What F&B Video Content Actually Costs in Singapore.
There are four ways an f&b business gets short videos made — hire someone, outsource production, put it on a retainer, or do it in-house — and they range from roughly S$425 for a single outsourced video to S$4,500 a month for a full-time marketing hire. This page sets out the published ranges for each, where the figures come from, and the ten steps that sit inside one video regardless of which route you pick.
Last updated: 22 September 2026
The four ways it gets done, and what each costs
- Hiring a part-time content person — S$1,800 to S$2,200 a month. One person, splitting their time, usually expected to film and edit as well as plan.
- Hiring a marketing executive — S$2,500 to S$4,500 a month. Broader remit, and the listings at this level still ask for filming or editing on top of marketing.
- Outsourcing a single short video — median around S$425 each. Best for a launch or a one-off; the cost repeats every time you want another.
- A monthly production contract, typically 8 to 12 videos — around S$2,650 a month. Predictable output, fixed count, and the crew comes to you.
- A social media management retainer — S$1,500 to S$3,500 a month. Covers posting and account management, and filming is often billed separately.
- Self-serve content tools — roughly US$10 to US$50 a month. Mostly general-purpose editing or scheduling software rather than anything built for f&b.
Why this is a hard role to hire for
- Of 23 f&b marketing roles advertised locally and read individually, 74% asked the same person to film or edit as well as do the marketing.
- That is a combined role. Planning, filming, editing and writing are four different skills, and the listings expect one person to cover all of them.
- The salary bands above are for that combined role. A specialist in any one of the four typically costs more on its own.
- This is also why the work often lands on the owner by default — not because the business decided to do it in-house, but because nobody was hired for it.
The ten steps inside one video
- Deciding what to film — knowing what others in the trade are posting and what diners want to see.
- Writing the script — structuring it, and opening with something that holds attention past the first seconds.
- Breaking it into shots — knowing which line belongs to which picture.
- Framing each shot — placement, angle, distance, light.
- Filming — the part most people picture when they think about video, and the shortest part of the job.
- Editing — cutting it together, which needs an editing app and the hours to learn it.
- Subtitling — timing, line breaks and styling, on a platform where most people watch with sound off.
- Writing the caption — in a voice that still sounds like the business.
- Rewriting for each platform — tags, sentence length and search terms differ on Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Instagram and TikTok.
- Posting — account, timing, and the decision to press publish.
Questions worth asking before you pay anyone
- How many videos, over what period, and what happens if we want fewer or more? Per-video and monthly contracts behave very differently when your pace changes.
- Who owns the raw footage and the finished files after we stop working together?
- Are platform captions included, or billed separately? This is the most common line item people are surprised by.
- Does someone need to be on camera, and whose job is it to be there?
- Will we still have the account logins and the audience if this arrangement ends?
- What happens in the month we are too busy to shoot? Retainers usually still bill.
Salary ranges come from 23 live f&b marketing listings read individually. Per-video and monthly production figures come from published local rates. Retainer and self-serve tool ranges are collated from publicly listed pricing and are the softest figures here — treat them as indicative rather than quoted. No company is named, and nothing on this page is a quote for work.
FAQ
Q: How much does one short video cost in Singapore?
A: The median published rate for a single outsourced short video is around S$425. Buying in volume through a monthly production contract of 8 to 12 videos typically works out to about S$2,650 a month, which brings the per-video figure down but commits you to the count.
Q: Is it cheaper to hire someone than to outsource?
A: It depends on volume rather than on the rate. A part-time content person at S$1,800 to S$2,200 a month costs less than a S$2,650 production contract, but you are buying that person's hours rather than a guaranteed number of finished videos. Outsourcing buys output; hiring buys time.
Q: Why do f&b marketing job listings ask for filming and editing?
A: Because the work is a combined role in practice. Across 23 live listings read individually, 74% asked the same person to film or edit as well as market. Splitting it across specialists costs more, so listings tend to ask for one person who can do all of it.
Q: Can an f&b business do this in-house without hiring?
A: Yes, and many do — but it is worth being clear about what that means. The ten steps above do not disappear when nobody is hired for them; they land on the owner or on existing staff, and most of them have to be learnt before they produce anything. Filming is the short part. Deciding what to film, editing, subtitling and rewriting for each platform is where the hours go.
Q: What about AI tools — are they cheaper?
A: Self-serve tools run roughly US$10 to US$50 a month, but most are general-purpose editors or schedulers. They speed up steps you already know how to do rather than deciding what to film or writing it for your business, so the planning and writing usually still sit with you.
Q: Do these figures include photography or account management?
A: No. The per-video and production figures above cover video production. Account management — posting, replying, monitoring — is usually a separate retainer in the S$1,500 to S$3,500 a month range, and stills are commonly quoted separately again.
Doing it yourself, without learning four jobs first
Plate to Post gives an f&b business the month's topics, the script, the framing for each shot, the edit, the subtitles and the platform captions. The shop films and posts. It is not open to everyone yet — you can put your name down.
See how it works