applies to online commercials too.

For the full cost of AI ads beyond the subscription, including media floors and budget templates by team size, see what AI video ads cost in 2026. For public AI commercial case studies and a six-step build, see the AI commercial generator guide.

Rights, watermarks and disclosure

Every Playcut plan includes a commercial licence and no visible watermark, though the model providers' terms still apply to the output. Veo 3.1 footage carries Google's invisible SynthID watermark, which cannot be removed. Check your broadcaster's or platform's AI disclosure rules before the spot airs.

AI actors can present a product as a spokesperson or in a disclosed dramatization. The FTC's rule Q&A puts it this way: "If the television commercial is an obviously fictional dramatization, then the actors are not giving testimonials." Casting one as a satisfied buyer is where it stops being legal, and the AI UGC legality guide sets out the disclosure rules in full.

How to budget a commercial, step by step

The table maps each route to how it prices and the figure on this page, if any, that describes it. The numbered steps below it set the order of decisions.

1. Fix the media plan first. Decide where the spot runs, for how long and on what budget, because talent and music usage depend on it.
2. List every deliverable. Lengths, aspect ratios, captions and broadcast masters, before the shoot is scoped.
3. Pick the tier honestly. Match your reach to a band in the tier table and use it as a sanity check, not a price.
4. Get three itemised quotes. Ask for creative, crew days, talent, locations, post, music and agency fees as separate lines.
5. Price the AI route beside them. Estimate credits per second for the footage you would generate, add retakes, and map the total to a plan and packs.
6. Hold a contingency. Reshoots, overtime and extra versions are the usual overruns.