The craziest proposal I've ever received as an editor.

A few days ago, someone reached out to me because they needed a video editor. The offer was the following:

A brand that requires the delivery of 5 videos a day, from Monday to Monday. Which, doing the math, would be 35 videos a week and 140 a month.

Not to mention that you practically have to be a pro or have a killer team to make more than 5 videos a day and still have time left over for other clients, because the pay for such a job is exactly $400 USD. That's right: four hundred dollars, period.

And if you're just starting out, I want to give you the reasons why this is absolute nonsense:

  1. You are going to burn out in less than a month. Making 35 videos in a single week is going to leave you fried and with zero energy to live the wonderful life you could supposedly afford with those $400 USD.
  2. You leave yourself no room to attract more clients because, if you are editing EVERY SINGLE DAY, when do you even have a chance to look for new clients and edit for them?
  3. The pay isn't fair for the time you're going to dedicate to them. Because, let's be honest, this isn't an issue of technique (since they could easily just use an AI that still needs an editor to supervise it), but rather they are buying the time you are going to put in and the time they are going to save. There is no way on earth to adequately pay for that time, and if there is, I promise you it's not $400 USD.

Currently, I'm making almost the exact same amount by editing far fewer videos per month (not even 15 videos A MONTH). This gives me the space to take on more clients and not sacrifice all my brain cells to just one.

I hope this helps someone, whether it's to escape the slavery they are currently in or to avoid falling into it. Best of luck!

Comments

BP041•about 2 hours ago•2

$400 for 140 monthly videos is ~$2.85 per video. Even with AI tools handling scripting/rough cuts that math doesn't work if you want any level of quality control. At 5/day you're basically running a mini content factory — that's a full-time team salary, not an editor's freelance rate.

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da8ton•about 1 hour ago•1

wait $400 for the whole month??? 😂😂😂

lolah•about 1 hour ago•1

Lol that deserves to be ignored

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