How to Start Saving Time & Money on Post-Production in 15 Minutes: A Checklist for Video Studios

Despite major advances in tools like 3D modeling, VFX, CGI, HDR and high-resolution formats, many facilities still rely on outdated, manual workflows. This reluctance to adopt newer, cloud-based solutions leads to inefficiencies and rising costs. Post-production today involves a highly collaborative process including editing, color grading, sound design, etc., that often takes longer than the actual shoot. Productions grow more complex, and updating workflows is no longer optional: it’s essential to stay competitive.

Post-production has become one of the most critical and expensive stages in modern multimedia workflows. Still, post-production is often the most overlooked yet resource-intensive stage of video production. While much of the budget tends to go toward cameras, locations, crew, post, especially audio post, is where delays and hidden costs quietly accumulate. 

Production itself is generally seen as the most resource-heavy phase, so due to demands on shooting, lighting, and personnel, post-production can become the most overlooked stage in budget/planning yet consume significant time, technical expertise and collaboration effort to deliver a polished final product. 

Where the money goes: breaking down video production costs

Here is an approximate distribution of costs at different stages from broader data across the industry (e.g. Bonomotion, NitroMediaGroup):

• Pre-production (script, storyboarding, planning, casting and location scouting): ~15–25% of total budget;
• Production (crew, equipment, filming, location permits, casting and logistics): ~50–60%; 
• Post-production (editing, sound, effects): ~20–30% of overall costs.
  And some examples of hidden costs that erode margins in post-production according to Broadcastnow:
• Untracked overtime & downtime: small delays can lead to overtime premiums or non-productive staff time, often unbudgeted;
  
• Idle or non-project days: gaps between bookings still generate costs, skewing overall spending;
• Routine expenses: items like payroll taxes, licensing, recruitment, equipment wear and meals add up quickly;
• Freelancer vs employee dynamics: hidden taxes, benefits and compliance issues can make freelancers more expensive than expected;
• Unmonitored POs & invoices: late supplier charges or unapproved purchases may surface after budgets are finalized;
• Mid-project adjustments: contractual pay raises or unexpected service fees can disrupt financial planning;
• Exchange rate volatility and international tax shifts complicate budgeting for cross-border projects.

If your studio fails to monitor these factors in real time, it may end up with budget overruns, reduce profit margins and compromise project timelines. Studios now require tech-enabled budgeting tools to gain visibility, anticipate risks and maintain control across increasingly complex, global workflows.

Why post-production is the silent budget killer that also destroys your deadlines

Post-production quietly drains both time and money, often more than teams anticipate. Tasks like cleaning up dialogue, removing background noise, or syncing audio to video can easily eat up dozens of hours each month. And that time adds up. According to industry research, audio post production alone can account for over 20% of the entire post-production timeline, especially in content-heavy workflows like branded video series, social campaigns, or documentaries. When this effort is underestimated or manually handled, it inflates costs and also pushes deadlines beyond what was promised.

Frame.io and Adobe's most recent productivity benchmarking research provides detailed insights into the time spent on various steps of the video production workflow, including tasks typically performed in audio studios. Take a look at the report to learn average times for steps that can include audio work, such as review and approval, file management and creative collaboration:

Common audio bottlenecks in studio pipelines

When it comes to post-production, sound is often the most underestimated bottleneck. Video edits may move swiftly, but audio workflows are frequently slowed down by technical setbacks, manual processes and approval delays that pile up over time. From poor location sound to outdated archival footage, here are some of the most common issues that quietly derail timelines and inflate costs:

1. Poor on-location sound: background hum, wind, crowd noise and reverb make it hard to salvage dialogue;
2. Outsourcing delays: sending audio to external studios introduces turnaround delays and feedback loops;
3. Manual cleanup: noise removal, re-EQing, and syncing are still often done by hand;
4. Archival issues: old footage with low-quality sound requires special care;
5. Approval delays: sound is often finalized late in the process, holding back final delivery.

The 15-Minute checklist: what AI can handle for you today

AI isn’t a replacement for audio engineers, but it can dramatically reduce their time spent on routine tasks. With just 15 minutes of setup, you can begin automating, for example:

• Noise removal: striping away unwanted background noise in seconds using tools like LALAL.AI’s Voice Cleaner;
• Stem separation: extracting dialogue, vocals or music from video or mixed audio (LALAL.AI’s Stem Splitter is great for this);
• Auto-subtitling & speech-to-text: generating subtitles or transcripts instantly using tools like AssemblyAI, Whisper, or Descript, which is useful for accessibility, localization and editing workflows;
• Voice cloning & synthetic voiceovers: generating missing or placeholder lines using AI-generated voices (e.g., LALAL.AI’s Voice Cloner), ideal for pickups, dubs or testing new edits;
• Silence detection & smart trimming: automatically cutting out filler sounds, pauses, or stumbles in dialogue - a huge time-saver in podcast and interview workflows;
• Loudness normalization & basic mastering: ensuring consistent audio levels across scenes or episodes automatically, reducing the need for manual gain adjustments;
• Emotion or speaker detection: identifying speaker changes or emotional shifts in dialogue - useful for organizing raw footage and tailoring edits faster.

How much can you really save?

Thanks to AI, tasks such as audio cleanup, rotoscoping and automatic resizing for different formats are now handled quickly and with high precision. For teams looking to streamline delivery and stay on budget, post-production is the ideal stage to implement AI solutions. By automating repetitive or technical tasks, they empower smaller teams to work at scale and deliver content faster - whether for corporate films, social media ads, or educational content. 

The result: streamlined workflows, fewer bottlenecks and more creative freedom.

When it comes to audio cleanup, the savings are particularly striking. 

Audio cleanup costs in 2025: manual labor vs AI solutions

Below is a cost comparison between traditional manual audio editing and AI-powered solutions in 2025:

• Manual audio cleanup:
  • Entry-level rates: $25–$37/hour (average: ~$29/hour), according to recent stats;
  • Sound editors: ~$21–$49/hour depending on experience and region;
  • Experienced professionals: $75–$200/hour;
  • Studio-grade cleanup (dialog editing + mixing): ~$100 per minute of audio.
• AI-based audio cleanup:
  • Typically costs between $0.25 and $3 per audio minute, or roughly $0.75 to $2.20 per hour.

For small studios producing around 20 videos a month, switching to AI-powered post-production tools can result in monthly savings of $2,000 or more - without sacrificing quality or timelines.

From $1,000 to $200: a studio’s audio workflow reimagined

Let’s take an example of a small YouTube-focused production studio that creates 5-10-minute videos weekly, around 20 hours of audio per month. Let’s compare manual audio cleanup costs versus AI audio cleanup costs, as well as typical services executed during these tasks and their quality based on recent market data and industry pricing based on this example:

Thus, AI cleanup is ideal for small studios producing multiple YouTube videos regularly, enabling dramatic cost and time savings with good quality sufficient for most audiences.

Getting started in 3 simple steps

1. Identify tasks to automate: define where your team spends the most time. Maybe, analytics and social promotion automation, uploading, publishing, scheduling or video/audio editing and cleanup?
2. Pick the right tools: for instance, for video/audio editing and cleanup, try LALAL.AI’s Stem Splitter and Voice Cleaner;
3. Integrate the tool into your pipeline: start with a test process;
4. Assess the results and update your team’s checklist.

How does LALAL.AI work?

1. LALAL.AI is available online, so just go to the LALAL.AI website and choose the product needed from Products’ section (or use a desktop/Android/iOS app). 

2. Log in using one of several login options available. 
3. Then, click on Select Files/Choose Audio or Video/Choose song depending on the product you will be using and just follow the process! Then just wait until the audio is processed and download the final result if you’re happy with the previews, that’s all.

Final thoughts: 15 minutes to transform your workflow

AI won’t replace sound designers, but it can empower your studio to focus on creative work rather than repetitive cleanup. In just 15 minutes, you can begin to slash your post-production time and costs by a factor of three and deliver faster without compromising on quality.

Try it, measure the results, and free up your team to do what they do best: create.

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