How much does a music video cost in Ireland and the UK? (2026)

1What a music video costs in Ireland, by tier

A music video in Ireland costs €250 to €850 at the DIY end, €500 to €1,800 at the freelance end, and €3,000 to €8,000 for a typical professional one-day production, ex VAT. Add a bigger crew, cast and heavy post and high-end work runs from €6,000 upward.

There are two different markets above, and they are not the same thing at different prices. In the freelance market, one videographer quotes a package for a set number of shooting hours and a basic edit. In the production-company market, a crew, a pre-production process and a proper post schedule sit inside one fixed fee. A €1,200 freelance shoot and a €3,000 production shoot both deliver a finished video, but the second has more people on set and a longer post run. When you compare quotes, you are comparing what is inside them, not just the number. That is why a creative direction pass before the shoot is the cheapest way to avoid paying twice.

One honest caveat. Ireland publishes no official statistics on music video budgets, so the figures here are list prices and day rates from the companies and guides that publish them. Some rate cards are 2024 editions, and we have flagged those below. Treat them as a floor and a ceiling for planning, not as a quote for your shoot.

2The three tiers, in euros

On a single scale, a DIY live shoot sits at the bottom, a professional one-day production in the middle, and a high-end production at the top. The chart shows the four anchors we can actually price.

The spread is wide, and that width is the point. A DIY live music video can be done for €250 to €850 all-in. A freelance high-end package, 12 hours across multiple locations with advanced effects, is listed at €1,800. A typical production-company project costs €3,000 to €8,000, and high-end work runs from €6,000 to €20,000 or more, where a label with a release cycle usually sits.

Notice what the tiers are really pricing. The jump from €500 to €1,200 is mostly shooting hours and the complexity of the edit. The jump from €1,800 to €3,000 is where you buy a crew and a process: a second operator, a dedicated sound recordist and a producer planning the day. Past €8,000 you buy scale, more shoot days and cast. The tier you land in is almost always set by how many people are on set, which is exactly what pre-production is for.

3Where the money goes: the DIY budget line by line

At the budget end, the whole project can be built from five or six priced lines that total €250 to €850, and most of it is camera, light and the edit.

The DIY budget is less about the camera than about the plan. Camera hire from an Irish rental house or a film student is €50 to €150 a day, a basic LED lighting kit is €50 to €100, and a freelance editor will cut the set for €100 to €300. Location is the variable. Public spaces and coastal backdrops are free, and rehearsal rooms that look great under a couple of lights run €20 to €40 an hour. A hired venue might ask for €100 to €200, but many will let you film off-peak for free if you offer a credit. Add catering and transport of €50 to €100 and you have the €250 to €850 envelope. Map every line before you book a venue, because the cheap shoots that look good are the ones where nothing was improvised.

The same discipline applies at the professional end, with bigger numbers. A production company prices by shoot days and crew size, then builds the post on top. The videography line is usually the biggest single cost, and it scales with people and hours, not with the camera. If your concept needs two locations and a night exterior, you are paying for a second setup, extra crew hours and more post, and each of those has a price.

4Crew day rates in Dublin

A senior director in Dublin costs €900 to €1,500 a day in 2026, a camera operator €550 to €850 and an offline editor €500 to €750. Those three lines alone set the floor on any professional music video.

Read the day rates and the structure of a quote makes sense. A senior director at €900 to €1,500 a day, a camera operator at €550 to €850 and an editor at €500 to €750 means a modest three-day project with a small crew is in the several-thousands range before a single frame of post. Studio space is the other anchor. A small dry-hire studio day runs €800 to €1,200 in Dublin, and a smaller studio lists a full day at €400, which is why studio choice moves the number by more than most people expect. These are planning figures for unnamed crew. A well-known director is paid outside the published range and will not appear in any list like this. That gap between a floor and a quote is the part you cannot see from the outside.

Freelance hourly rates sit below the day rates and are what a solo videographer works to. A Dublin freelance editor runs €65 to €180 an hour, a cameraman €105 to €410 and equipment €25 to €105 an hour. The gap between a day rate and an hourly rate is the cost of reliability: a day rate includes the crew's time, their kit and a full working day, and that is what you are buying when you move up from the freelance packages. If your concept depends on a particular look, a VFX and grade pass is where the post budget quietly goes.

5Post, VAT and the extras that move the number

Post-production is where most of the hours go, and in Ireland almost every published production price excludes VAT, so an Irish client adds 23% on top.

Editing is not a small add-on; it is frequently longer than the shoot itself. A day of filming can take several days to cut, and the grade, sound and revision rounds all sit inside the edit. Freelance post runs €50 to €180 an hour, and a production company builds the edit days into its fixed fee, the easiest thing to budget for, as long as the revision rounds are written down. The extras are where quotes drift. Drone footage, a professional voiceover, sound design and a set of stills are each priced separately, and a rushed turnaround adds roughly half again to the editing part of the price. They only appear when your brief needs them, which is why a quote with no deliverables spec is the one to be careful with.

VAT is the line that catches people out in Ireland, because the comparison shopping is done on ex-VAT numbers and the invoice is not. A music video is a standard-rated service, so 23% applies for an Irish client. That makes the tier table above a floor on what an Irish artist or label pays, so add a fifth to every figure before you compare it with your budget. The colour work and the mix that make a release look and sound finished are the two post lines most likely to be under-budgeted, and both are covered by a colour grading pass and a sound mix.

6Ireland against the UK benchmark

The Irish and UK markets price similar music video work close together. A UK one-day shoot with a small crew runs from £1,500 to £5,000, and UK mid-range productions run from £3,000 to £15,000, with major-label work from £20,000 upward.

The useful takeaway is that the UK and Irish numbers overlap in the middle and diverge at the top. A one-day professional shoot is priced almost identically in both markets, which tells you a Dublin crew is not meaningfully cheaper than a London one. The UK mid-range band, £3,000 to £15,000, is where a professional director, a lighting crew and a costume budget live, and it lines up with the €3,000 to €8,000 band most Irish production companies quote. Above that, the UK major-label figure of £20,000 and up is a different scale of production from anything in the Irish tiers. For an Irish artist, the realistic ceiling is the top of the Irish high-end band. The gap between the two is whether a marketing plan and a release cycle are paying for the shoot.