What UGC video costs
There is no single rate, and the reason is not evasion — the same three letters cover jobs that differ by a factor of ten. Here is what actually moves the number, so you can judge any quote you are given, including ours.
Tell us what you needThe short answer
UGC video has no standard price because the same phrase covers very different work. The cost is driven by how many videos you need, whether a real person appears on camera, what usage rights you get and for how long, how many cuts come out of one shoot, and whether it is filmed or AI-generated. A quote given before those are agreed is a guess.
Six things,
in order of impact.
How many videos, and how often
One video is a project. Twelve a month is a production line, and the per-video cost of the second is nothing like the first. Most of what looks like a price difference between studios is really a volume difference.
Whether a real person appears on camera
A creator delivering a script in their kitchen costs differently from a product filmed on a table, and differently again from a fully AI-generated presenter. All three get called UGC.
Usage rights, and for how long
This is the one that surprises people. A video you may post organically is cheaper than one you may run as a paid ad, which is cheaper than one you may run for a year in any market. Cheap UGC with thin rights gets expensive the moment an ad performs.
Length, format and how many cuts
A single 30-second video is one price. The same shoot cut into nine variations for testing is another, and testing variations is usually where the performance actually comes from.
Revisions and turnaround
A fixed number of revisions costs less than open-ended changes. A week costs less than forty-eight hours. Both are legitimate to ask for, and both should be priced rather than assumed.
Filmed or AI-generated
AI removes the shoot, not the thinking. It changes what is expensive: less coordination and casting, more iteration on concept and script. It is cheaper for some jobs and simply wrong for others.
Not sure what you are actually buying?
A lot of the price difference between two quotes is really a difference in what each one means by the words — what a UGC video actually is.
The question that costs the most to get wrong
Ask what you are allowed to do with the footage — which platforms, paid or organic, in which markets, and for how long. Two quotes that look far apart are often the same work with different rights attached, and the cheaper one tends to be the one that stops being cheap the week an ad starts working.
Common questions.
There is no single rate, because the same phrase covers very different work. The price is driven by how many videos you need, whether a real person appears on camera, what usage rights you get and for how long, how many cuts come out of one shoot, and whether it is filmed or AI-generated. Any quote given before those are agreed is a guess.
Some do, and their number is usually for the narrowest possible version of the job: one video, organic use only, no variations, no paid rights. It is a real price for a job most brands do not actually want. The moment you need ad rights or a dozen variations, that figure stops applying.
Usage rights, almost every time. A cheap video you are only licensed to post organically becomes a problem the week it performs and you want to put budget behind it. Ask what you are allowed to do with the footage, on which platforms, and for how long, before you compare two prices.
It removes the shoot, not the thinking. There is no casting, travel or scheduling, and iterating on an idea is fast and cheap. But the concept, script and editing still take real work, and for some products a real person handling the thing is the entire point. Cheaper for some jobs, wrong for others.
On a call, against what you actually need: how many videos, what they are for, whether they run as paid ads, and what already exists. Then you get a number and what it covers. If what you need is a single video with organic rights, a marketplace will beat us on price and we will say so.