How to Price AI Creative Work (Without Guessing)

Nobody has settled how to price AI creative work yet. Is it per second? Per deliverable? Per day? Billy Boman runs one of the better creative AI studios in Europe and even he says it plainly: no one really knows how to price this.

That uncertainty is exactly why people underprice. So here is how I price, how Billy prices, and the numbers I would give a creative starting this week.

Three things set your price

We break it into three pillars, and I would run any quote through all three before you send a number.

Your time. How much of it do you actually have. If you are new, with no clients and a clear calendar, your time is not competitive yet and your pricing should reflect that. If you are booked, your time is the scarcest thing you own and the price goes up.

Your creative ability. Put ten creatives on the same brief. Whose work cuts through. That is a real variable and most people are too shy to price it. The Simon Meyers of the world are worth multiples of the market because you can see it in the frame.

Your technical ability. How well do you actually know the tools, their strengths, their weaknesses, and the editing that comes after. Technical range is what lets you say yes to a brief that would break someone else.

Your first project: $800 to $2,000

As a sweeping umbrella, your first project should sit between $800 and $2,000. Find something you can turn around in a week at most, and charge in that range. If the piece is longer, two to five minutes rather than a 15 or 30 second spot, you want to be closer to $3,000.

Get paid to get started. Get something under your belt. Get it in the portfolio.

Then here is the part people miss. You should probably not keep working with that client at $800 to $2,000 after the first project is delivered. Every project you complete makes you compoundingly more valuable. You learned things. You solved problems you had never met. You are not the same creative you were a month ago.

So when they come back and say they are happy to work with you again at $800, you get to say that is what I charged a month ago, and I am not taking projects under $1,500 now. Nine times out of ten they say fine. Two reasons. They do not have an alternative they trust, and the first piece performed, which is why they came back at all.

The first client is a stepping stone, not a rate card.

Never charge by the hour

I want to be blunt about this one. Never charge hourly for creative AI work.

Hourly punishes you for getting fast, and getting fast is the entire advantage of this toolset. The better you get, the less you earn. It is a broken model for this industry.

If you need a unit, use a day rate. A beginner day rate right now sits somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000, and $800 would be my absolute floor for a day of work.

Day rates beat packages

Billy's studio does not sell fixed packages, and his reasoning is worth repeating. If you publish "a 30 second spot always costs this," you will eventually shoot yourself in the foot, because you have priced a deliverable without knowing the scope behind it. That is how you end up in revision hell on a job you underquoted.

What they run instead is a studio day rate, plus a separate day rate for Billy alone, depending on whether the job needs the full team or just him. Price the resource, then scope the job against it.

Scope is doing all the work in that sentence. A five minute film is a completely different animal to a 30 second spot. Localising one campaign into six markets, with different ethnicities and lip sync per market, is different again. Every client ask is different, so every price is case by case.

Never say yes without seeing the script

This is Billy's number one rule and I think it is the most useful sentence in the whole conversation. He does not agree to anything before he has read the script, because until then he cannot know whether he can actually do the job.

Quoting before you understand the work is how you accidentally promise something the model cannot deliver, and then eat the cost of finding out.

Do not bill your credits

Billy's studio expenses generation credits rather than charging clients for them, unless something truly extreme is going on. Credits are your cost of doing business. Itemising them makes the work look like a tooling exercise instead of a creative service, and it invites the client to start optimising your process for you.

Set a floor and hold it

Decide your absolute minimum before the call, and say it out loud when it comes up.

Some clients will respect it and keep working with you. Some will say it no longer meets their budget and go and find a cheaper solution. In the moment, bowing down feels easier. In the long run, standing firm is almost always the better decision.

I will also be honest that saying no to work is a position of privilege. If you are not there yet, take the job, and set the floor higher on the next one.

What the market pays as of September 2026

For context outside my own numbers: agencies in the US are paying AI creators roughly $700 to $1,000 a day, and full time AI creative roles are listing at $150K and up. Complex branded videos close in the four and five figures.

The people earning at the top of that are rarely the best prompters. They are the ones who understand the client's problem and can price it without flinching.

Where the full pricing system lives

Inside GenHQ there is a full module that works through pricing with real numbers, licensing, packaging, scope definition and the exact scripts for raising prices on an existing client. There is also a channel where members post the deal in front of them and get a sanity check from people who closed something similar that week. That is the part I would use if I were starting again, because pricing errors are expensive and slow to undo.

Common questions

How much should I charge for my first AI video project?

$800 to $2,000 for something you can deliver inside a week, and closer to $3,000 for a two to five minute piece. Treat it as a stepping stone and raise your price on the next one.

Should I charge hourly for AI work?

No. Hourly pricing penalises you for being fast, and speed is the core advantage of AI production. Use a day rate or price the project against scope.

What is a good day rate for AI creative work?

A beginner day rate sits around $1,000 to $2,000, with $800 as an absolute floor. US agencies are paying roughly $700 to $1,000 a day as of September 2026.

Should I charge clients for AI generation credits?

Generally no. Expense them as a cost of doing business. Itemising credits reframes creative work as a tooling cost and invites the client to negotiate your process.

How do I raise prices with an existing client?

Wait for them to come back, then tell them plainly that the old number was what you charged then, and quote the new one. Your leverage is that the first piece performed and they do not have an alternative they trust.

Want the full pricing module and a room of people to sanity check your next quote? Join the community.