The Brief
Wistia has a powerful Chrome extension called Soapbox that’s basically a screen + webcam recording, video editing + hosting app all in one. You can see pricing here but basically for the price of $0 you can record a software demo or presentation for clients with your computer and then share it, measure it, and call-to-action it.
Since Soapbox is used by folks on the web, Wistia wanted to demonstrate that you don’t need a massive budget to promote yourself on the web. So they hired Sandwich Video to make them three commercials: one for $100,000, one for $10,000, and one for $1,000.
What Does a Video Created with Soapbox Look Like?
Recorded in 3 minutes, this is how quickly and easily you can make a video with Soapbox:
Watch my Soapbox test on Soapbox
The Results of the $111,000 Video Experiment
You can watch the three videos on Wistia’s site here and judge for yourself which video is the best value for the money.
The way Sandwich video created and shot these commercials is genius and you likely couldn’t hire them to make you a video for just $1,000 anymore. Pay attention to the little touches and extras they’ve added as each video’s budget increased.
Who’s Wistia?
Wistia is a video hosting platform that’s focused on hosting videos for businesses or brands who for various reasons don’t want to use YouTube. They have a custom video player along with stats that allow for greater customization and freedom from the advertising and tracking that YouTube forces you to do in exchange for free hosting. They’re similar to Vimeo, except there’s no social aspect to Wistia. You don’t go watch other people’s videos on Wistia like you can on Vimeo. Vimeo would be closer to YouTube in that regard.
For example, here’s an embed of one of my recent tutorial videos hosted on my Wistia account:
I can also link directly to the video with this URL – https://lemonproductions.wistia.com/medias/lrw6gxnzu0 – so that it can easily be shared on social media.
I’d recommend Wistia for video hosting if your business’ branding and video needs don’t require the social game that YouTube wants you to play where your videos might end up recommended to a random person – or their videos might end up showing up after yours. Wisita is a great platform for having complete control of your video content.
I personally still choose to use YouTube for my videos because I want my videos to appear in searches on Google and YouTube alongside other videos in the hopes that my videos will get more views and eventually bring me more clients. But for projects or clients where the videos don’t have to live in the cesspool that is YouTube, I heartily recommend Wistia.
