Overall, for your pricing your media services. I feel it's necessary to to keep in mind a few things:
1. You need to price out YOUR hourly rate, meaning the amount of money you need to make for your time invested in the task. This can be done by simply deciding what you want your yearly salary to be, then figure out how many billable hours you can reasonable charge for the week, typically this is about 20-30, the rest being used for administrative tasks that are not billable. Then, times your billable hours by 52 weeks. So let's say I know I will be billing at least 25 hours a week. Take that and multiply it by 52 (25 * 52 = 1300 billable hours for the year.) Then divide your desired yearly salary by 1300. So let's say I want to be making $50,000 a year as an arbitrary number, I take $50,000/1300 = $38.46/hour should be my hourly rate, now that is just what YOU SHOULD BE MAKING to keep your salary at $50,000 a year.
2. Then, typically you need to figure at least a 25% margin for buffer room in case you don't meet your goal for billable hours. So let's take our hourly fee of $38.46 and add 25%, which is $9.16. So now we have your hourly rate at $48.10.
3. Then if you have overhead, like computer costs, gear costs, software costs, communication costs (internet, cell phone), etc. You will want to come up with a formula to compensate for these costs as well. This will be easy to do in Microsoft Excel. You should try and break your costs down to a monthly and annual basis, and get a monthly fee you have to compensate for each month and add this to your hourly rate.
4. Lastly, if you are an actual business, the business needs to be paid a profit for your labor as well, typically 15-20% margin. I would add this on last.
So your rate will end up being close to $60+ an hour in this scenario, so it really depends on what you want to make, how your business is setup, and what your overhead is like.
In the end, however, I would suggest using a day and a half-day rate, your day rate should consist of a 10-hour day, and your half day consisting of anything 4 hours and under. This is one of the safest ways to do business, and it forces clients to analyze their own expectations and budgets. If you think about it, there never really is a 1 hour edit. And if there is, you still have prep time, exporting, quality control, burning, etc.
This business is a tricky one, don't lock yourself to a rate that won't allow you to grow, you'll regret taking on clients that suck life out of you, your family, and your wallet. Stand by your prices, and don't budge. I don't go to the Grocery Store and say, "Um, you know what, that milk over there says $2.00, but I'm only going to pay $1.00."
Sure there will always be those who charge less, but life will soon teach those guys that low fees equals ZERO long term sustainability, and most clients like long term relationships, not fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-Joe-the-creative-do-it-yourselfer-video-guy who's cutting on a cool pirated version of Sony Vegas he downloaded.
If you are a pro, charge like it. If not, don't expect your business to last long, it just won't happen. You may experience bursts of work, but you won't be able to sustain it and provide quality service, and you'll burn yourself out in the process.
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