Creator Unit Math · unit economics for creators
What does your gear really cost per video?
A camera you film with for years is not a one-off expense — it costs a slice of its price every month over its useful life, and a slice of that for every video you publish. List your gear (price and useful life, or a flat monthly subscription) and how many videos you publish per month, and see a per-piece amortization table, the real cost per video, which piece weighs most, and how many videos a new purchase needs before it pays for itself.
How do you work out the real per-video cost of your gear?
Spread each bought piece over its useful life: a piece's monthly cost is its price divided by how many months you will use it (straight-line amortization). A subscription is already a monthly cost, so it counts directly. Add up every piece's monthly cost to get your kit's total monthly cost, then divide by the number of videos you publish per month — that is your real cost per video. A piece's own per-video cost is its monthly cost divided by the same output rate, so the per-piece figures sum to the kit total. Because the per-video cost falls as you publish more, a piece of gear pays for itself only once you have produced as many videos as it will see across its whole useful life.
Every figure on this page comes from the numbers you enter — this tool models your own kit and shows no benchmark or "typical camera price / useful life" data, because those vary by brand, model and usage and there is no single official source for them.
Build your gear amortization table
Live recompute as you type — no submit button. Press Esc to reset the example.
Real cost per video
$8.9
Your kit costs $71.17 a month, spread across 8 videos a month.
Per-piece amortization
Each piece's monthly amortized cost, its share of the monthly total, and what it adds to the cost of one video.
| Piece | Monthly cost | Per video | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camera bodyAmortized | $33.33 | $4.17 | 47% |
| LensAmortized | $12.5 | $1.56 | 18% |
| MicrophoneAmortized | $3.33 | $0.42 | 5% |
| Editing softwareSubscription | $22 | $2.75 | 31% |
| Total | $71.17 | $8.9 | 100% |
When a new purchase pays for itself
At your current output rate, New lens (paid $800) pays for itself after about 384 videos — roughly 48 months of publishing. That is when you have used it for as many videos as its useful life will see.
Take it to your purchase decision
Export your full amortization table · $19 / €19
Download a PDF + CSV of your kit — the full per-piece amortization table, your real cost per video, the heaviest piece, and the break-even of your next purchase. One-time, no account, ready to compare gear scenarios before you buy.
Purchases handled by Lemon Squeezy (Merchant of Record).
Checkout is being finalised — the export will be available here shortly.
Estimate, not financial advice
This tool is an estimate to help you read the real cost of your own gear before you buy. It is not financial, tax or accounting advice, and it is not an adviser. The output is only as accurate as the prices, useful lives and output rate you enter, and it uses no benchmark or market-rate figures. Sense-check the result against your own records before deciding.
How the math works
Straight-line amortization over a useful life
A bought piece of gear is not spent all at once — you use it for months or years. We spread its price evenly across its useful life: a piece's monthly cost is its price divided by its useful life in months. A $1,200 camera you expect to use for 36 months costs about $33 a month, not $1,200 the day you buy it. A piece with no useful life set yet can't be amortized, so it's shown but left out of the totals until you give it one.
Subscriptions count directly
Editing software, a music licence or cloud storage you pay for monthly is already a recurring cost, so there is nothing to amortize — the monthly price counts in full. Marking a piece as a subscription tells the tool to use its monthly cost as-is instead of spreading a purchase price over a useful life.
From monthly cost to cost per video
Add up every costable piece's monthly cost to get your kit's total monthly cost, then divide by the number of videos you publish per month — that is your real cost per video. Each piece's own per-video cost is its monthly cost divided by the same output rate, so the per-piece figures add up to the kit total. The more you publish, the lower the cost per video, which is why output rate matters as much as price.
When a new purchase pays for itself
A candidate purchase, amortized over its useful life, adds a monthly cost and therefore a per-video cost at your output rate. The number of videos until it has paid for itself is its price divided by that per-video contribution — which works out to its useful life in months times your videos per month. In plain terms: a piece of gear breaks even exactly when you have used it for as many videos as it will see across its whole useful life. The tool shows the break-even both as videos and as the months it implies, so you can judge a purchase against how fast you actually publish.
Where the numbers come from
Everything shown is computed from your inputs, in your browser — nothing is sent to a server. This tool deliberately asserts no "typical camera price" or "typical useful life" figures: real prices and lifespans vary by brand, model and how hard you use the gear, and there is no single authoritative source for them, so inventing benchmark figures would be fabricated data. The starting values in the form are an editable example to make the tool usable on first load, not a recommendation.
Frequently asked questions
- How is the cost per video calculated?
- Each bought piece is spread over its useful life (price ÷ useful-life months) to get a monthly cost; subscriptions count their monthly price directly. Adding up every piece's monthly cost gives your kit's total monthly cost, and dividing that by the number of videos you publish per month gives your real cost per video.
- What's the difference between an amortized piece and a subscription?
- An amortized piece is something you buy once and use for a while — a camera, a lens, a light — so its price is spread across its useful life. A subscription is a recurring monthly charge — editing software, a music licence, cloud storage — which is already a monthly cost and counts in full with no amortization.
- What useful life should I use?
- Use how long you realistically expect to keep using the piece before you replace it, in months. The tool does not suggest a number — useful life varies enormously by gear and by how hard you work it, and any "typical" figure would be invented. If you're unsure, try a range and see how sensitive your cost per video is to it.
- How does the new-purchase break-even work?
- Enter a candidate purchase's price and useful life. The tool amortizes it the same way as your existing gear, works out its cost per video at your current output rate, and tells you how many videos — and roughly how many months — until it has paid for itself. That break-even equals its useful life times your videos per month: it pays for itself once you've used it for its full life.
- Do you use any typical camera or equipment prices?
- No. Every figure on the page comes from the numbers you enter. Real gear prices and useful lives vary by brand, model and usage and there is no single official source for them, so the tool asserts none — inventing benchmark figures would be fabricated data. The example values in the form are editable placeholders, not market data.
- Is this financial advice?
- No. It is an estimate to help you read the real cost of your own gear before you buy, and it is not an adviser. The output is only as accurate as the prices, useful lives and output rate you enter; sense-check it against your own records before deciding.