Is it really that hard to find someone to do custom clips?

[Riddler]

I’ve mentioned on this site before that I have a woman who does AMAZING custom clips for me. Always goes above and beyond and nails exactly what I’m looking for.

She emailed me a few weeks ago saying she was going to take a break from all customs for a while and explained her reasoning. I totally understood and it was no problem.

I recently started asking other women about custom clips and holy crap it’s an absolute dumpster fire out there.

I knew I was lucky to find my girl on the first try but I don’t think I really grasped just how lucky I was. It’s been a nightmare.

1. First girl I contacted wanted to charge me more than double per minute what my girl charges per hour. My girl charges $200 per hour, this girl wanted $750 per minute.

2. Second girl wanted to charge $750 per hour, which is better but still seems high.

3. Third girl said she’d do it for $200 per hour, but wanted to make a bunch of changes to the script. When I explained politely that her changes weren’t what I’m looking for, she wrote back a really nasty email about how everyone loves her ideas and she’s done more than 500 custom videos and everyone tells her that her ideas are better than theirs.

4. Fourth girl said she doesn’t do that, even though she has six clips in that category on Clips4Sale.

5. Fifth girl told me she’s not doing customs because if health issues. (Which is not a problem.)

6. Sixth girl told me she just had both legs amputated and is not doing customs while she recovers. (Seriously)

7. Seventh girl agreed to do it and came back with the $200 price tag. Every day it was the same thing. She’d email me in the morning that she was going to film that night and then the next morning, I’d get an email that something came up and she couldn’t film.
After a week of this, she did film and emailed me the next morning to tell me it’s done and she thought it came out great. She told me she’d edit in the afternoon and I’d have it that evening.
When evening came, I got an email from her saying she “absolutely can’t send the footage I shot.” She refunded my money and told me she’ll let me know she’s doing customs again and hoped I’ll use her again (which is delusional).
I wrote back and asked her why she couldn’t send the footage and I’ve received no response.
8. Eighth girl said she’d do it and quoted the $200 price tag. She had to push filming back once, which was not a problem. She filmed it Thursday had told me I’d have the edited version by Friday. Friday came and went so I emailed her Saturday and I was told I’d have the edited version by Saturday night. It’s now Sunday at noon and I have no clip and she hasn’t emailed me any updates.

Is it always this awful?

 

[AudriTwo]

in my opinion, doing customs suck. i hate them, and it's hard to manage to do them with chronic health issues. even before my health worsened, i hated them. i had to set time aside which took away my normal cam/filming schedule. i would always regret it because it ended up costing me money instead of making a profit. which would cause me to spiral. not to mention sometimes customs can get very very specific.

when i get a message with a long detailed script for a custom:



the last 3 customs i've accepted, ive end up refunding them, because i could not commit. i had to refund my one reg via cashapp, because it was too late to have the site give them a refund. this year i've decided i need to no longer accept/offer them.

sorry you are having a hard time op.

ps: model 3 sounds like a pompous bitch

 

[veggiebabyy]

I typically enjoy doing customs and usually crank out 1-2 per week. That said, I charge $12/minute for basic customs and if you're looking for anything heavily scripted or physically strenuous, that price goes up. I'd say the people charging $750/hr have the right idea and in my opinion, $200/hr is underselling yourself.

If you're looking for a difficult/obscure/messy fetish or a very heavily scripted video, then yes, it's probably not going to be easy to find someone to do it.

 

[MarieElise]

Most custom ideas I reject, because they are a loss for me financially, given the amount of time I would put in, which is also why I don't tend to like them as much either.

As far as time goes it's standard to pay a lot extra if you want delivery any sooner than about 2 weeks. That being said I would hope that's clear upfront on the custom order form that you filled out.

I don't know what site you are using, but some sites have really clear order forms where the basic info can be communicated, upfront really easy (i.e. base price, delivery times and extra costs, per minute rates). The fact that you are talking about hourly rates makes me wonder what site you are using for custom orders, as usually, it's by the minute. In my experience, manyvids and iwantclips have really thorough order forms and escrow-type systems. This will help you go through a high volume of model links, to weed out models who either are not clear on what they offer, for what prices, or models that would not do your specific idea or accept scripts.

Many models don't accept detailed scripts (I am one of them). However, usually, I ask a guy to trim it down, I'm not about to try and put a bunch of work into altering his idea myself. That seems like a waste of time, as I could never possibly know what's in his mind, and what he likes, and I have no way of knowing if he's gonna purchase, so it's likely a waste of time to do that.

I think, in general, it is difficult to get customs done well. Because they are often a time and money loss for the successful models, who have good equipment and would do a good job. So they are not super motivating. I think these are likely the underlying issues that you are running into.

 

[darcyduke]

In my experience, custom videos can be a nightmare. I do them, but there are always issues. They are sooo complicated, and you always get criticised for something. They're really tricky to nail, and the pressure is just too much sometimes.

 

[Riddler]

So what I’m hearing is that custom clips are a nightmare and models really don’t want to do them. Then I think more models should say, “thank you, but I can’t do customs at this time.”

Instead, it seems like I found people playing games — quoting insane per minute rates, or flaking out after agreeing to do it.

I guess I was spoiled by the model I was working with. I never had one complaint dealing with her. And I always thought she went above and beyond to really understand what I wanted and get it to me faster than I expected.

Also I finally got the 8th girl’s clip back today. She did a good job and did what I wanted, but she positioned the camera weirdly so her head is cut off for large portions of the clip or I can hear her voice but not see her body.

I didn’t mention it in my response. She did what I asked so I just told her what a good job she did.

 

[Riddler]

Also, the model who said she filmed it but “absolutely cannot send the footage.”

Does that happen a lot? Does footage get messed up? I literally have no idea so I’m just asking to better understand what happened.

 

[ElaySmith]

Also, the model who said she filmed it but “absolutely cannot send the footage.”

Does that happen a lot? Does footage get messed up? I literally have no idea so I’m just asking to better understand what happened.

Sometimes things do happen that would make someone not want to send footage and a lot of times those things aren't noticed until the editing process. Her mic could of cut out half way through or the lighting could be funky, or the camera quit recording....maybe you have a bugger hanging from your nose or something in your teeth or a pimple on your butt and it gets even more complicated if its a muti angle/multi camera custom. There are many things that can pop up and if it was a very lengthy detailed custom to begin with, that she was having trouble shooting, I could understand wanting to refund vs reshoot.

 

[THE MOLLIE MARIE]

So what I’m hearing is that custom clips are a nightmare and models really don’t want to do them.

It's more like, I know the value of my time and I price accordingly.

 

[LittleLei]

It's more like, I know the value of my time and I price accordingly.

Yup, and I'm not sure about how others handle customs, but I do not resell customs. That along with how long it will take me to shoot, edit, export determines what I consider a fair price for myself.

 

[AudriTwo]

Also I finally got the 8th girl’s clip back today. She did a good job and did what I wanted, but she positioned the camera weirdly so her head is cut off for large portions of the clip or I can hear her voice but not see her body.

give her a break. it is so hard trying to frame yourself when it's only you shooting. you don't have someone on the other end who is adjusting for headspace. its easier to set it stationary and go. also when you have limited space, its especially hard to constantly get the whole body. there are models who have families or roommates, or small homes. another point to add is maybe she wasn't comfortable showing her whole face. i know there are days where i make content or do shows, and im barely showing my face because of my mental health. if you wanted full face shown, please specify in the future.

Also, the model who said she filmed it but “absolutely cannot send the footage.”

Does that happen a lot? Does footage get messed up? I literally have no idea so I’m just asking to better understand what happened.

yes. the reg who i refunded on cashap, i was not comfortable with sending the finished product. i agreed to do a custom that is wasn't comfortable with, you could hear my upstairs neighbor shuffling around above me and on top of that, i didn't like how i turned out. the clip didn't reflect how i am usually on cam. i spent a month trying to make this video, but due to my health, i kept deleting it and refilming because i looked so beat or sick.

i've had made things where the footage was corrupted or i do dumb shit like accidentally deleting the original file thinking i already uploaded it to my harddrive.

 

[MaePeach]

Everyone said what I wanted to say, but I just want to reiterate the point that $200/hour is absolutely underselling. The average is around $10/minute, depending on the fetish/content, and what I typically have sold all of my custom videos for. With an extra charge on top of that for exclusivity. The price drops slightly per minute if it does go up to an hour, but never all the way down to $3/minute.
no shame to those pricing that way, I just feel you should be getting more for your time etc.

 

[Danigirl]

I hate customs unless it's for a member I know pretty well and they're pleased with what I normally do or ideas I have already. And they're fine with me reselling. Still, would never do for $3/min. I make more camming in free chat on average so there's no way I'd take a price cut for a closed custom especially if I had to edit crazy amounts of the custom was super niche and not what I was normally comfortable with. $750 is probably what I would entertain as possibly doing a custom and it wouldn't be a full hour long.

 

[Lintilla]

So what I’m hearing is that custom clips are a nightmare and models really don’t want to do them. Then I think more models should say, “thank you, but I can’t do customs at this time.”

Instead, it seems like I found people playing games — quoting insane per minute rates, or flaking out after agreeing to do it.

This could be more a matter of a model not wanting to do your custom. How detailed is your script? How long of a video do you want? How niche is it (is it likely to resell?) Do you want it to be exclusive? Are you just really annoying to deal with?

I do customs now and then, but if the request is unreasonable or if I just happen not to like it, the person it's coming from, or the price they're willing to pay, then it's "thanks, but no thanks". I reject far more than I accept.

I'm also wondering if you're asking for an hour-long video, because quoting price per hour is kind of abnormal otherwise. I've done a few in the 45-60 minute range, and if I ever did it again, it would certainly cost you FAR more than $200. Personally, I'd probably put my price per minute UP, if anything for an extra-long video--they're a huge pain to film, edit and upload.

 

[melanieoncam]

Yeah no surprise you are having issues if you are paying three dollars a minute, wow. I can't imagine filming for an entire hour for that. Most of my customs are around ten minutes and cost $100, more if there are special audio or video effects requested. (and $10 per minute was industry standard years ago, really is pretty low by today's standards).

A custom video is normally not that long. What you are referring to is a film!

 

[Riddler]

For all the models beating me up on here because of price, I just want to say when I reach out to a girl I only say, “I’m interested in x,y and z, what do you charge?” And then I wait to see what they come back with.

I never try to negotiate because I think that’s unfair to the model. They have their reasons for pricing it as a high or low as they do. And I never say, “so and so is doing it for X amount, can you beat that?”

I simply just ask them what they charge for the script. I have no control over their response.

A lot of models on here say the $750 per hour girl was the one who priced herself correctly. And she may have.

Yet when I peddle my scripts around I get all kinds of responses, ranging from $200 to $750 and everything in between. So I really don’t know what the appropriate price is.

But at least two models this time, my regular and another girl I used once all came back with the $200 price tag for the custom. And I’ve done nothing to influence their price quote.

 

[Riddler]

To the model who said I should give the girl a break, I totally agree. It was clear she was having a hard time controlling the camera and was by herself. I understood what she was going through. She did everything I asked and when I wrote back, I raved over the clip and never mentioned the camera issues.

 

[Riddler]

It’s interesting hearing about all the reasons why a model wouldn’t have wanted to send the footage. I hadn’t thought about it like that and it makes total sense.

 

[MarieElise]

But at least two models this time, my regular and another girl I used once all came back with the $200 price tag for the custom. And I’ve done nothing to influence their price quote.

Yes, and a lot of models don't make it in this business and are here today gone tomorrow, or do it as a hobby.
Part of the reason many of them are here today gone tomorrow is that they underprice themselves, and burn out. It's beyond common. It's called a "race to the bottom". Undercut others thinking you're gonna be competitive, and end up burned out and broke instead.

I'm sure you could find someone desperate enough to quote $50 or even $20. In fact, I'm sure you could probably find hundreds to do that. Doesn't mean anything.

It sounds like your ex regular deserves a huge tip for all the times she quoted you so low. Hmmm I wonder why she doesn't want to do them for you anymore lol? Real mystery going on there.

Many of us here on this forum, are full time, and successful, and make a sustainable living from this industry, and have for a long time.
Many of us here on this forum also have expensive equipment and make top quality customs.

If you want a good quality custom, with nothing to whine and bitch about, pay the $750 - then give her 2 weeks before you wonder where it is. It's simple. Nothing left to argue back and forth about. No one is beating up on you, it's just called honesty. You asked. They took the time to answer in detail, for $0 per hour.

 

[Lintilla]

Yet when I peddle my scripts around I get all kinds of responses, ranging from $200 to $750 and everything in between. So I really don’t know what the appropriate price is.

But at least two models this time, my regular and another girl I used once all came back with the $200 price tag for the custom. And I’ve done nothing to influence their price quote.

I could tell you what I'd personally charge, or whether I'd accept your custom at all, but none of us here knows what your script consists of. It's understandable that you might not want to get as detailed as that on a forum like this, but without that information we can only speculate about what we'd consider an appropriate price, or what other issues might apply. If you want more specific answers it would help if we knew anything at all about what you're asking for.

For instance, I'm still curious about the length of the video. I said that I would charge a high price for something an hour long, but if, say, you want a voyeur video of me watching Netflix for an hour that doesn't require any editing at all? I might give a discount. Except that a custom like that probably wouldn't involve a "script", so who knows.

 

[Lintilla]

It sounds like your ex regular deserves a huge tip for all the times she quoted you so low. Hmmm I wonder why she doesn't want to do them for you anymore lol? Real mystery going on there.

I skipped over this bit of your reply when I was reading through, but I thought the same thing when I read the original post, because I have definitely had moments in the past where I realized I wasn't charging enough and was no longer willing to work for so little. I'm not Verizon--no one should expect their plan to be grandfathered in. It's still awkward to tell people you're going to need them to pay a whole lot more going forward, so I've ghosted or given excuses to clients. Probably not the most professional thing to do, but I know I'm not anywhere near alone in doing so.

The longer someone is in this, or any business, the more their skills improve, and the more they'll be able to charge. Sounds like maybe the $200/hr girl levelled up and decided she owed herself a raise.

 

[MarieElise]

I skipped over this bit of your reply when I was reading through, but I thought the same thing when I read the original post, because I have definitely had moments in the past where I realized I wasn't charging enough and was no longer willing to work for so little. I'm not Verizon--no one should expect their plan to be grandfathered in. It's still awkward to tell people you're going to need them to pay a whole lot more going forward, so I've ghosted or given excuses to clients. Probably not the most professional thing to do, but I know I'm not anywhere near alone in doing so.

The longer someone is in this, or any business, the more their skills improve, and the more they'll be able to charge. Sounds like maybe the $200/hr girl levelled up and decided she owed herself a raise.

Yes, I have had many cheaper guys freak out when I was honest with them, and lose their tempers. I have had many also, refuse to take it as a no, and pester me with messages every week or month for years afterward. Like literally I have a guy that's been emailing me every little while for 5 years, for the same custom, even though I tell him No, every single time. So I started telling those type of guys "I'm closed for customs right now" or "I no longer do your fetish". It's less energy-consuming than having to get angry, argumentative messages, which honestly are not going to change a thing, or likely be read anyways. I also feel it's more polite to say; I need a break right now. Rather than what is often the real full truth, which is more; I need a break from you specifically right now.

It just goes smoother. Less disgruntled threads on forums, and trash-talking lol. That way their ego doesn't feel all wounded, and they don't need to get all pompous, you know. Most of them don't even get that way, but some of them do (and it always seems to be the super cheap ones who do), and it just gets old, and boring. Yeah it's passive, but I've tried the other route of being 100% anally honest with all people, at all times, and that doesn't go that well.

 

[melanieoncam]

I skipped over this bit of your reply when I was reading through, but I thought the same thing when I read the original post, because I have definitely had moments in the past where I realized I wasn't charging enough and was no longer willing to work for so little. I'm not Verizon--no one should expect their plan to be grandfathered in. It's still awkward to tell people you're going to need them to pay a whole lot more going forward, so I've ghosted or given excuses to clients. Probably not the most professional thing to do, but I know I'm not anywhere near alone in doing so.

The longer someone is in this, or any business, the more their skills improve, and the more they'll be able to charge. Sounds like maybe the $200/hr girl levelled up and decided she owed herself a raise.

That's a good point. She might have been new to making videos.

I remember when I first started I was amazed how much some were charging, and then I undercharged for my first custom. I also didn't know it would tie up my computer so that I could not use it for the entire time it was encoding, so no money coming in from camming during that time.

Filming, re-filming when something didn't come out right, editing, etc. and when I finally had the finished product I realized I didn't even come close to minimum wage for the time I put in with what I had been charging. It was way more time consuming than I realized.

(Made maybe a dollar an hour by the time it was completed and was physically and mentally exhausted). I never did another for that low of a price.

 

[Danigirl]

Yep. Not saying OP thinks this, but a lot of guys think we just open a cheapie laptop, hit record and spend only an hour if that making their 10 min custom. Many don't realize that those of us independent models use tons of custom built equipment. My own basic set up is $10k+ for camming and that's not using my specialty cams or any of my expensive lingerie, shoes, toys etc. Running the business full time can require a lot of investment in equipment so I only do what will maximize my return on my investments. Usually customs are no where close to the best ROI. I love the biz but it can't burn me out. I'm thinking the original model gave herself a well deserved raise and bowed out of cheaper or long overly scripted customs. Really curious to know if it was a niche taboo fetish or complicated script...

 

[THE MOLLIE MARIE]

For all the models beating me up on here

I don't see anyone beating you up, but the sort of replies you are getting might have something to do with...

holy crap it’s an absolute dumpster fire out there.

It's been a nightmare.

that. Your further replies are pretty chill, but this initial tone was not the greatest. Just a note.

 

[yummybrownfox]

I’ve mentioned on this site before that I have a woman who does AMAZING custom clips for me. Always goes above and beyond and nails exactly what I’m looking for.

She emailed me a few weeks ago saying she was going to take a break from all customs for a while and explained her reasoning. I totally understood and it was no problem.

I recently started asking other women about custom clips and holy crap it’s an absolute dumpster fire out there.

I knew I was lucky to find my girl on the first try but I don’t think I really grasped just how lucky I was. It’s been a nightmare.

1. First girl I contacted wanted to charge me more than double per minute what my girl charges per hour. My girl charges $200 per hour, this girl wanted $750 per minute.

2. Second girl wanted to charge $750 per hour, which is better but still seems high.

3. Third girl said she’d do it for $200 per hour, but wanted to make a bunch of changes to the script. When I explained politely that her changes weren’t what I’m looking for, she wrote back a really nasty email about how everyone loves her ideas and she’s done more than 500 custom videos and everyone tells her that her ideas are better than theirs.

4. Fourth girl said she doesn’t do that, even though she has six clips in that category on Clips4Sale.

5. Fifth girl told me she’s not doing customs because if health issues. (Which is not a problem.)

6. Sixth girl told me she just had both legs amputated and is not doing customs while she recovers. (Seriously)

7. Seventh girl agreed to do it and came back with the $200 price tag. Every day it was the same thing. She’d email me in the morning that she was going to film that night and then the next morning, I’d get an email that something came up and she couldn’t film.
After a week of this, she did film and emailed me the next morning to tell me it’s done and she thought it came out great. She told me she’d edit in the afternoon and I’d have it that evening.
When evening came, I got an email from her saying she “absolutely can’t send the footage I shot.” She refunded my money and told me she’ll let me know she’s doing customs again and hoped I’ll use her again (which is delusional).
I wrote back and asked her why she couldn’t send the footage and I’ve received no response.
8. Eighth girl said she’d do it and quoted the $200 price tag. She had to push filming back once, which was not a problem. She filmed it Thursday had told me I’d have the edited version by Friday. Friday came and went so I emailed her Saturday and I was told I’d have the edited version by Saturday night. It’s now Sunday at noon and I have no clip and she hasn’t emailed me any updates.

Is it always this awful?

Hi. I haven't read any of the replies yet, so forgive me if some of this has already been said.

Doing customs is a pain in the ass, and I think any guy who actually receives his custom video in a day or two should consider himself lucky...because it's my understanding that models usually tell guys that it'll be about a week (or longer) before it's delivered? A lot of us do not like to promise you next day or two delivery. Just to be on the safe side, I tell people to give it about a week, even though it never actually takes me that long (I do get it done within a day or two). I'm just not trying to have a guy nagging me with "Is it done yet? Is it done yet?"

If it's a custom video, for example, where the guy wants me to pretend that I'm on top and shouting all this dirty stuff and being aggressive and loud, I'm definitely not recording that when my son is home. I'm gonna do that on a weekday when he's at IN-PERSON school (He has a few hours of school in person, and then comes home to do some virtual classes). Now if you happen to pay me on a Friday night for a custom like that (In my mind I'm telling myself I'll record it Monday morning), but Monday morning schools wind up closed due to snow/ice, then I've gotta aim for Tuesday. Which I'd expect the guy to understand. It ain't my fault it's a snowstorm, and schools are closed. Lol.

I did a video like that recently, and the guy was already talking about looking forward to paying for another one. I told him that will have to be sometime after Christmas break. When these kids have that week and a half off from school and are home all day, a loud video like that (where the buyer wants me to act like I'm riding him and calling him a "bitch" and whatnot) ain't gonna happen. Lol. If it was something simple like a foot fetish video without a script or a booty clapping video, then yeah, I would've done it during that time.

As for your gripe about girl #4...just because she has clips in that category doesn't mean she does custom videos...or will do custom videos of THAT particular thing. That's her choice. Yes, there are a lot of models who will do custom videos, but there are also a lot of models who don't.

 

[squirtalot]

but a lot of guys think we just open a cheapie laptop, hit record and spend only an hour if that making their 10 min custom.

oops oh dear that’s what i do. Well not with my laptop but with my phone. I used to do editing for my YouTube channel before i started camming. But for customs i just hit record, do the deed and send. no editing - nothing. But that’s why i feel uncomfortable charging more than my $5/min and taking more than 24 hours to send the video

 

[AudriTwo]

oops oh dear that’s what i do. Well not with my laptop but with my phone. I used to do editing for my YouTube channel before i started camming. But for customs i just hit record, do the deed and send. no editing - nothing. But that’s why i feel uncomfortable charging more than my $5/min and taking more than 24 hours to send the video

Raise those rates bb. Ngl I used to do the same thing most of the time and comfortably charged $20/min. It's a video that they are buying one-time that's going to get a lot of use out of with instead of a cam show.

You deserve it and creating a luxury product. Do $10/min

 

[squirtalot]

Raise those rates bb. Ngl I used to do the same thing most of the time and comfortably charged $20/min. It's a video that they are buying one-time that's going to get a lot of use out of with instead of a cam show.

You deserve it and creating a luxury product. Do $10/min

But nobody’s buying anything these days The camming is almost dead too. But i do see what you mean about the $10/minute

 

[Danigirl]

But nobody’s buying anything these days The camming is almost dead too. But i do see what you mean about the $10/minute

Not true for everyone. I had a shitty November for the amount of time spent on cam butt everything else has been crazy last year or so. Tons of dudes not able to get out and mingle found their way online. Even those furloughed had the extra unemployment check they spent right away.

If something isn't working change it up and try something new