Studio Hire Costs in London, Explained

Studio hire in London is hard to compare from a listing page. Two rooms that look alike in the photos can differ in what is built into them, what the rate includes and who is on site on the day. Those differences are real, and they are easy to miss on a listing page.

This piece explains what drives the number, how the day structures work, what sits outside the room rate, and what Scope charges. We publish our room rates because comparing a real number to a real number is the only useful way to budget.

Why prices are hard to compare

Broadly, four things change what a day costs.

• Location. Where a studio is changes what the day costs beyond the rate: ask about parking, load-in and how the crew will get there.
• Infrastructure. A room with an infinity cove, blackout and drive-in access costs far more to build and maintain than a white room with a paper roll, and the rate reflects that.
• What is included. A studio quoting a low room rate and hiring lighting separately can end up dearer than one quoting higher with kit in. You cannot compare these two on headline rate at all.
• Staffing. Some studios keep a technician on site, which buys you time back when something goes wrong. Unstaffed self-service space is cheaper, and occasionally much more expensive when it costs you an hour. Ask which you are booking.

Compare studios on the total cost of getting your shot, not the number on the listing. They are rarely the same number.

How half-days and full days actually work

At Scope, Studio A and Studio B are sold in blocks - two hours, a half day of four hours and a full day of eight - while the podcast room is booked by the hour. Elsewhere, check what a studio means by a half day and a full day before you compare two quotes, because the hours behind those words are what you are buying.

The important thing to understand is that a half day is not half a full day in usable terms. Set-up and de-rig cost the same regardless of how long you shoot in between. Rigging a cyc and testing it can easily take an hour before the first frame, and packing down takes its own share at the end, however long the middle is. On a four-hour block that can be a third of the booking or more; on an eight-hour block the same overhead is a much smaller proportion.

So the honest rule is: half days work for simple, single-setup shoots - a headshot session, one product on one background, a short interview. The moment you have more than two lighting setups or a wardrobe change, price the full day and do not fight it. A rushed half day that overruns costs more than the full day you did not book.

Check whether set-up is inside your hours

Some studios include rigging time in the booked block; some let you come in earlier. Ask, because it materially changes what you are buying. At Scope, set-up and pack-down sit inside the booked hours, so a four-hour half day is four hours including the rig and the de-rig.

What Scope charges

Our room rates are published in full on the rates page. Here they are in prose so you can budget from this article without clicking through. If you already know the job rather than the room, pick the page for what you're making instead.

Studio A

The larger room - 1,200 sq ft with a white drive-in infinity cove and blackout curtains. Built for full-length work, vehicle shoots, large product and set builds. Two hours is £160, a half day of four hours is £320, and a full day of eight hours is £620. Details and images are on the Studio A page.

Studio B

A sound-treated room-within-a-room with a colour-washable cove, which makes it the right choice when you are recording audio or want to change background colour quickly. Two hours is £120, a half day is £220, and a full day is £420. More on the Studio B page.

DJ room

A hand-built concrete DJ booth with two AlphaTheta CDJ-3000X players and a Pioneer DJ DJM-A9, built for recording and filming a set. It is £75 an hour with a four-hour minimum - £300 for four hours, £575 for eight, and £75 for each extra hour on top of a block. It is the one room here where the lighting is included rather than quoted separately, which is worth counting when you set its rate against the others. More on the DJ room page.

Podcast room, music studio and workshop

The podcast room is £40 an hour, which suits the way podcasts are actually made - people book two or three hours and record several episodes. The music studio is £80 for a half day dry, or £140 for a half day with an engineer on the desk. The workshop, which has 10 iMacs and takes up to 20 people, is £120 for a half day and £240 for a full day; it is the room for training, edit days and post sessions rather than shooting.

The whole building

Both studios, the podcast room, the music studio, the workshop, the kitchen, the dressing room and the parking, with nobody else in the building, from £1,500 a day. The DJ room is the one room that sits outside a buyout and is booked separately - say if you want it on the same day and we will hold it alongside. A buyout is the one to look at for a production that needs multiple simultaneous setups, a shoot that wants privacy, or a company doing a full content day across stills, video and podcast at once; the buyout guide runs the numbers.

We are in SE5, at Block A, Chartwell Business Park, 61-65 Paulet Rd, and open seven days a week. The published rate card has no weekend supplement.

What Scope's room rates include, and what they don't

Each rate covers the room and what is built into it. Studio A comes with its white drive-in cove and full blackout curtains; Studio B with its sound-treated construction, colour-washable cyclorama, adjustable backdrop system and edit and playback area. The podcast room includes its professional microphones and audio interfaces, the music studio has its treated vocal booth, large-diaphragm condenser and nearfield monitors, and the workshop includes its 10 iMacs. The DJ room comes with its decks, mixer, monitors and film lighting.

Lights are the exception. They are charged separately in every room except the DJ room, so please enquire about our lights and we will quote for what the shoot needs. Beyond that, we have not published a full in-house kit list: tell us what you need - stands, grip, a tethering setup - and get what is on site confirmed in writing before you hire anything in. The room-by-room answer on equipment is also on the FAQ page.

Hourly, half day or full day: which is cheaper per hour?

Not every room gets cheaper the longer you book it. Here is the per-hour arithmetic from the published rates.

• Studio A: £80 an hour on two hours or a half day, and £77.50 an hour on a full day, £20 less than two half days.
• Studio B: £60 an hour on two hours, £55 on a half day and £52.50 on a full day. Each step up saves £20 on buying the shorter block twice.
• DJ room: £75 an hour with a four-hour minimum, so £300 is the smallest booking. Eight hours is £575, £25 less than two four-hour blocks, and extra hours on top of a block are £75 each.
• Music studio: dry hire is £20 an hour on a half day, and £18.75 an hour on a full day. With an engineer a full day is exactly two half days, £280 against £140; whether you need one is a separate question.
• Podcast room and workshop: flat. The podcast room is £40 an hour at any length, and the workshop works out at £30 an hour on a half day or a full day.

So where the longer block is cheaper per hour and you might need the time, book it up front: overtime is charged as extra, at a rate confirmed when you book, and another production may be coming in behind you. In the podcast room, the workshop and the music studio with an engineer, length buys no discount, so book the hours the shoot needs.

What to budget beyond the room

On most shoots the room is a minority of what the day costs. The rest is the part people underestimate.

• Crew. Photographer or DP, an assistant, hair and makeup, a stylist. This is normally the largest line by some distance.
• Equipment hire. Lighting, specialist lenses, a gimbal, a jib. At Scope, lights are quoted separately in every room but the DJ room. For everything else, ask what the studio holds before you hire in duplicates.
• Talent. Model fees, usage rights and agency commission, which is charged on top and catches people out.
• Props, wardrobe and set. Including the cost of returning or disposing of it afterwards.
• Transport. Van hire, congestion charge, ULEZ, parking, and couriers for kit that arrives separately.
• Catering. On an eight-hour day with a crew of six this is a real number, not a rounding error.
• Post-production. Retouching, editing and grading routinely cost more than the shoot day itself, and get quietly forgotten at the budgeting stage.
• Insurance. Scope's terms ask for appropriate insurance cover for your production, and we may ask to see it. Check what your policy covers before the day rather than on it.

Worked budgets for photo and film days

Here is the room line for five common jobs, using only the published rates. Everything else is marked as a quote, because it depends on your crew, your kit and your edit, and a number invented for it would be worse than no number at all.

• Team headshots on one clean setup. Studio B, half day: £220. Quote: lights, photographer, hair and makeup, retouching.
• A product run on white. Studio A, full day: £620. Quote: lights, photographer and assistant, props, retouching.
• An interview series. Studio B, full day: £420. If the show is audio-led, three hours in the podcast room is £120, microphones and interfaces included. Quote: lights, crew, cameras, the edit.
• A music video with a vocal session on the same day. Studio A for a full day (£620) plus the music studio dry for a half day (£80): £700 in rooms. Quote: lights, crew, talent, the edit and grade.
• A closed-set short film or campaign. The whole building, from £1,500 a day. If a scene needs the DJ room, it sits outside the buyout and is booked separately, from £300 for its four-hour minimum. Quote: lights, crew, cast, catering, post.

The room is the only fixed number on each of these, and on most shoots it is not the largest. Price the quote lines before you commit to a date, not after.

Overtime and the cost of a tight booking

Overruns are the most common way a studio budget breaks. Policies vary between studios, so confirm the specific terms with whoever you are booking - what the overtime rate is, how it is rounded, and how late the building is accessible. How it works at Scope is in our guide to booking terms.

The better answer is structural: build a buffer into the booking. An extra hour bought calmly in advance is a known cost; one negotiated at the door with the crew still on the clock is not. If the shot list looks like a full day, book a full day.

How to get the price down honestly

Not by haggling on the rate. By needing less of it.

• Book the right room. A talking-head interview does not need a 1,200 sq ft drive-in cove, and paying for one is money spent on floor you will never point a camera at.
• Arrive with a shot list and a running order. Every shoot that overruns overran because someone was deciding on the floor.
• Batch by lighting setup rather than by look, so you rig each setup once.
• Combine. If you need stills, video and a podcast episode, doing them in one building on one day removes a second set-up day and a second travel day.

The summary

Expect the room to be a minority of your total. Price the full day if you have more than two setups. Get the overtime terms in writing. And compare studios on what it costs to walk out with your images, not on the headline rate - the cheapest room in London is not much of a bargain if you spend an hour of it carrying kit up a stairwell.