Film budget
template.
Above the line, below the line, post and contingency — already laid out, with the sections most budgets forget.
Fill it in on this page, or download the Excel file and work there. The download carries live formulas, so it keeps calculating after it leaves us. No account, no email address, nothing uploaded.
These head the spreadsheet you download. Everything stays in this tab.
Above the line
What the film costs to commission: the people attached before a crew exists.
Above-the-line
Producer, director, writer, executive producer — fees agreed before the crew exists.
Cast
Principal cast, supporting, extras. Include buyout terms in the description.
Below the line
What it costs to actually shoot: crew, kit, and everything that gets them there and fed.
Crew
People × rate × days, per role. Include prep and wrap, not just the shoot.
Equipment
Camera, lenses, lighting, grip, sound. Owned kit at what it would cost to rent.
Locations
Fees, hire, scouting, standby power, permits and road closures.
Transport
Vans, fuel, tolls, flights, parking.
Accommodation
Rooms × nights for crew away from base.
Catering
Per head, per day. Cheap to budget, expensive to improvise.
Insurance
Production, equipment and public liability.
Post and licensing
Everything after the wrap — and the rights you have to clear.
Post-production
Edit, grade, sound mix, VFX, deliverables.
Music and licensing
Composer, library tracks, archive footage, stills.
Other
Whatever the sections above don't cover.
Other expenses
Anything the sections above don't cover.
The structure is the part that saves you.
Nobody forgets to budget the camera. What gets forgotten is insurance, the permit, the second grade pass, and the fact that your own time as producer is a cost. A template is mostly a list of things you would not have thought of.
Above the line
Producer, director, writer, and cast. Fixed early, negotiated individually, and the part that doesn't move when the schedule does. If you're directing your own job, your time still belongs here — a budget that prices your labour at zero is telling you the job is profitable when it isn't.
Below the line
Crew, equipment, locations, transport, accommodation, catering, insurance. Everything that scales with the shoot: add a day and most of this section grows with it, which is why an extra day is never just the crew's rate.
Post and licensing
Edit, grade, sound mix, deliverables, and the music or archive you have to clear. The most commonly under-budgeted part of a first pass, because it happens weeks after everyone has stopped thinking about the shoot.
Contingency
A percentage on top of everything above, for the overrun you can't itemise yet. Ten per cent is the usual starting point. It is not a slush fund and it is not profit — it is the difference between a small surprise and a phone call to the client.
Quantity × rate × days, then a price you chose on purpose.
Every line multiplies out the same way, so any figure can be defended and any change can be re-checked. The bottom of the sheet turns the cost into a price.
- Fill each line in as quantity × rate × days or units — two grips, €250 a day, three days.
- Let the sections subtotal themselves, and read the group totals.
- Add contingency as a percentage of the subtotal. That figure is your production cost.
- Set a target profit margin, and the template works out the client price:
price = cost ÷ (1 − margin). - Download it. The .xlsx keeps every formula, so editing a rate in Excel moves the price at the bottom.
A margin is not a markup
Adding 33% to a €10,000 cost gives €13,300 — and a margin of 24.8%, not 33%. To actually keep a third of the invoice you charge €14,925. The film budget calculator sets that out in full; this template uses the margin formula.
Budget your own kit
Equipment you own isn't free: it depreciates, it needs servicing and insuring, and while it's on this job it can't earn anywhere else. Put it in at the rate you would have paid to rent it, so the job carries its real cost.
Then send it as a quote
A budget is for you; a quote is for the client, and it should not show them your internal rates. The quote generator turns the same numbers into a PDF with payment terms and exclusions.
This template is a good budget. It is not a good system for fifteen of them.
A spreadsheet doesn't know your gaffer moved onto night rate after 18:00. It doesn't notice when the kit list creeps between the quote and the shoot. It can't tell you that the 30% margin you quoted in March is tracking at 6% in June, or which client is quietly your least profitable. And a copy of it per job means a rate card that is right in one file and a year out of date in the others. That is the point where a template stops being the answer — and it's the whole reason Slatewise exists.
Keep the structure. Lose the fifteen copies of it.
Build my first budgetWhat is a film budget template?
A pre-structured breakdown of everything a production spends, organised the way the industry reads it: above-the-line, below-the-line, post-production and contingency. The structure is the useful part — it stops you forgetting the sections you don't think about until the invoice arrives, like insurance, permits or the post days that land three weeks after the shoot.
What is the difference between above-the-line and below-the-line?
Above-the-line is what the film costs to commission: producer, director, writer and principal cast — the people attached before there is a crew. Below-the-line is what it costs to actually make: crew, equipment, locations, transport, accommodation, catering and insurance. The split exists because ATL is mostly negotiated and fixed early, while BTL moves with the schedule — if the shoot grows by a day, everything below the line grows with it.
How do you structure a film budget?
One line per thing you pay for, with quantity, rate and the number of days or units, so every figure can be defended and re-checked when something changes. Group the lines into sections, subtotal each section, then add a contingency on the whole. A budget that is one number per department cannot be argued with line by line — which sounds convenient until a client asks you to cut 10%.
How much contingency should a film budget include?
Ten per cent of the pre-contingency subtotal is the usual starting point, and the default here. Documentaries, location shoots and anything abroad often carry more; a one-day studio job with a fixed crew can carry less. It covers the overrun you can't itemise yet — not the sections you forgot.
Does the downloaded template still calculate?
Yes. It downloads as a real .xlsx with live formulas, not a flat export: line totals, section subtotals, the contingency and the client price all recalculate as you edit it in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Change a day rate and the price at the bottom moves.
Do I need an account to download the template?
No — no account, no email address, nothing uploaded. The spreadsheet is built in your browser on your own machine. Slatewise itself, where a budget becomes a schedule and margin reporting across projects, has a free plan with no card required.
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