I've been told that Worth = Value.
That is, you can put a gazillion hours into a project, but if it's only worth $1000.00 to the client, you will likely only make $1000.00.
I'll regularly put 25-50% more time into a project than I charge for, simply because I'm experimenting with effects, movement and possibilities. I don't charge my clients for my learning curve/experimenting time.
For large package projects like yours, you will likely want a package price.
But to answer your question directly, based on my experience, I've seen editing for as low as $30.00/hr. I charge $75.00/hr to most folk and will go down to $50.00/hr for friendly projects and projects that I simply believe in and want to help out without being skinned. Of course, I will work for free for my friends - assuming I'm not missing out in revenue.
I also work for a large corporation where we charge $100.00/hr for both shooting and editing, etc.

<I've put in at least 60+ hours on this so far...taking weeks of work to get this completed..>

This is going to work against you. Sixty hours over a week and a half is vastly different from 60 hours spread over many weeks. This will most assuredly affect what you can charge per hour. Iseriously doubt anyone would pay $100+ an hours if you're going to take weeks and weeks to complete a project.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you work at it part-time, you're only likely to get part-time wages for it. What someone would pay for this scenerio is different from what you could expect from a full-time post house. And that's just as it should be.

Jay

I agree,
there's many traps to this game. Pointless talking about hourly rates, I'm on the other side of the world. Most of my clients want a package price and the big trap here is giving them more than what was in your original estimate. It's really hard to resist the urge to do CC when that wasn't in the quote or blow hours fixing their dodgy audio.
You think they'll be really impressed and I'll get more work from them. Well if you're lucky you they will not come back, because next time they expect that for the same price. Worse still someone else sees it and you can bet they get told how cheap it was.
I've only once done a job on a per hour basis, simply because the client was supervising, in that scenario he can see what it's taking in both your time and his. If they're not supervising then a lot of it is your call.
To be quite honest I'm amazed in this game how little emphasis is placed on good work, not amongst those inside the industry but by the clients.

Bob.

I agree about the hourly rate thing. I do video work completely as a hobby & don't charge much. However, there is't any demand for a freelancer who doesn't have a DV deck around here, so... :)

$80 per hour here in Utah.. on general corporate pieces, it becomes $1000 per min for the most part which seems to work really well for me.

$40 / hour for contract editing and training through a couple of companies I do regular work for. I discount them due to the regularity of some of the work.

mike

Boy, this is really timely. I'm starting my first paid project tomorrow (for the Navy). Hadn't thought of charging per minute of finished video. I told the officer that I was under-charging for this first piece, and unfortunately -- based on what I've just read -- I was correct. Oh well, it's only twenty hours of work.

Charging per minute of finished video can be a dodgy proposition.

Example from a recent project - to shoot 35 mins and edit to 11 minutes took one day.
To get it down to 4 mins took 3 more days.

Charging per minute of finished video can be a dodgy proposition.

I would certainly agree since different projects can differ so much in how much editing needs to be done. By the minute never worked for me. The only way I bid a job now is to collect as much info from the client as possible, estimate the time I think it would take, multiply it by my hourly rate ($55/hr to edit and $75/hr to shoot with 2 hour minimums on both...in Las Cruces,NM) and then cushion it with another 10% since I have a tendency to underestimate : )
Randy

Hey at those rates I should be vending out some of my work to folks like you, instead of doing every dang thing myself...this last project melted my brain and I'm exhausted..

You should all have some kind of elance or scriptlance site for videographers / video editors / animators etc (is there one?) where buyers and providers can bid on projects..

Ken

None that I can think of but that's a good idea.
Randy

Now THAT'S an enteprising idea! - Best I've heard on these Forums for 2 years!

You go for it Ken!

However the is a whole load of Trade directories and agents and the like, but bidding on site, that's gotta be free enteprise working full on!

Just imagine people "bidding" down an option till someone makes a decision that for anything less than $1000 is just, well PANTS! Now I wonder what on Earth they would be comparing this too? - But yes Ken, you give it a shot.

Grazie

$50.00 / hour for good cause.
$75.00-? / hour for hard work.

Just made a proposition to a Real Estate office to produce a demo CD/DVD of
2-3 minutes of property-for-sale. If they declined the product, no charge. If they used the product (sans watermark), 1st job at 50% normal rates. Subsequent at full price (shoot w/ video and still staff, post and edit, produce 12 DVDs baseline).
Darryl-Rocky Mountain ski resort.

If they have the right to decline the result of the first job, why do you need to offer 50% off???

In my experience, if you are literally producing this on spec, they would note expect a discount.

Corollary: they'll feel unhappy that they have to pay 100% more per video after that.

Really.

Experience has taught me to always itemize my costs in preparing a quote. It's not always necessary to provide every detail to the customer, but most people gain a degree of appreciation for the time it takes to produce a quality product. Some people perceive our work as simply, "load it up and push a button". It's amazing how often I'm asked to "zip out" a quick project that, in reality, takes days to produce.

But, on the other hand, I have averaged my time spent on previous projects against the per finished minute cost and amazingly, I can use that magic number, at least, to "ballpark" the cost of similar projects. The cost per finished minute method is not very accurate, but can serve a useful function, if only as an in-house estimate.

Does this sound familiar?

The phones rings. "Good morning, [fill in the blank] Productions. How can I help you?"

"Hi, we have a video we need produced. Can you give us an idea how much it'll cost?"

"Certainly, but I need to ask you a few questions about some specifics."

"Oh, well... we don't have any details yet, we're just trying to find out what it'll cost first."

This is when I shift into my "Well, it's like asking a contractor how much it'll cost to build a house" scenerio. Like Michael says, averaging "time spent on previous projects against the per finished minute cost" can prove to be very helpful in answering some people's questions--giving them a ballpark figure.

As far as being part of a bidding farm for video work, that has no appeal for me whatsoever. That'd just be one more expense cutting into my already slim margin. One thing we pride ourselves in is our one-on-one relationship with the (potential) client. Besides, anyone who is seriously considering our services has already bid the job out in the first place. Having to go through a broker would be a major pain in the tootie!

Jay

Jay - " . .. that has no appeal for me whatsoever."

DITTO!

But Ken, give it go . . see what feedback you get from some more pro videographers?

I love this conversation . . Free Enterprise working just as it should.

Grazie