How much does social video analysis cost? A worked example with 500 videos and 15,000 comments.
Tool prices are only part of the cost. Here is how to work out what analysing your videos and comments really costs, with a worked example.
The short answer.
For a job of 500 videos and 15,000 comments, our illustrative estimate is about $6.23 with Noodle4, about $320 with a general AI tool making one-shot LLM calls, and about $950 with a legacy platform with an AI bolt-on. New video analysis tools that charge $0.50 to $1 per video would cost $250 to $500 for the videos alone. These are estimates for one scenario, so use the formula below with your own volumes.
- $6.23
- Noodle4, 500 videos and 15,000 comments
- $320
- A general AI tool, one-shot LLM calls
- $950
- A legacy platform with an AI bolt-on
Last updated 14 October 2026.
The formula
Whatever tool you use, the cost of the job comes down to one calculation:
total cost = (videos × price per video) + (comments × price per comment) + extras + analyst time
Most quotes only give you the first two terms. The last two, extras and analyst time, are where cheap tools often become expensive.
A worked example
Take a realistic monthly job: 500 videos and 15,000 comments on them, which is about 30 comments per video.
| Noodle4 | Legacy platform with AI bolt-on | General AI tool, one-shot LLM calls | New video analysis tools | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total cost | $6.23 | About $950 | $320 | $250 to $500 for the videos, comments extra |
| Compared with Noodle4 | Baseline | About 150 times more | About 51 times more | About 40 to 80 times more, videos only |
| How it is billed | Usage, no seats | Annual contract | Per call or token | Per video analysed |
Illustrative. The comparison columns describe categories of tool, not named products. Your volumes, prompts and contracts will change the numbers.
What drives the cost
- Volume. More videos and comments raise usage-based costs directly. Annual contracts hide this until renewal.
- Comments per video. A video with thousands of comments costs far more to read than one with a few, so check how each tool charges for comments.
- Re-runs. If you re-analyse the same content when a brief changes, you pay each time. Ask whether results can be reused.
- Seats. Per-user pricing adds cost for every person who needs access to the answer.
- Consistency. If the same item gets different labels on different runs, you may need to run it more than once and check the results.
The cost nobody quotes
The largest cost is often the analysis left for a person. A tool that lists results but leaves an analyst to read and triage them has moved the cost from the invoice to payroll. Here is a worked illustration, with example numbers you should replace with your own:
| Scenario | Tool cost | Analyst hours | Analyst cost at $50 an hour | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tool that leaves heavy analysis | $250 | 10 hours | $500 | $750 |
| Tool that classifies and triages | $6 | 1 hour | $50 | $56 |
Hypothetical numbers to show the method. They are not measured results.
What Noodle4 includes
Noodle4 is a full social intelligence platform, not only a video tool. It reviews text as well as video and images, and it includes:
- Text, video and image review. Reads captions, on-screen text, spoken words, images and comments, so the whole piece of content is understood.
- Taxonomies. Organise content and comments into your own categories, so results match how your team thinks.
- Visual-level SKU tracking. Spot products and SKUs as they appear in videos and images, not only when they are named in text.
- Classifications. Every piece of content and every comment is classified by topic, type and relevance.
- Anomaly detection. Flags unusual spikes and shifts, so you see what is trending before it spreads.
- Slack and Slack Connect. Reviews, risks and reports go to your team’s channels, and to shared channels with partners.
- MCP. Ask about your creators, campaigns and social intelligence from Claude, Cursor or any MCP client.
- API. Send content in and get structured results back from your own systems.
That covers social listening, brand monitoring, influencer screening and monitoring, content review and reporting in one place. It is priced on usage, not seats, from £99 a month.
How we know this
These notes come from building Noodle4’s review and listening pipelines, not from a published academic sample. Cost curves, intent splits, and ASR collisions are from internal R&D and client-shaped tests. They will not match every category. We include them because the failure mode is structural — not because one campaign is universal.
Alex Gray-Johnson is Co-Founder at noodle4, with 8 years in AI classification models and marketing.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to analyse a video?
It ranges from a few cents to a dollar or more depending on the tool. New video analysis tools reported by vendors charge about $0.50 to $1 per video, while usage-based tools built around classification models can be far lower.
Why is a general AI tool so much more expensive at volume?
One-shot LLM calls charge by the amount of text and video processed, and doing classification with a large model for every item adds up quickly. Using smaller purpose-built models for classification and an LLM only for reasoning reduces the cost.
Does comment analysis cost extra?
Often it does, and some video tools do not analyse comments at all. Ask for the price of your video and comment volume together.
How can I work out my own cost?
Count your monthly videos and comments, ask each vendor to quote that exact volume, add onboarding, support and seats, and estimate the analyst hours left over.