How to absorb video demand spikes

Why enterprise video demand is never flat

A typical enterprise year produces 60 to 150 finished videos. Roughly half of that volume lands in 3 to 4 spike months. Sales kickoff in January or February. Mid-year town halls in April and May. Conference season in June through August. Product launches and end-of-year recaps in October through December. The rest of the year sits at a much lower baseline.

Internal video teams are sized as fixed headcount. The same 2 editors who quietly produce 10 videos a month in a baseline month are asked to produce 30 in a spike month. That maths does not work. The team either burns out, the spike work gets turned down, or it gets done badly to meet the deadline. None of the three is a good answer for the business.

The three staffing models, and what each one actually costs

There are only three ways to staff an enterprise video program. Each one has a cost.

Option 1: Hire to peak

Staff for the highest-demand month. The math: at 5 finished videos per editor per month and a peak of 30 videos, you need 6 editors permanently on payroll. In a normal month (say 12 videos) you are using 2 editors and 4 are sitting on the bench.

The cost: roughly 60% of editor capacity is wasted across the year. At $110K loaded per editor, that is $264K of permanent payroll producing nothing in normal months. CFOs notice. Editors get bored and leave. Hiring to peak is the most expensive option in absolute dollars, and the worst for team morale.

Option 2: Hire to baseline

Staff for the average month. The team handles baseline volume well. When spikes hit, the team works weekends, pushes back on the lower-priority requests, or quietly tells the regional offices to handle their own video.

The cost: spike work either does not happen, happens badly, or fractures across the business. Other teams stop asking after a few rejections. Brand drifts as regions go around central. The lost output is invisible in budget terms (you never paid for the work you did not do) but it shows up as a stalled video program 18 months later.

Option 3: Hire to baseline + production partner for spikes

Staff the in-house team for the baseline. Use a production partner to absorb the spikes. Subscription tier can flex up 2 to 5x in spike months and back down in normal months, so you pay for what you actually produce instead of for idle editors.

The cost: the in-house headcount is sized correctly. The partner cost only runs during the months you need the extra output. Total annual spend is typically lower than hiring to peak, and significantly lower than the long-term cost of stalled or fragmented work in the baseline-only model. We covered the working pattern in how a video partner extends your in-house team.