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There are three ways founders get shortform video shipped: do it yourself, hire it out, or have the system installed once. One costs hours, one costs a retainer that never ends, one ends with you owning the machine. Run the honest math.
Run your numbers
Set your target and pick the path you'd take today. DIY is priced in your hours, because that is what it really costs. Hiring is priced in dollars. Deploy is a one-time install.
Scripting, filming, editing, and posting run about 2.5 hours per video when you do all of it.
Plus about $1,440 a year in editing and scheduling tools.
With Deploy, your side is recording and approving: about 55 hours a year.
In-house content hire: $70,000 and up a year in salary before tools.
Agency retainer: $3,000 to $8,000 a month at typical market rates.
Stop paying and the output stops with it. Nothing is left behind.
Your side is about two hours a week at the start, closer to 45 minutes once you find your rhythm.
At 3 videos a week, DIY costs about 390 hours of your year. Deploy hands roughly 335 of them back and ships 7+ videos a week while it does.
A retainer never ends. Deploy ends with you owning the system.
The line item nobody prices in is your own time. Doing everything yourself runs about 2.5 hours per video across scripting, filming, editing, and posting. At three videos a week that is close to 400 hours a year, roughly ten full working weeks, before a single dollar leaves the bank account. The tools subscription was never the real cost.
This is why the option that looks cheapest usually is not. DIY looks like $120 a month and behaves like a part-time job. A retainer looks like a solved problem and bills every month, forever. The honest comparison is the one the calculator above makes: your hours, their invoices, or a one-time install you end up owning.
If you are pre-revenue, cash is the constraint that matters and doing it yourself is the right call. The same goes if you have never been on camera: no service can tell you whether you actually like making shortform video, and finding that out costs a phone and some reps.
The first 90 days of learning the medium also pay dividends no vendor can transfer. Founders who have personally felt what a weak hook does to a video make far better clients and managers later, because they can judge the work. If that describes you, skip every paid option on this page for now. Come back when your calendar is the bottleneck instead of your budget.
A done-for-you rate only makes sense if it removes the whole job. Editing alone is a freelancer at a fraction of the price. Before you sign with any provider, JOLT included, get a specific yes on every item below. Vague answers on strategy or hooks mean you are buying an expensive editor.
The checklist: a real content strategy tied to your business goals. Hooks engineered per video, because the first three seconds decide everything. Full editing to platform standards. Posting handled for you across TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. And same-day trend response, since shortform moves faster than a weekly call. Missing any one of these, the price should drop or you should walk.
The checklist, in one place:
Common questions
Book a strategy call and we will walk the math with you: what each path really costs over a year, what Deploy changes, and which approach fits where your company is right now.
If you are in DIY territory, the Founder's TikTok OS is $197 and gives you the full system.