Vourly rates at a glance:
- iPhone 4K filming: $100 per hour, 1 hour minimum
- Professional cinema cameras: $200 per hour, 2 hour minimum
- Editing: $75 per hour, billed separately from filming
- Add-ons per shoot: drone video $150, drone photos $125, professional lighting $150, second camera $150, photo add-on $250
- All raw footage included, plus one free revision round on your edited video
Employer brand video cost is usually quoted as one number for one film, which is why the budgets so often fail. What an HR team actually needs is a small library of short pieces that answer the questions a candidate has before applying, and that library is cheapest to build in a single visit rather than one video at a time. This breaks the cost down by piece, using published Seattle rates.
What an employer brand video is buying
Not a commercial. The job is to let a candidate answer a question they cannot get from a job description: what is it actually like here, and would I fit. That means the useful footage is specific rather than aspirational. A named engineer describing a real project beats a voiceover about innovation, and it costs less to produce.
The measurable effect is on applicant quality more than volume. People who watch an honest culture film and still apply have already self selected, which is the point.
The four pieces most HR teams actually need
- A culture film, 90 to 120 seconds. The top of the careers page. Office, team, how people actually work.
- Employee stories, 60 to 90 seconds each. The workhorse. Three to five people talking about their path in, their team, and what surprised them. These carry more weight than anything else and are the cheapest to batch.
- Role or team explainers. Short, function specific pieces for the roles you hire repeatedly. A hiring manager on camera for 45 seconds outperforms three paragraphs of a job posting.
- A day in the life or office tour. Particularly valuable for hybrid and relocation candidates who cannot visit.
What employer brand video costs at Seattle rates
The rate card is published, so this is arithmetic rather than a quote:
- Filming, professional cinema cameras: $200 per hour, 2 hour minimum.
- Filming, iPhone 4K: $100 per hour, 1 hour minimum. Genuinely fine for internal and social cuts.
- Editing: $75 per hour, about 3 hours per finished interview piece.
- Professional lighting, $150 per shoot, and a second camera, $150 per shoot. Both are worth it for seated interviews. The second angle is what lets an editor tighten an answer without an obvious jump cut.
Two worked examples:
- One employee story. 2 hour professional shoot at $400 plus 3 hours of editing at $225 is $625.
- Four employee stories in one visit. 4 hour shoot at $800, lighting $150, second camera $150, and 12 hours of editing at $600 is $1,700 total, which is about $425 per finished video.
The batching effect is the whole strategy. The flat add-ons and the travel are paid once, and the setup time is amortised across everyone who sits in the chair that day.
Filming employees who are not actors
Most of the people you want on camera have never been on camera, and treating that as a production problem rather than a human one is why so much employer brand footage looks stiff. What works in practice:
- No script. Questions in advance, not lines. People reciting written copy read as insincere immediately.
- A conversation, not a performance. The usable answer is almost always the second or third time somebody explains something, once they have stopped presenting.
- Twenty minutes per person is enough for a 60 to 90 second cut, which is what makes batching four people into a half day realistic.
- Film where they work. A real desk, floor, or lab beats a conference room with a logo behind it.
A half day that produces four employee stories
The batching maths only works if the day is scheduled properly. A 4 hour visit that yields four finished stories looks like this:
- First 30 minutes: set up one lit interview position with two cameras. This happens once and every participant uses it.
- Then four 30 minute slots, one per person, booked in their calendars in advance with the questions attached. Twenty minutes of conversation comfortably yields a 60 to 90 second cut.
- Final 60 minutes: cutaway footage. People at desks, in the lab, on the floor, walking the space. This is what stops four talking heads from looking like four talking heads.
Two scheduling notes that decide whether this works. Send the questions at least a day ahead so nobody is thinking on camera for the first time, and never schedule the most senior person first, because the first slot always runs long while everyone finds the rhythm.
If a vendor has quoted you a bundle for this rather than hours, video production packages explains what to make them itemise, and videographer day rates covers the filming half.
What HR teams most often get wrong
Four patterns, all fixable before a camera is booked:
- Casting for polish instead of credibility. The most articulate person in the company is often the least convincing on camera, because they sound like marketing. A slightly hesitant engineer describing real work outperforms them consistently.
- Filming only the happy path. Candidates discount a video with no friction in it. Someone saying what is genuinely hard about the job is the line that makes the rest believable.
- One long film instead of several short ones. A single 3 minute culture film cannot be dropped into a job posting, a recruiter email, and a LinkedIn feed. Four 60 second pieces can.
- No plan for turnover. People leave, and a careers page anchored on one departed employee ages badly. Filming four people rather than one is insurance as much as it is content.
Where the video goes and how long it lasts
Careers page first, then the job posting itself, then LinkedIn, then recruiter outreach where a link to a real person outperforms a paragraph. Vertical cuts of the same interviews carry the material onto social without a second shoot.
Expect two to three years of useful life before the office, team, or positioning has visibly moved. Because you keep every raw file, a refresh is usually a re-cut rather than a reshoot.
Consent, revisions, travel, and what you keep
Get written consent as part of scheduling, and agree up front what happens to someone's footage if they leave. That conversation is much easier before filming than after.
Every booking includes one free revision round on the edited video, with further editing at $75 per hour. All raw footage is included and yours to keep, unedited and unwatermarked, with full commercial rights, delivered through a secure client portal within 24 to 48 hours. Local zone travel is included, out of zone travel is $1 per mile, and Washington sales tax is added at 10.5%.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an employer brand video cost?
At published Seattle rates, a single employee story runs about $625: a 2 hour professional shoot at $400 plus 3 hours of editing at $225. Batching four stories into one 4 hour visit costs about $1,700 total, which is roughly $425 per finished video. Filming is $100 per hour on iPhone 4K or $200 per hour on professional cinema cameras, and editing is $75 per hour.
What is the difference between employer brand video and a recruiting ad?
A recruiting ad promotes one open role and has a short shelf life. Employer brand video explains what working somewhere is actually like and stays useful across many roles and years. Most teams get more out of the second, then cut role specific versions from the same footage.
Do employees need to be on camera?
It is what makes the format work. A polished corporate narrator says nothing a careers page cannot. That said, nobody should be filmed who does not want to be, and a written consent step should be part of scheduling rather than an afterthought on the day.
How long does an employer brand video stay usable?
Two to three years is typical before the office, the team, or the positioning has moved enough to notice. Because you keep all the raw footage, re-cutting a shorter version later does not require filming again.