5 ways to make money as a videographer
When videography is your passion, there’s nothing much else to be done but contemplate the world – as seen through the lens of your video camera.
The million-dollar question, though, is:
How do you turn this video production passion into a paying, sustainable and profitable income channel?
We’ve got your back.
We’ve put together the best ways you can make money as a videographer, so all you have to do is pick your favorite. We’ve even divided them into 2 categories so that you can choose how much time you have to dedicate to developing your income as a videographer:
- Passive income: set it up once and payments happen without your direct involvement
- Active income: your payment is directly related to the amount of work you put in
Let’s get started!
Passive income: Set it up once and let the money roll in
Here you’ve got different forms of passive income that you can make with videography skills. Passive income is a type of income stream that is not directly related to the input you put in every day. You can set it up once, and income can come rolling in, all by itself. It’s a great way to supplement your income, and you may as well give it a shot – because you literally only stand to gain.
Here are some ways to make passive income with videography skills:
1. Feature-length films
Say you’re a filmmaker – through and through.
Getting your film picked up by a distributor is hard. The industry is old, set in its ways, and dominated by a select few individuals who hold incredible amounts of power. Plus, it’s expensive – distributors take on average 20% of the profit from your film sales.
Why not sell the films you create independently? You get to manage the process from A-Z, as well as not have to share the profit with 3rd parties. It would be a sort of video on demand, your viewers will be able to download your films and watch them at any time they want.
How to do it:
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- Create a teaser for your movie
- Upload it to your Sellfy product page
- Create a teaser for your movie
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- When a buyer purchases the video, they’ll receive access to the full-length video, and you’ll get paid
2. Courses
One way to earn passive income as a videographer is by setting up courses as an evergreen (meaning they’ll always be in season) product to sell online.
The online course industry was worth $165 billion in 2015 and is expected to grow to $275 billion in 2022. People crave self-improvement, and the internet is providing a channel for self-taught learning.
With so many people looking to develop their skills in video, producing and editing, there’s room for you to sell your expertise and earn with a course. In fact, the sooner the better, so that you can get your slice of the ever-growing industry.
How to do it:
- Identify a topic that you can confidently talk about. Ex. are you a master at Final Cut Pro? Teach that!
- Write down a series of videos that will teach your viewer the skills in a logical, step by step order.
- Film yourself talking about and/or demonstrating the lessons of the step.
- Make your video lessons available on Sellfy.
Active income
Once you’ve got passive income down pat, there are plenty of ways to make money as a videographer on a day-to-day basis. Whether it’s going to weddings on weekends or working with businesses to create their video materials, there are plenty of ways you can earn money with video skills.
3. Wedding videography
As what’s marketed to be the happiest day of your life, plenty of new couples are willing to shell out to have a beautiful video memento of that special day. In fact, the average price in the US for wedding videography is $1,700 per gig. That’s why, as a videographer, you stand to earn a pretty penny by offering your videography skills for weddings.
The great thing about weddings is that they tend to be on weekends, meaning that you can keep your day job, and develop your videography chops on the weekend. You can choose to take on as many or as few as you want – you’re the boss.
How to do it:
- Create your portfolio – whether it’s a one-page website or a social media platform. Find out more about how you can use YouTube to sell.
- If you don’t have any wedding filming experience, reach out to friends or family that might be getting married and offer your services for a special “family” price.
- Post your services to platforms like Craigslist, or target wedding-specific platforms like Wedding Wire and Two Bright Lights.
- Wait for the offers to roll in.
4. Videos for business
With 85% of consumers saying that they want to see more video content from brands, businesses are clamoring to get their hands on more video content. The problem? Not every business has (or needs) a full-time, in-house videographer.
I many cases, it makes sense for the business to outsource their video production needs to freelancers to get it done quickly.
The benefit of freelance videographers is huge. The average pricing for business videography is $1,000 per finished minute of video. If you’re signed on for a 3-minute video, you’ve got your summer trip paid for in one gig.
How to do it:
- Sign up for freelancer platforms like Fiverr and Upwork
- Upload your portfolio and description
- Wait for the gigs to come rolling in
Alternatively, you could also proactively approach businesses that have potential but don’t have much video content available. Make sure to tell your family and friends that you offer these services, as word of mouth recommendations are one of the strongest trust-building factors there are.
5. Travel video
Ideally, you could travel the globe, make epic videos and get paid for it.
Right?
It can actually be done.
Just like the above-mentioned businesses who need video, you can narrow that down to specify that any resort/tourist attraction/venue also needs video materials to show off their offerings and attract tourists.
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All you have to do is get those venues to hire you, and then you’ve made it – you’re officially a travel videographer.
How to do it:
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- Identify the region, country, location that you want to target
- Browse through the different social media platforms of the different venues and identify which ones lack any video materials (and have a ton of potential)
- Write to each of these venues, send them an example of the videos you produce, and offer them your services.
- Go visit the ones that offer you a gig
Over to you
With skill and a passion like videography, one thing is certain – there isn’t a lack of demand for your services. All that’s up to you to decide, is how much time you want to devote to it on a daily basis.
Both passive income and active income opportunities exist. In fact, the best results can be achieved when both methods are used in tandem. That way, even when you have fewer gigs in some months, you might still have your passive income bringing in some cash.
So whether it’s video production, traveling the globe, selling courses on video editing or wedding video creation, there should be opportunities for any kind of preferences you may have.
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