“What’s your budget?” is not a trick question
Posted on 21st April 2026
It’s one of the most loaded questions in any creative brief — and one of the most misunderstood.
When we ask about budget, we’re not fishing. We’re not trying to extract the maximum figure so we can spend up to it. We’re trying to build you something that actually works — and budget is the first thing that tells us how.
Why budget changes everything
We’ve sent proposals for broadly the same deliverables at three completely different levels of production value, with costs ranging from £5k to £60k. Same goal. Very different executions.
That’s not unusual in video production — it’s just the nature of the craft. There’s a well-known illustration that does the rounds online: a client asks for a horse, and depending on what they’re willing to spend, they get anything from a stick figure to a thoroughbred. It’s funny because it’s true.
Budget tells us:
- How many shooting days are realistic
- Whether it’s a one-camera run-and-gun or a properly lit, fully crewed production
- How much time we can invest in the edit
- Whether custom graphics and motion design are on the table
- Whether a presenter, voice artist, or additional crew makes sense
These aren’t upsells. They’re variables. And without knowing the budget, we’re just guessing.
What happens when there’s no budget indicated
If a brief comes in without a budget and without visual references, we have two options: go in too high and lose the job, or go in too low and undersell what we’re capable of. Neither is great. Neither serves you well either.
We genuinely enjoy putting proposals together — but no one likes getting to the end of a process only to discover they’re not aligned on spend. A rough budget figure at the start saves everyone time and leads to a much better outcome.
What we’re looking at for 2026
If you’re planning video content this year — a conference, a series of learning modules, a video podcast — we’d love to hear about it. Tell us what you have in mind and give us a steer on budget, and we’ll put together a plan that’s built for what you actually need.