“How long should it be?” comes up on the first call, and the proposal says “about two minutes”. Then the script arrives with the founding story, five service lines and a thank-you to the team, and two minutes turn into four.
The edit spends a week cutting it back, and the client feels something got lost on the way.
The right length depends on where the video plays and on whether the person watching chose to press play, has to watch for work or is scrolling past.
The ranges below are rules of thumb from production work rather than findings from a study. Use them to open the conversation, then check them against the script.
In short
- The right length depends on where the video plays and on whether the viewer chose to watch, has to or is scrolling past.
- A home page video usually runs 60 to 90 seconds, a training module 3 to 6 minutes and a paid ad 6, 15 or 30 seconds.
- Count the words of what the video has to say before you promise a length in the proposal.
- Give each video one message, and plan the cutdowns before the shoot.
- When the client wants to add something, ask what comes out and offer the addition another place to live.
Corporate video length by use
| Use | Usual length | What sets it |
|---|---|---|
| Website or home page | 60 to 90 seconds | The visitor came for something else |
| Event opening | 1 to 3 minutes | A seated room, and a speaker waiting to go on |
| LinkedIn and social feed | 30 to 90 seconds | It plays mid-scroll, often muted |
| Paid ads | 6, 15 or 30 seconds | The ad format |
| Training and onboarding | 3 to 6 minutes per module | One task per module |
| Internal CEO message | 1 to 3 minutes | One piece of news |
| Customer testimonial | 1 to 2 minutes | The customer’s story, plus short cutdowns |
| Recruiting | 60 to 90 seconds | The people and the place |
People who land on a home page came to check prices or find a phone number, so the video there has to say who the company is and get out of the way. A longer brand film can live on the About page, where visitors go looking for exactly that.
Employees watch training and internal messages because they have to, so they mind wasted minutes more than extra ones.
Split training by task: “how to report a safety incident” is one module, and a 25-minute induction becomes five modules people can find again later. A CEO message holds attention when it delivers the news and stops.
Testimonials and recruiting videos depend on real people talking, which takes a little time. A testimonial needs the before, the problem and the after (our testimonial interview questions are built around that), and two minutes is plenty.
An event opener can run longer because the room is seated and facing the screen, but past three minutes the speaker is still waiting by the stage.
Ads and feeds: the format decides
For ads, the format sets the length before anyone writes a line. Google’s help page on YouTube video ad formats says viewers can skip a skippable in-stream ad after 5 seconds, and bumper ads, which can’t be skipped, last five to six seconds.
What the ad is selling has to be clear before the skip button shows up.
Upper limits rarely matter. LinkedIn’s video ad specifications accept anything from 3 seconds to 30 minutes, yet the same page recommends 15 to 30 seconds so an ad qualifies for every placement in the feed and the Audience Network.
Organic posts have no format to obey, which is why they’re the ones that run long. Open on the point rather than the logo, burn in the subtitles and stop at 90 seconds, well before the platform would make you.
Count the words before you promise a length
The length goes into the proposal before anyone has written a word, and that’s the moment to test it. Write down what the video has to say, one line per point, the way someone would say it out loud.
Count the words and check them against the table in how many words fit in a minute, leaving room for the seconds when nobody talks, like the opening and the end card.
If the points already fill the time, either the number in the proposal is wrong or the list is too long. Both are easy to fix now. Find the same thing in the edit and it costs a week and a round of notes.
It works the other way too. When the client asks for two minutes and the list holds four short points, ask what the extra minute is for. Often nobody had thought about it, and 90 seconds would do the job better.
Interviews have no script to count, so count the points the answers have to cover and plan on cutting more than you keep. Then write the length into the brief, next to where the video will play.
One message per video, with the cutdowns planned up front
Most long corporate videos have a short one inside them, plus two or three messages that came along for the ride. Trimming a second here and there saves little, and taking out a whole message is what brings the length down.
Write the one sentence the viewer should remember and check each line of the script against it. Lines that support it stay, and the rest needs another home.
When the client has three messages, say the new plant, the sustainability report and a hiring push, that’s three videos. They can share a shoot day and much of the footage, but each gets its own sentence and its own length.
Cutdowns follow the same rule. If the job includes a 60-second film, a 30 for LinkedIn and a 15 for ads, decide what the 15 says before the shoot, since it’s the hardest one to write.
Make sure the shoot gives each cut its own first and last line, so the 30 doesn’t start halfway through a sentence. The deliverables list post covers listing every cut and shape before the shoot.
What clients ask to add, and how to say no
The additions are nearly always the same: the founding story, every service line, every office, the full leadership team, the awards, the partner logos and a thank-you to the staff. Each is reasonable on its own. Together they add a minute or two to a 90-second video.
A trade goes down better than a flat no. Go back to where the video will play and the length you agreed in writing, and ask what comes out if the new part goes in.
Then offer each addition a place to live. The history fits the About page, and the service list fits the text under the player.
Have this conversation at the script stage, when a change is a few lines of text. After the shoot, the same addition means a re-edit or a pickup day that the quote never covered (the post on scope creep has more on that).
A message like this usually works:
Hi Marta, we can include the founding story. To keep the home page video at 90 seconds, something else has to come out, and I’d suggest the service list, since it’s already on the page right below the video.
If the history matters more, we can make it a separate 60-second video for the About page, and I’ll add it to the quote.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview the length lives on the video’s task, in the Production section under Video duration, and you can type it there in whole minutes.
Once the script is attached, as a file or a document from Google Drive or OneDrive, Calculate duration in the script’s menu reads it, leaves out what isn’t spoken and counts the rest at 140 words a minute.
The result replaces the number in Video duration, with the word count next to it. If it comes back at 2:40 for a video you promised at 90 seconds, the script needs cuts before the shoot.
After a cut is uploaded, the task shows the real length of the latest version, with the estimate in small type underneath. A cut that runs well past the estimate stands out before the client sees it.
Give each cutdown its own task, so it keeps its own length, versions and approval.
When you add a video to a production plan, its block takes the length from the task and multiplies it by the pace you set for the day to estimate recording time: Optimistic 2×, Normal 2.5×, Realistic 3× (the default) or Conservative 4×.
A 30-second ad and a 5-minute training module take very different shares of the shoot day, and the plan shows that before you book the crew.
