Pricing

Video Cleanup Pricing Guide for Agencies (2026)

How professional VFX cleanup studios price rig removal, rotoscoping, background replacement, and footage restoration — and how to budget for it without surprises.

Why Cleanup Pricing Is Confusing

Most agencies have been burned at least once by a cleanup quote that doubled mid-project. The reason is simple: video cleanup is highly variable work. Two clips of the same length can take 1 hour or 20 hours depending on the footage. Vendors who don't evaluate the clip before quoting will either pad the price, surprise you with a change order, or do the work cheaply and badly.

This guide explains how legitimate cleanup studios think about pricing — and what numbers you can expect to see in 2026.

The Two Pricing Models You'll Encounter

1. Hourly artist rate

The standard model. The studio quotes a per-hour rate, evaluates your footage, and estimates a range. Industry rates in 2026:

• Junior compositor: $25–$45/hr
• Mid-level compositor: $45–$80/hr
• Senior VFX artist (Mocha Pro / Nuke): $80–$150/hr
• Outsource studios (overseas): $15–$40/hr

Our standard rate is $25/hr for most jobs, with bulk discounts to $20/hr for projects of 5+ videos. We can keep rates lower than typical Western studios because we run a focused, specialized team without freelance markups.

2. Per-clip flat fee

Used by some studios for predictable work — logo removal, simple cleanup, basic rotoscoping. Pricing usually breaks down like:

• Simple logo / watermark removal (locked off): $50–$150 per clip
• Basic rotoscoping (locked off, simple subject): $100–$300 per 10 seconds
• Wire removal (single wire, simple background): $200–$600 per 10 seconds
• Complex action cleanup: priced hourly only

Per-clip pricing protects you from surprises but is usually 20–40% more expensive than hourly for the same work because the studio has to pad for unknowns.

Which model to choose

A not-to-exceed cap is the single most useful thing to negotiate. You pay hourly for what the work actually takes, but you cannot be surprised past an agreed ceiling.

What Drives the Hours Up

The same 10-second clip can take wildly different time depending on:

1. Background complexity — a brick wall is fast; a moving crowd is slow
2. Subject motion — a static subject is fast; running, jumping, or rotating is slow
3. Camera movement — locked off is fast; handheld with focus pull is slow
4. Edge complexity — clean silhouette is fast; flying hair and semi-transparent fabric is slow
5. Resolution and codec — 1080p ProRes is fast; 8K RAW is slow
6. Number of fix targets — one wire is fast; six wires plus tracking markers plus a boom mic is slow
7. Whether a clean plate exists — often the single biggest multiplier

A good cleanup studio will ask to see the footage before quoting. If a vendor quotes without seeing the clip, that's a red flag.

Realistic Time Budgets

For planning purposes, here are honest time estimates for common cleanup tasks at broadcast quality:

Multiply your shot count by these ranges to get a defensible internal budget before you go out for quotes.

For 4K, add roughly 40–60%. For 6K and above, assume double.

Three Worked Budgets

Abstract ranges are hard to plan against. Here are three realistic projects costed at our rates.

A 30-second product commercial

Four shots. Two need a brand logo removed from a prop, one has a boom mic in frame, one has a light stand reflected in glass. All locked-off or slider moves, 4K ProRes, clean plates available for three of the four.

• Logo removal ×2, locked off: 2 hours
• Boom mic removal: 1.5 hours
• Reflection cleanup on glass: 4 hours
• QC, delivery, one revision round: 1.5 hours
• Total: 9 hours ≈ $225

A music video with stunt work

Twelve seconds of wire work across three shots, handheld, 4K, performer with loose hair, no clean plates.

• Shot 1, single wire, simple background: 5 hours
• Shot 2, two wires crossing body: 12 hours
• Shot 3, wire crossing hair, fast motion: 20 hours
• Grain and blur matching pass: 3 hours
• QC and two revision rounds: 4 hours
• Total: 44 hours ≈ $1,100

A batch of 20 e-commerce clips

Twenty 8-second product clips, all locked-off on a white sweep, each needing background cleanup and a consistent matte.

• Template setup on the first clip: 3 hours
• Remaining 19 clips at ~40 minutes each: 12.5 hours
• Consistency pass across the batch: 2 hours
• Total: 17.5 hours at the bulk rate ≈ $350

Note what the third example shows: per-clip cost collapses when the work is repeatable. This is why batching similar shots into one project is the most effective way to lower your cost per asset.

What Should Be Included in the Price

Ask any vendor to confirm these in writing. At our studio they are included:

• Evaluation of the footage and a per-shot estimate before work starts
• One round of revisions on the agreed brief
• Delivery in your specified codec, resolution, frame rate and colour space
• Grain, blur and lens matching as part of the shot, not as an extra
• An NDA if you need one

And these normally cost extra, everywhere:

• Rush turnaround — 25–50% across the industry
• Brief changes after work has started — a new brief is new work
• Additional revision rounds beyond the agreed number
• Source format conversion if you deliver something exotic
• Long-term archival of project files beyond the usual retention window

Red Flags in a Quote

A quote that arrives in ten minutes for complex work has not been estimated. It has been guessed.

How Bulk Discounts Actually Work

Most studios offer volume discounts because the per-shot setup time (file ingest, project setup, naming conventions, delivery prep) is fixed regardless of project length. Once you're doing 5+ shots, the studio amortizes that overhead and can pass savings on.

Our published discount: $20/hr for 5+ videos in a single project, versus our standard $25/hr rate.

There is a second, larger saving that nobody advertises: similarity. Twenty shots from the same shoot, same lighting, same camera, can share tracking setups and templates. Twenty unrelated shots from twenty different productions cannot. If you can group your work by shoot rather than by deadline, you will pay meaningfully less.

How to Brief a Vendor for an Accurate Quote

Send these three things upfront:

1. The actual clips — not screenshots, not descriptions. Compressed previews are fine.
2. Your delivery spec — resolution, codec, frame rate, any specific color pipeline
3. Your deadline — rush work runs 25–50% more across the industry

A good vendor will reply within a business day with a per-shot estimate. If they don't, look elsewhere.

Add a fourth if you have it: any clean plates shot on the day. Mentioning them in the brief often lowers the quote immediately, because it removes the largest unknown.

What to Put in the Purchase Order

A cleanup SOW that prevents disputes contains six lines:

• Shot list with timecodes, not clip names
• The deliverable spec, in full
• Number of revision rounds included
• The not-to-exceed figure
• Delivery date, and what happens if the brief changes after it is agreed
• Who owns the project files afterwards

Six lines, and almost every mid-project argument disappears.

When DIY Is Cheaper

For agencies with an in-house editor, cleanup is worth doing internally when:

• The job is under 4 hours of total work (less than the friction of vendor onboarding)
• The work is simple and well-understood (a few logo removals on locked-off shots)
• You have no client deadline pressure

Outsource the rest. Specialist studios deliver complex cleanup at half the cost of internal time, because we're doing this every day on dedicated workstations with industry tools your editor probably doesn't have.

Do the arithmetic honestly. An in-house editor at a $60/hr internal cost who needs 20 hours on a shot costs $1,200 — plus everything else they did not do that week. The same shot outsourced is a few hundred dollars and does not consume your team.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does video cleanup cost per minute? There is no per-minute rate that means anything, because a minute of locked-off product footage and a minute of handheld stunt work differ by more than tenfold. Use the time-budget table above and multiply by the hourly rate.

Why do two vendors quote so differently for the same clip? Usually because one of them watched the footage and one did not, or because they are quoting different quality bars. Ask both what they will do about the hardest frame in the shot.

Do you charge for the estimate? No. Send the clips, get a per-shot estimate back — no obligation.

How many revisions are included? One round against the agreed brief. Further rounds, or changes to the brief itself, are quoted separately.

Is overseas cleanup lower quality? Location does not determine quality; process does. Ask about the QC checklist and ask to see the hardest frame from a recent delivery — those two questions separate studios far better than geography.

What is the fastest way to lower my cleanup budget? Shoot clean plates on set, and batch similar shots into one project. Those two habits routinely cut a bill in half before a vendor is even chosen.

Ready for a number on your own footage? Send the clips and we will come back with a per-shot estimate. You can also read how to remove wires from action video for the workflow behind these estimates, or rotoscoping vs masking to work out which service you actually need.