Cloud Based Budgeting. One live budget for the whole job. Producers, supervisors, and coordinators build estimates, track actuals, and work from the same current numbers.
| Line Item | Estimate | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| A — Pre-Production & Wrap | $48,250 | $46,900 | ($1,350) |
| B — Shooting Crew | $112,400 | $114,750 | $2,350 |
| C — Location & Travel | $36,800 | $35,200 | ($1,600) |
| D — Props & Wardrobe | $21,500 | $19,875 | ($1,625) |
| Total | $218,950 | $216,725 | ($2,225) |
Scott Ludden has produced commercial TV campaigns for 25+ years — more than 500 campaigns and $250 million in production budgets, including multiple years of Super Bowl spots, and work for Toyota, Nike, Adidas, Best Buy, Walmart, and other Fortune 500 brands. He's a 2021 Emmy Award winner. Commercial TV Budget grew out of the same spreadsheets, email chains, and version-control chaos he saw across hundreds of real jobs — not a guess at what producers need.
From bid request to wrap, every role on the job works from the same live numbers.
Professional-grade budgeting tools that stay out of your way.
Every edit appears live for everyone with access. No stale versions, no "which file is current?"
AICP-style sections A through K out of the box. Speak the same budget language on every job.
Duplicate bids into clearly named versions and keep every version organized inside its job folder.
Log actuals as you shoot. Over/under status per line, updated instantly, visible through wrap.
Control who sees what. Every change is logged with who, what, and when — your numbers stay yours.
One click to polished PDF and Excel outputs for clients, agencies, and accounting.
Remember vendors, crew, and contact details for faster entry across purchase orders and production logs.
Purchase orders feed the PO log, while payroll and petty cash totals reconcile through their own logs without duplicating actual costs.
Keep job-specific crew and equipment holds alongside the budget instead of in separate files.
Start with a clean AICP-style budget or import an existing Excel budget into a job folder.
Edit the estimate, create versions, and share the live budget with the people working on the job.
POs and production logs reduce repeat entry, feed actual costs to the right budget lines, and leave a cleaner reconciliation for wrap.
A guided look at creating a job, building the estimate, collaborating, automating production logs, tracking actuals, and wrapping the finished budget.
"The bid used to live in six spreadsheets and forty emails. Now it lives in one place — and everyone's looking at the same number."— Line Producer, National Broadcast Campaign
Commercial TV Budget is built by TV commercial producers and executive producers with over twenty years of experience bidding, shooting, and actualizing real jobs.
Try it free for 30 days. After your trial, continue with Production for $29/month.
You get 30 days of full access to one active job and can invite up to two teammates — enough to run a real budget from estimate to wrap before you pay anything. No credit card required to start.
Invite them during your free trial at no cost — the trial covers up to three people on one job. If you convert to a paid plan, each collaborator needs their own seat; pricing starts at $29 for the first seat, with lower per-seat pricing as your team grows.
Please contact support for production-company seat pricing and further inquiries.
You can bill monthly, every six months, or annually. Six-month billing saves about 8%, annual saves about 17% — you can switch between billing terms at any time.
The first 30 accounts to convert from a free trial to a paid subscription — within 45 days of launch — lock in $29 for their first seat for as long as they keep an active subscription, even if we raise prices later. The locked rate includes the features available at launch; new or updated features released later are not included. Full terms are in our Terms of Service.
You can cancel anytime; it takes effect at the end of your current billing period. If you're a Founding Member, cancelling ends that status — resubscribing later means standard pricing, not your original rate.
Every account has role-based permissions and a full audit trail — every change is logged with who, what, and when. Payment details are handled directly by Stripe; we never see or store your card number.
Yes — import an existing spreadsheet into a job folder and review the mapped line items before relying on them, since results depend on your workbook's structure and formulas.
AICP-style sections A through K, out of the box — the same structure most agencies and production companies already bid and actualize against.
Join the producers and bidders who left the spreadsheet behind.
Start a Budget Free