Costs and pricing
Part of Budget for short form video costs and pricing with a working model
Why a short form video cost guide needs dated sources
A short form video cost guide is only as good as its sources. Here is why dated data from LinkedIn, the ICO and the ONS matters for budgeting in England.
What to take away
- The ONS reported in its Home internet and social media usage release that 96% of UK adults had used the internet in the three months before interview, which is the scale behind any short-form video audience estimate.
- LinkedIn publishes its own advertising costs and pricing, so budget lines for video ads can be anchored to a live source rather than a supplier claim.
- Data protection duties sit with the ICO, and they apply to every pound you spend on audience targeting.
- A cost guide is only useful if each number is dated, labelled and traceable to a named source.
Why do sources change the number?
A short form video cost guide is a chain of assumptions. Break one link and the total shifts. A day rate from 2024 may not reflect 2026 freelance rates. A cost per thousand impressions quoted by a platform can change with auction pressure.
Every figure needs three things
- Source named
- Date recorded
- Currency labelled
- No source, date, currencyillustrative example only
- £400 a month editinglabelled example, not benchmark
The fix is simple. Every figure in your model should carry three things: the source, the date and the currency. If a figure has none of those, treat it as an illustrative example. For example, a team paying £400 a month for editing support is a labelled example, not a benchmark.
This is why the short form video costs and budget guide for England starts with the model rather than the prices. Read it before you build your own spreadsheet.
Where should the audience numbers come from?
The Office for National Statistics publishes home internet and social media usage data. That release gives you a defensible base for how many people in the UK are actually online and using social platforms.
Which audience base to use
Is your campaign UK-wide or England-only?
UK-wide -> use ONS UK internet and social media usage
England-only -> state England, do not present UK figures as English
Use it as the denominator. If you claim a reach figure, show the audience it is drawn from. A percentage without a base is not a budget line.
Note the geography. The ONS release covers the UK. If your campaign runs only in England, say so, and do not present UK figures as English ones.
How do platform costs get estimated?
LinkedIn publishes its own advertising costs and pricing. That page is the primary documentation for the platform, so it beats a second-hand summary in a pitch deck.
Use it to set a planning range for paid video ads. Then separate that from production costs, which no platform publishes. Production is a market rate, and market rates need a named supplier quote or a labelled example.
Keep the two columns apart in your model. Blended figures hide which cost you can actually control.
What compliance costs sit alongside?
Any campaign that collects leads, retargets viewers or tracks engagement touches personal data. The UK GDPR guidance and resources from the ICO set out what that means in practice.
Budget for the time this takes. Consent banners, privacy notices and records of processing are real costs, even when no invoice arrives. A small team might spend a few hours a month on this.
If you skip it, the cost moves to legal review later. That is usually more expensive.
Does spend translate into return?
Cost data tells you what you paid. It does not tell you what came back. Pair your cost model with a return model so the two can be read together.
The short form video return on investment in England article covers how to attribute value without overclaiming. Read it once your cost lines are stable.
A cost guide that never meets a return figure is just an invoice list.
What belongs in a source checklist?
Use this before you publish or circulate any cost estimate.
Source checklist
- Source namedwho published the figure, and on which page.
- Date recordedthe month and year the figure was published or quoted.
- Currency labelledpounds sterling, with the exchange assumption if the source is not in sterling.
- Scope statedUK, England, or a single platform's own market.
- Assumption flaggedanything you estimated is marked as an illustrative example.
- Owner assignedone person keeps the model current.
- Review date seta date to recheck every external figure.
Seven items is enough. Longer checklists get ignored.
Common questions
Why does the date matter so much on a cost figure?
Ad auctions, freelance rates and platform fees move. A figure without a date cannot be compared with anything, so it cannot support a decision. Always record when the source published it.
Can I use UK-wide data for an England-only campaign?
The ONS release covers the UK, so it is a starting point rather than a precise match. If your campaign is England-only, state that the figure is UK-wide and explain the gap.
Should I trust a supplier's cost benchmark?
Treat it as a quote, not a benchmark. Supplier figures are useful for a single line item, but they rarely show the assumptions behind them. Ask for the source and the date.
