Ask five production companies in Dubai what a video costs and you will get five answers, most of them some version of “it depends”. That is true, and it is also unhelpful. It depends on a short list of things, and a brief that answers them gets a quote that holds.
Time on set
The largest single driver is how long the shoot runs. A half day in one location with one person on camera is a different job from two days across three locations. Most of that time is not filming: it is moving, lighting, resetting, and waiting for the room or the light to be right. A shot list agreed before the day is what keeps that ratio sensible.
Locations and permits
Every extra location adds travel and setup. Filming commercially in public places in Dubai and Abu Dhabi generally needs a permit from that emirate’s film authority, which adds lead time as well as cost, and drones need approvals of their own. Your own premises are usually the simplest location there is: they are real, they are yours, and nobody has to be persuaded to let you film there.
People on camera
Your own team costs nothing to book but needs more direction and more takes. Professional presenters cost money but need less of both. Either way, everyone identifiable has to agree to appear, and in the UAE that is not a formality to sort out afterwards.
The number of finished cuts
This is the one most briefs forget. A shoot that has to produce a brand film, a run of Reels, some TikToks and a set of ad openings is planned, shot and edited differently from one that produces a single video, and it costs more to edit. It also costs far less per finished video, which is the number that actually matters.
Editing and versions
Editing is priced on the footage and the outputs: how much there is to go through, how many videos come out, and how much caption, sound and colour work each one needs. Versions for testing, such as different openings on the same ad, are cheap to add in the edit if the shoot captured them and expensive to invent if it did not.
What a useful brief says
- What each video is for, and where it will run
- Who has to stop scrolling, and what they should do next
- Where you want to shoot, and whether you have premises to use
- Who will be on camera
- How many finished videos, in which formats
- When it needs to go live
Answer those and any production company can give you a fixed number rather than a range. Ours starts at AED 2,500 per project for full production, and shooting, editing, Reels and TikTok work is quoted per brief.