Video production estimates that already know what goes into a shoot.
Pick a template for the kind of shoot, fill in your rates, and watch what you'll make on every line. The client gets a clean, professional estimate. Everybody wins. Mostly you.
You could keep fighting the spreadsheet.
Spreadsheets are free, and they price accordingly. Delete one row and the formulas give up. The version history lives in the filename. After all that, it still prints like a bank statement. Estimatery already knows the shape of an estimate. You fill in the numbers.
How it works
Pick a template: Commercial, Documentary, Social. Or start from scratch. Every line a shoot actually bills for is already there. You could rebuild this list from memory. No you couldn't.
Add what each part costs you and it shows what you'll actually make, updated as you type. Only you see this part. Your books, not a press release.
One switch previews exactly what the client gets: clean prices, one total. Send it as a PDF, Excel file, or link. The client will assume you have staff. Don't correct them.
A screenshot of the actual builder. Not a mockup. We checked.
Built for the person who actually watches the budget
Generic quoting tools fit no one in particular. Estimatery starts from how production work is actually priced: real numbers for you, a clean quote for the client.
Tell it what each part costs you and it shows what you'd actually take home, updated as you type. No second spreadsheet. No midnight math.
The client PDF gets a real letterhead and totals that line up. The Pro version adds your name and logo. Your logo. On documents. Living the dream.
Your working version has your costs and profit. The client's version has prices and a total. Same estimate, nothing copy-pasted between files, nothing to forget.
Never build the same estimate twice
Each template is a checklist of what to price for that kind of job. Rates stay blank on purpose. They're yours, and frankly we don't want to know. Load one, delete what doesn't apply, price the rest.
Full-service commercial or branded content. The whole circus, itemized.
Performance, narrative, or both. Priced for whatever the label meant by “budget.”
Corporate, internal comms, or brand explainers. Someone has to.
Interview-driven production. Remembers archival licensing so you don't have to.
Short-form vertical content, batch shoots. Twelve deliverables, one lunch break.
Live event coverage and recaps. One take, no reshoots, no pressure.
More industries are on the way. Video got here first. Draw your own conclusions. Typical project costs live in the cost calculator.
Everyone else makes you give something up.
A spreadsheet is free, but you do everything. An invoicing app hides your costs, then bills you monthly forever, like a gym. We’re the only column without a catch. We checked twice.
| Estimatery | Spreadsheet | Invoicing app | Template PDF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industry line items, built in | ● | —blank page | ○generic | ○generic |
| Live margin while you price | ● | ○by hand | — | — |
| Client never sees your costs | ● | ○if you remember | ● | ● |
| Pay once, no subscription | ● | ●free | —monthly | ○ |
● built in · ○ manual or partial · — not really
Free is the whole tool
Nothing in the builder or the exports is held back. Pro exists to put your name on the paperwork. The national debt is not our business model.
Questions
The full guide (units, tax math, deposits, exports) lives on the Help page. It’s genuinely thorough. We’re as surprised as you.
No. The whole builder and every export work without one. Your estimate autosaves in this browser, which means it lives on your machine, which means it's already more organized than your project files. A free account adds one cloud-saved estimate. Pro makes that unlimited.
Yes. Unlimited sections and lines, all templates, all modifiers, the live P&L, and every export format. Pro only changes whose name is on the paperwork and lifts the cloud-save cap. We're aware free tools look suspicious. Stay suspicious while you export.
Invoicing tools charge monthly and still make you rebuild production line items from scratch. A spreadsheet is free right up until you email the client your costs. Estimatery ships with video templates, quotes the way productions actually bill, and keeps the P&L where only you can see it. Also it's free. That part isn't a joke.
No. Client views, exports, and share links are built from a copy that only ever contained client-facing fields. Costs, margins, and internal notes are never in the file. There's no toggle to forget because there is no toggle. You can't fumble a switch that doesn't exist.
No. You pay $39 once. No renewal, no monthly fee, no "exciting pricing update" email next quarter. It puts your branding on client-facing exports, removes our footer, makes cloud saves unlimited, and adds a reusable catalog of your saved line items.
Anonymous estimates live in your browser's local storage. Nothing leaves your machine unless you share, export, or save to an account. Share links carry a compressed, client-safe copy inside the link itself. Yes, the estimate travels inside the link. Compression is a wonderful thing.