How Much Does a TV Commercial Cost in South Florida? (Real Ranges, No Games)
Most advertisers budget for the commercial and forget the airtime, or the reverse. Here are honest production ranges for a South Florida spot, what a local media buy actually costs, and how to plan both together.
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Quick answer: Producing a professional TV commercial in South Florida typically costs $2,500 to $50,000+ for production alone — and that's before airtime. A simple, single-location :30 spot can start around $2,500–$5,000, a polished spot with local talent lands around $5,000–$15,000, and a fully scripted, cinematic commercial with professional actors and motion graphics can run $25,000–$75,000+. The media buy is a separate budget entirely. Below, we break down both sides so you can budget the whole picture, not half of it.
At Full Moon Creative, we've produced broadcast and streaming commercials for businesses and municipalities across Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties for 21+ years. Here's the transparent breakdown.
The First Thing to Understand: Production vs. Airtime
TV commercial budgets have two separate halves, and confusing them is the most common mistake first-time advertisers make.
Production is making the commercial: crew, talent, locations, editing, graphics, and music licensing.
Media buy is airing the commercial: buying slots on local broadcast (WSVN, WPLG, WFOR, WTVJ), cable, or streaming platforms like Hulu, YouTube TV, and Roku.
A $15,000 spot with a $2,000 media buy will underperform a $10,000 spot backed by a $20,000 media buy. Frequency is what makes advertising work, and frequency is bought with the media budget. Plan both together from day one.
What is the difference between production cost and the media buy? Production is the one-time cost of making the commercial, covering crew, talent, locations, editing, graphics, and music licensing. The media buy is the recurring cost of airing it on broadcast, cable, or streaming. They are separate budgets, and the second one is usually the larger of the two over the life of a campaign.
What Drives TV Commercial Production Pricing
1. Concept and scripting. A commercial is 30 seconds of persuasion, not 30 seconds of footage. Creative development, scripting, and storyboarding separate spots that sell from spots that merely exist.
2. Talent. On-camera actors, voiceover artists, and usage rights. Professional talent is a real line item, and broadcast usage rights add to it — a detail cut-rate producers conveniently skip until it becomes a legal problem.
3. Crew and production value. Broadcast standards are unforgiving. Proper lighting, cinema cameras, art direction, and audio engineering are what make a spot look like it belongs on TV instead of looking like an ad interrupting it.
4. Post-production. Editing, color grading for broadcast, motion graphics, sound mixing to broadcast loudness standards, licensed music, and versioning — :30, :15, and :06 cutdowns, plus vertical versions for social.
5. Broadcast deliverables. Closed captioning, station-specific specs, and traffic and delivery to each network. Small line items that matter enormously when your air date arrives.
Honest Price Ranges by Commercial Type
Every scope is different, which is why we quote from a real conversation rather than a menu. That said, here is where South Florida projects typically land.
| Commercial Type | Production Range | What's Included |
|---|---|---|
| Entry-level local spot | $2,500 – $5,000 | Half-day shoot, lean crew, single location, one straightforward :30 edit |
| Local "spokesperson" spot | $5,000 – $15,000 | One shoot day, owner or local talent on camera, single location, one :30 edit |
| Testimonial-driven spot | $10,000 – $20,000 | Real customers, interview and b-roll style, :30 and :15 versions |
| Scripted lifestyle commercial | $20,000 – $50,000 | Professional actors, multiple locations, full crew, art direction, cutdown package |
| Cinematic brand campaign | $40,000 – $100,000+ | Multi-day production, casting, original or premium licensed music, full versioning suite |
| Streaming / CTV-only spot | $2,500 – $20,000 | Same production discipline, lighter delivery requirements than broadcast |
Media buy budgets for local South Florida campaigns typically start around $3,000–$5,000 per month for cable or streaming, and $10,000+ per month for a meaningful broadcast presence. Effective campaigns usually run three months or longer — a single month rarely buys enough frequency to be remembered.
When Cutting Corners Gets Expensive (The TV Edition)
Television magnifies quality in both directions. A great spot builds instant credibility, because viewers subconsciously associate broadcast polish with established businesses. A poorly made spot does the opposite: it tells thousands of potential customers, in HD, that you cut corners.
The math makes it worse. If you spend $30,000 airing a commercial that doesn't convert, you didn't save money on production — you wasted the entire campaign. Production is the smallest variable and the biggest multiplier in the whole budget.
A modest budget isn't the problem. A modest budget without planning is. A well-planned $3,500 spot will outperform a careless $10,000 one every time.
Red flags in a TV commercial quote:
- No mention of talent usage rights or licensing terms
- No broadcast-spec deliverables — captioning, loudness compliance — in the scope
- One version of the spot, with no :15 or streaming cutdowns
- A package deal from the station itself with production thrown in nearly free. You get what you pay for, and it airs next to competitors who invested properly.
What You Get at Each Investment Level
$2,500 to $5,000
A lean, efficient entry point into TV and streaming. Half-day shoot, tight scope, one clear message. Best for businesses testing TV or CTV for the first time, provided it's planned with the same discipline as a bigger spot.
$5,000 to $15,000
A clean, credible local spot. Best for service businesses building name recognition: attorneys, medical practices, home services, restaurants. Simple, honest, and effective when the message is right.
$15,000 to $40,000
The sweet spot for businesses serious about growth. Professional talent, real art direction, and a full versioning package so one production feeds broadcast, streaming, and social simultaneously.
$40,000 and up
Campaign-level creative built to run for a year or more. Regional brands, franchises, developers, and organizations where the commercial is the brand impression.
How to Size the Media Buy Against the Creative
The two budgets should be decided together, because each one caps what the other can accomplish. A useful starting frame:
- Decide the flight length first. Three months is the practical minimum for a local campaign. Anything shorter buys awareness that fades before it converts.
- Set the monthly media budget, then work backward. If you can sustain $5,000 a month for three months, that's a $15,000 media commitment — and it tells you what the production should cost.
- Keep production proportionate. As a rough rule, production is a healthy investment when it lands somewhere near a third to a half of the first campaign flight, because the spot outlives the flight and gets reused.
- Budget the versioning, not just the spot. The :15, the :06, and the vertical cuts are what let one production run on broadcast, CTV, YouTube, and social at the same time. That's the cheapest reach you will ever buy.
The Bottom Line
A TV commercial is the most public asset your brand will ever create. It runs in living rooms, gyms, and waiting rooms across South Florida, often as someone's very first impression of your business.
That impression is worth investing in deliberately: strong creative, honest budget planning, and a media strategy sized to match. Get the ratio right, and a spot you paid for once keeps working every month you put it on the air.