The cost of producing an online corporate video depends on many factors:

1. Format – are you shooting and editing in full 1080P HD or using a less expensive middle or lower-end format?
2. Length – Is your corporate video a one minute talking head or are you shooting an eight minute documentary on your company’s philanthropic activities?
3. Crew – Do you need a single videographer or a crew (Videographer, Second Camera, Lighting Technician, Audio Technician, Director, etc)?
4. Script – Are you developing a purpose-built script and storyboard or are you shooting unscripted footage of a company spokesperson?
5. B-Roll – Are you shooting or purchasing extra footage that will be edited in with your main footage to add context and improve the pace and style of the video?
6. Editing – Are any special effects, complicated edits, animation or other media assets required or is it just a straight edit of an unscripted presentation?
7. Actors – Do you need to hire professional presenters, actors or models to improve the quality of your presentation?
8. Location – Are you shooting in one spot or many? In town or all over the country? Are there contingent factors that have to be considered like the weather, availability of key executives or rental / studio facilities?
9. Audio – Do you require narration for the video, an audio music bed for the presentation? Are there multilingual/translation and localization considerations?
10. Licensing – Are you using any media assets or talent that could be subject to ongoing licensing,  usage or union fees.
11. Quality – How important is quality to you? As always, there is a strong positive correlation between price and quality.
12. Direct or Third party – Are you dealing directly with the video production company or are you going through an agency or other middleman?
13. Delivery/Distribution – What is the final output? How many formats? Who is distributing it and how is it being distributed on the web? How is the video being managed for re-use?

Taking all of the above into consideration there are reasonable ballpark figures that you can use as a guidepost for budget purposes. A three to five minute web-based corporate video presentation might cost between $2500 and $7500 depending on the variables mentioned above. If you use the time honoured “$1,000 a minute” for a professionally produced online corporate video as a starting point, that will give you a reasonable idea of where to begin in the budgeting process. The best way to get a quick estimate is to have a reference video to compare to.

Like in any other business category, there are a broad range of service providers that fall into the online web video production category. From online do-it-yourself tools that ostensibly fall into the web video category to the multi-award winning agencies that shoot only on film and only look at budgets in the six figure range… you do tend to get what you pay for.

The good news is that the cost of video production has come down considerably over the past few years and will continue to drop as increase in demand drives new competition and the cost of production (mostly on the technology side) continues to drop.