What it costs to find crew in the UK
6 minute read
The UK crew-finding market has two published price shapes and one unpublished one. Freelancers pay a few pounds a month or nothing. Companies pay per job post, per search window, or on a subscription that is quoted rather than listed. Here are the numbers, and where the spend stops.
Published company prices
The Talent Manager publishes its transactional prices. These were on its pricing page in August 2026:
| What you buy | Price |
|---|---|
| One job post | GBP 145 |
| Seven day search | GBP 195 |
| One job post plus seven day search | GBP 299 |
| Three job post credits | GBP 425, or 141.67 each |
| Five job post credits | GBP 695, or 139 each |
Read the credit bundles as the real anchor. Buying in fives takes a post from 145 to 139, which is a four percent discount for a fivefold commitment. That is a market with no volume pressure on it.
The tier nobody publishes
The company subscriptions sit behind Contact Sales. Three tiers, each banded by headcount at one to ten, ten to thirty, thirty to one hundred, and one hundred plus. No public number at any band, and a discounted community rate for companies under certain turnover thresholds in exchange for a link back.
For a producer trying to budget, the practical effect is that the only prices you can plan against are the transactional ones, and those are priced per hire rather than per production.
What the freelancer side pays
Three independent points put the UK freelancer band between three and six pounds a month as of August 2026: The Talent Manager's optional Pro upgrade at GBP 4.86 a month or 55 a year, and ProductionBase at GBP 3.33, 5.42 and 6.25 plus VAT across three tiers.
The market leader gives freelancers the platform at no cost and bills companies. That tells you where the value is understood to sit: the network is the asset, the crew are the network, and charging the supply side to join shrinks it.
Where the spend stops
The crew-finding platforms end at the hire. The payroll bureaus start at the timecard, and only work if you buy their payroll.
| Find | Hire | Log hours | Approve | Export to payroll | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Talent Manager | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| ProductionBase | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| EP, Cast & Crew, GreenSlate | no | no | yes | yes | into their own payroll |
| Breadshift | yes | yes | yes | yes | to any of them |
The gap in the middle is where a production manager sits with a spreadsheet, a messaging thread and a folder of photographed timecards.
What Breadshift costs
| Standard, per production, per month | Founding rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Pounds | £79 | £39 |
| Dollars | $99 | $49 |
| Euros | €89 | €45 |
Per active production rather than per seat, because a production is the cost center and per-seat pricing charges you for adding crew. A production that wraps stops billing. Crew join at no cost. The founding rate covers the first ten production companies and is locked for twelve months.
Competitor prices on this page were read from their public pricing pages in August 2026 and are not tracked automatically. Check them before you rely on them.
Questions
- Is there a free way to find crew?
- Industry groups, mailing lists and the phone. They work, and they cost a production manager's afternoon per role. The published alternative starts at GBP 145 a post.
- Why is the company tier always Contact Sales?
- Because it is banded by headcount and negotiated. It also means a small production company has no way to compare before it books a call.
- Does Breadshift charge per crew member?
- No. One price per active production, whatever the crew size, and no percentage of payroll.