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How Much Does Video Cost: Studio vs. AI β An Honest Calculation
We compare the real costs of video: studio team vs. AI automation. Expense items, price ranges, and when which option is more profitable.
We compare the real costs of video: studio team vs. AI automation. Expense items, price ranges, and when which option is more profitable.
When a business first calculates the budget for video content, the conversation almost always boils down to one question: how much will it actually cost β not according to the studio's price list, but in reality, taking into account all revisions, retakes, and months of work. The answer rarely fits into a single figure because video production is not just one service, but a chain of scriptwriting, shooting, editing, voiceover, subtitling, and publishing, and at each link, you can either save money or unexpectedly overpay.
At Telematic, we regularly talk to teams that have already gone through a studio or freelancers and are now considering whether to rethink these expenses β through AI-based automation. Below is an honest breakdown of expense items without fairy-tale figures of "73% cheaper," but with real ranges that are found in the market and the logic behind choosing one path or another.
The first mistake in budgeting is to count only the shooting day. In practice, the price of video is the sum of at least six components: script development and structure, shooting or visual selection, editing and color correction, voiceover or narration recording, subtitles and platform adaptation, and finally, time for publishing and proofreading for each channel. A studio usually covers the first four points with its team, while subtitles and multi-platform adaptation are often listed as a separate line item or left entirely to the client.
Studio shift in an average million-strong city costs from 30,000 to 80,000 rubles per day, depending on the team composition (operator, lighting, director) and venue rental. In one shooting day, you can realistically get material for 3β5 short videos if the script is well thought out in advance β but more often it turns out to be less because some of the time is spent on retakes.
Editing is usually charged per minute of the finished video and costs from 3,000 to 15,000 rubles per minute depending on the complexity of the graphics, the number of revisions, and the editor's experience. Voiceover by a narrator costs from 2,000 to 10,000 rubles per video, and if quality simultaneous translation into different languages is needed, the amount multiplies by the number of language versions.
The price list on the studio's website almost never includes what eats up the budget in practice. Firstly, there are revisions: the second and third iterations of editing often go at the same rate as the first, and discussions can take days. Secondly, there is scaling for formats: a horizontally shot video for YouTube needs to be separately adapted for vertical formats for Shorts and Reels, and this is almost always a separate bill. Thirdly, there is downtime between projects: if the team works irregularly, each new order means a newly assembled crew, new approvals, and a new price.
When one of our clients in the B2B services sector calculated the annual budget for video, he initially focused on the price of one video from the contractor. But when recalculating for 8 videos per month with adaptation for three platforms and re-voiceover in two languages, the final amount nearly doubled compared to the initial estimate β precisely due to hidden iterations and multi-formatting, not because of the shooting itself.
The logic of AI automation is built differently: instead of paying for each action separately (scriptwriter, operator, editor, narrator), the team pays for the platform and generation tokens, and the entire production cycle β from the source text or link to the finished video with voiceover, subtitles, and publication β is carried out as one continuous process. The material for the script is not just retold with a short summary, but processed by AI while preserving facts and figures according to the tone and volume of the specific project.
The key savings here are not that "AI is free," but that expense items that multiply in the studio model for each video and each platform disappear: there is no need to hire a narrator for voiceover again β the voice is cloned once and used multiple times; there is no need to separately pay for adaptation for vertical formats β the format is selected within one generation; there is no need to pay for re-editing for revisions β a scene can be regenerated precisely without recalculating the entire video.
| Expense Item | Studio / Freelancers | Telematic |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Separate service, 3,000β15,000 β½ per video | Included in the AI processing of the source |
| Shooting / Visual | Shooting day 30,000β80,000 β½ | Ready-made visual styles and photo stylization without shooting |
| Editing | From 3,000 to 15,000 β½ per minute, revisions β at the same rate | Reassembly through timeline and precise regeneration of scenes |
| Voiceover | Narrator 2,000β10,000 β½ per video, separately for each language | Cloned voice once, multilingual |
| Subtitles | Often a separate service or manual work | Automatically, with safe zone settings |
| Platform Adaptation | Separate bill for each format | One cycle for multiple orientations and languages |
| Publishing on Multiple Channels | Manual work of a content manager | Autopilot with publication and first comment |
It would be unfair to claim that automation covers all scenarios. If a business needs one image video with staged shots, live people on screen, and unique cinematography β for example, a promotional video for a product launch β here, a shooting team with its vision remains indispensable. AI automation wins where regular volume is needed: a blog, channel, series of educational or news videos, where the unique image of one video is not as important as a stable flow of content without recalculating the budget for each unit.
Before choosing, it's worth honestly assessing three parameters: how many videos per month are really needed, how many platforms and languages they should be released on, and how critical unique cinematography is for each video. If the answer is "many videos, several platforms, regularly" β the sum of hidden studio expenses almost always exceeds expectations during the first calculation, and it is at this point that automation begins to bring measurable savings, rather than abstract "process optimization."
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