What a Newsroom Workflow Review Costs and What Moves the Price
A plain account of how we price a newsroom workflow review, what the fee covers, and the handful of factors that make one review cost more or less than another.
Why we talk about cost openly
Editors tend to ask the same question early on: what will a review of our workflow cost, and will it pull people off the desk for a fortnight? I would rather answer that plainly than leave it for a second call. A workflow review is a piece of consultancy, so the price follows the time it takes to do properly, and that time depends on things we can discuss before anything is agreed.
The fee pays for observation, conversations with your staff and a written report. It does not pay for software, equipment or a rebuilt newsroom. We look at how a story travels from the first tip through assignment, shooting, ingest, edit, approval and transmission, and we write down where it slows and where it is fine. The current figures are set out on the Prices page, and this article explains what lies behind them.
These weeks, with the darker evenings arriving, many newsrooms start thinking about winter schedules and staffing. That is a sensible moment to look at the process, because the review can finish before the busiest part of the season begins.
What the fee actually includes
Every review starts with a short call to agree the scope. We then spend time with your team, either on site or in a mix of visits and video calls, watching how work really moves rather than how the process chart says it should. We talk to producers, editors, camera staff and whoever handles the final check before a package goes out.
The output is a written report for your editors and producers. It sets out what we saw, where time is lost, and a short list of recommendations in order of effort and benefit. Each one is written so that someone on your desk can act on it without us in the room. We also leave time for a follow-up conversation to answer questions once you have read it.
What is not included is hands-on implementation. If you would like help putting a recommendation into practice, such as a revised handover sheet or a changed edit-room routine, that is discussed and quoted separately, in writing, before any work starts.
- Scoping call before any commitment
- Observation and staff conversations
- Written report with ranked recommendations
- One follow-up conversation after delivery
Size of the operation
The biggest driver of price is how much there is to look at. A small regional desk with one bulletin and a handful of staff is a shorter job than a multi-programme newsroom with separate teams for breaking news, features and online. More people means more conversations, and more handovers means more places where a process can quietly go wrong.
Number of programmes matters as much as headcount. A single evening bulletin has one deadline, and everything bends around it. A newsroom feeding several outputs through the day has overlapping deadlines, shared crews and competing edit requests, and untangling that takes longer. We ask about this in the scoping call so the estimate reflects your real set-up.
If your newsroom works across more than one site, the review takes more time again, because we want to see how stories pass between locations. We would rather say so in the quotation than discover it halfway through and ask for more.
Depth, access and timing
Some clients want a light-touch look at one stage, such as how tips are logged and assigned. Others want the whole chain examined end to end. A narrower scope costs less because there is less to observe and write up. A broad one costs more, but often finds problems that only show where two stages meet, which a single-stage review would miss.
Access to your people is the other variable. If we can sit with the desk during a normal week and talk to staff between bulletins, the work is efficient. If staff are only available at fixed times, or we must work around a heavy news schedule, the days stretch out and the cost follows. We will plan around your calendar rather than ask you to change it.
Timing can also affect the quote. A review that needs the report in a tight window, for instance before a staffing decision, may mean reshuffling our own diary. We will tell you in the quotation if that is the case, and what it changes.
- Single stage or whole chain
- How freely we can speak to staff
- Whether the report is needed by a fixed date
How ordering and payment work
There is no booking on this site and nothing to buy here. You send an enquiry through the contact page, telling us roughly how your newsroom is organised and what prompted the question. We reply, usually with a few follow-up questions, and then send a written quotation setting out the scope, the fee and what is excluded.
Once you confirm the quotation in writing, we agree dates. After the work is delivered we issue an invoice, which is paid by bank transfer. That is the whole process, and there are no deposits taken through the site and no card payments of any kind.
If plans change, cancellations and refunds follow the payment and refund policy, which is published on the site. We would encourage you to read it before confirming, so that nothing in it comes as a surprise. If something in the quotation is unclear, ask, and we will rewrite it until it is.
Getting the most from the money
The reviews that return the most are those where the desk has a specific frustration in mind. Late packages, repeated re-edits, unclear ownership of a story at handover: a clear starting question lets us focus the time where it counts, and the recommendations come out sharper as a result.
It also helps to nominate one person on your side to arrange access and answer our questions. That cuts down on back-and-forth and keeps the days we spend with you productive. Sharing a typical week's rota and any existing process notes before we begin saves us from rediscovering things you already know.
Finally, read the report with your producers, not only your editors. The people who live with the process every day often spot straight away which recommendation is realistic and which needs adjusting. A review is only worth its fee if something changes on the desk afterwards.
- Name the problem you most want solved
- Appoint one point of contact
- Share rotas and existing process notes
The price of a workflow review comes down to how big your operation is, how deep you want us to look, and how easily we can reach your people. None of it is hidden, and all of it is written into a quotation before you commit. If you are weighing it up, send an enquiry through the contact page with a few lines about your desk, and we will tell you what the work would involve.
Iwan Davies
Newsroom Workflow ConsultantIwan reviews newsroom processes and writes clear, workable recommendations for editors.
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