How to produce video for tech and SaaS

Why SaaS video programs need a continuous production model

SaaS ships product continuously. Quarterly major releases, monthly minor releases, weekly product drops, daily fixes. A traditional campaign-led video program (one big shoot every six months, a few hero films per year) cannot keep pace with the rate the product is changing. By the time the campaign video ships, three product releases have happened and the video is already partly out of date.

The structural shift: a continuous production model matched to the release cycle. Quarterly major release video. Monthly minor release video. Weekly product drops. An annual flagship for the keynote moment. Layer in customer, developer and brand + exec tiers on top. The mature SaaS video program ships 120 to 250 video pieces per year across the four tiers because the product gives the team that much to talk about and the buyer expects to see it.

The four content tiers

Tier 1: Product video

Feature explainers, demos, release films, integration walkthroughs. The highest-volume tier because every release surfaces new material. Cost: $2K to $8K per asset in batched production. Volume: 60 to 120 pieces per year for an active SaaS program. Lead: product marketing. Cycle time: 1 to 3 weeks. This tier carries the volume that fills the buyer journey from awareness through evaluation.

Tier 2: Customer video

Customer stories, case studies, advocacy clips, testimonials. Lower volume but higher per-asset cost because the production has to travel to the customer (or recreate the customer environment in studio). Cost: $8K to $25K per asset. Volume: 12 to 30 pieces per year. Lead: customer marketing. Cycle time: 4 to 8 weeks. This tier carries the deal velocity for late-stage opportunities.

Tier 3: Developer video

API walkthroughs, SDK tutorials, community calls, dev rel content. The tier most underinvested in by SaaS companies that have a developer audience. Cost: $1.5K to $5K per asset. Volume: 30 to 60 pieces per year. Lead: developer relations plus documentation team. Cycle time: 1 to 2 weeks. This tier carries the technical buyer who evaluates SaaS by reading docs and watching API videos.

Tier 4: Brand + exec video

CEO updates, vision films, analyst-day video, recruiting video. Lower volume but higher production value because it shapes the brand impression. Cost: $10K to $30K per asset. Volume: 10 to 20 pieces per year. Lead: brand and comms. Cycle time: 4 to 10 weeks. This tier carries the strategic narrative the rest of the program ladders up to.

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The release-video alignment

The pattern that holds for product-tier video:

Quarterly major release

Launch film (90 to 120 seconds, hero treatment), product demo (3 to 5 minutes), 4 to 6 feature-specific explainers (60 to 90 seconds each), CEO or PM video framing the release theme. ~8 pieces per major release. Distributed at launch then re-cut into social, email and sales-enablement variants. Production cycle starts 6 to 8 weeks before release date to be ready at launch.

Monthly minor release

2 to 3 feature explainers per minor release plus a changelog companion clip. Lighter production (PM-led talking head with screen capture) for most assets. Cycle starts 2 to 3 weeks before release. The minor-release tier is where most product-tier volume sits.

Weekly product drops

Short-form tips, demo clips, PM-led product walkthroughs. 30 to 90 seconds. Native social formats. Cycle: 3 to 7 days from idea to publish. The weekly tier is what keeps the social presence active between major releases.

Annual flagship

Keynote film, customer event content, CEO vision piece tied to the company's annual moment (user conference, partner summit, anniversary). 4 to 10 weeks lead time. The annual flagship carries the highest production value of the program.

The customer video model that scales

Most SaaS customer programs underdeliver because each story is treated as a bespoke production. The model that scales:

Batched customer recording days

Quarterly customer-event tie-in (Dreamforce, Reinvent, your own user conference) becomes the recording day for 8 to 15 customer interviews. Same studio setup, same questions, different customers. Per-asset cost drops dramatically. We covered the broader pattern in how to produce customer story video at scale.

Modular customer story format

3 to 5 minute hero story plus 30 to 60 second social cutdowns plus a 60 second sales enablement version plus a written case study. One recording session, 5 to 10 outputs. Standard format the production team can ship inside 4 weeks after recording.

Vertical-specific customer libraries

Customers organised by industry (financial services, healthcare, retail, public sector) so the sales team can pull the right story for the right prospect. This is where most B2B SaaS sales enablement video programs find the highest leverage.

The developer content tier

If you have a developer audience and you are not producing developer video, you are losing the technical evaluation. The pattern:

API walkthroughs

2 to 4 minute videos showing a specific API call or workflow. Screen capture plus voice-over. Often co-produced by DevRel and documentation. The format the technical buyer searches YouTube for during evaluation.

SDK tutorials

5 to 15 minute tutorials walking through a specific use case end-to-end. Often the highest watch-time content in the developer library because the audience is learning, not skimming.

Community calls and live coding

Monthly or quarterly community-facing video where engineers and DevRel meet customers in real-time. Often the highest-engagement content because the audience is participating.

Dev conference recap

Internal conference video (your own DevCon, partner conference, sector conferences) recap'd for the developer audience that did not attend. Both atmospheric (the event happened) and substantive (what was announced).

The brand + exec tier that lifts the program

The tier that gets cut first when budgets tighten and shouldn't.

CEO updates

Monthly or quarterly CEO video update following the pattern in how to produce a CEO video update series. Carries the company narrative for employees, customers and prospects.

Vision films

Annual or semi-annual high-production-value pieces articulating where the company is going. The film that runs in board presentations, analyst briefings, investor pitches and recruiting interviews.

Analyst-day video

Companion video to the analyst-day deck for public companies and pre-IPO firms. Often produced as a follow-up film after the live event.

Recruiting video

Engineering culture, leadership team, office tour, employee story content for the careers page. The asset that converts the technical hire who is choosing between three offers.

The unit economics that hold at scale

Mature SaaS video programs unlock per-asset cost improvements through:

Batched studio days

PM-led product video batched into monthly recording days. 8 to 12 product videos shot in one studio day. Per-asset cost drops 40 to 60 percent against ad-hoc production.

Modular templates

One brand template, swappable product layers. Editor swaps the product UI, the script, the on-screen text; the brand wrapper stays consistent. Editing time per asset drops 50 percent.

Multi-output mastering

Master once, deliver to YouTube long-form, LinkedIn 90-second, Instagram 60-second vertical, sales enablement 30-second, email GIF. 5 to 8 outputs per master. The output multiplication is where the program's distribution reach compounds.

What changes for the production team working on SaaS content

Three practical shifts.

Shift 1: Product fluency

Producers and editors who can keep up with the product release schedule, understand what makes one feature meaningfully different from the previous version, and translate engineering language into customer-relevant framing. We covered the broader sector fluency model in how a partner gets up to speed on your industry.

Shift 2: Speed over polish on product-tier video

Most product-tier video does not need cinematic production. PM-led talking head plus crisp screen capture plus consistent brand template ships in days not weeks. The polish lives in tier 4 (brand + exec). Tier 1 is about speed and accuracy.

Shift 3: Distribution-aware editing

Editors cut for the distribution channel from the start. YouTube version has different pacing, captions and length than LinkedIn version which has different pacing than Instagram. Tier-1 product video lives or dies by distribution fit.

Practical questions enterprise SaaS teams ask

How many videos should a SaaS company produce per year?

120 to 250 pieces per year for an active mid-market or enterprise SaaS program across the four tiers. Lower if the product cadence is slower or the buyer journey is shorter. Higher if the company has a developer audience and an active community.

Who owns the program?

Product marketing usually owns tier 1. Customer marketing owns tier 2. DevRel owns tier 3. Brand owns tier 4. A central video lead (production producer or video PM) co-ordinates across the four tiers. The model breaks when video sits inside one tier and the others have to negotiate for capacity.

What is the right ratio of in-house to partner production?

In-house works well for weekly product drops and developer tier (high volume, lower production value, deep product fluency needed). Partner production works well for batched product days, customer stories and brand + exec tier (cost-efficient at volume, broader creative range). We covered the model in how a video partner extends your in-house team.

How do we keep up with the release cycle?

Lock the video production calendar to the engineering release calendar. PMs draft a video brief at the same time as the release notes. Production starts 4 to 6 weeks before release on major releases, 2 to 3 weeks on minor releases. The teams that struggle are the ones where video planning starts after release.

What about AI-generated product video?

Useful inside the workflow (script drafting, screen-capture annotation, voice-over for non-launch content, social cutdown selection) but not as a primary production method for tier 2 and tier 4. The framing in how AI fits inside enterprise video workflows applies broadly.

Where to go next

For the customer story format that anchors tier 2, read how to produce customer story video at scale. For the product-launch playbook for major releases, read how to produce video for a product launch. For the broader CMO-level view of how the four tiers ladder into the marketing program, read how a CMO should think about enterprise video.

To scope a SaaS video program matched to your release cycle, book a free consultation.