A testimonial video production is a booked job: a crew, a location, a day of somebody's diary and an edit afterwards. It is quoted per day or per finished film, it varies more by city than by anything else, and the failure it hides is arithmetic rather than craft: a production day with two customers willing to appear is an expensive way to get two films. This page is what the job contains, what decides the price, and the number to work out before you brief anybody: on the worked example a year of asking returns 18 testimonials, 3 of them on video.
What a production company is actually selling
A pre-production call, a shoot day with a camera operator and usually a second person on sound and lights, then an edit per film. The cost sits in the day, not the number of films, which is why a producer will push you to line up three or four customers for the same morning and why the whole thing collapses if two of them cancel.
What decides the quote
Travel and the number of locations, whether the customers come to a studio or the crew goes to them, how many finished cuts you want, and whether you need subtitles and a vertical version. None of that is unreasonable, and none of it is worth committing to before you know how many customers will say yes at all.
The number to have before the brief
Count the customers you finish a year, the share you will actually ask and the share who answer. On the worked example that is 120, 35% and 42%: 18 testimonials, of which 18% will go on camera. Three films. That figure decides whether you are booking a production or asking three people to record ninety seconds on their phones.
Questions people ask about testimonial video production
How much does a testimonial video cost?
It is quoted per day or per film and swings too far by market for anybody to print an honest number, this site included. What we can price is the alternative, and the request sheet does.
Is a produced film better?
It looks better. Whether it works better depends on whether the customer sounds like themselves in it, and the more production there is around a person the less they usually do.
Can I mix the two?
That is the sensible answer: film your two best customers properly, and collect the rest remotely as they finish.