How to Price a Screenplay by Genre: What the Market Really Pays

How to Price a Screenplay by Genre: The Short Answer

If you came here for a chart that says horror pays one number and drama pays another, start here: how to price a screenplay by genre is the wrong question asked in the right neighborhood. Genre is not a price input. It is a budget input. Every published price floor in American feature screenwriting is set by what the picture costs to produce, and genre only reaches the number by travelling through that cost.

The Writers Guild of America's Schedule of Minimums, the one document that actually binds a signatory buyer, prices an original screenplay on a single axis: production cost. There is a High Budget column and a Low Budget column, split at $5,000,000. There is no genre column, no genre category, and no genre adjustment anywhere in the schedule.

So the real pricing exercise has three variables. What this script costs to shoot. Whether the buyer is a guild signatory. And whether you are selling a finished script or being hired to write one. Genre feeds the first variable hard: a contained single location thriller and an ensemble period war film are not the same number because they are not the same budget. It feeds the other two barely at all.

The rest of this walks the actual figures: the guild floor, the low budget discounts, what specs really cleared in the last reported market, and how to set a price when you have no comparable deals at all.

Why the WGA Schedule of Minimums Doesn't Actually Price by Genre

Open the 2023 Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement's Schedule of Minimums and look for the thing everyone assumes is in there. It is not. The schedule defines High Budget as a picture whose costs equal or exceed $5,000,000 and Low Budget as anything below that, then prices every writing service against those two buckets: original screenplay including treatment, original screenplay excluding treatment, rewrite, polish, and the sale or purchase of an already written script. Not one line item bends for horror, comedy, action, or drama.

That is not an oversight. A minimum is a floor on labor, and the guild's position is that a week of a screenwriter's work is a week of a screenwriter's work whether the pages contain a haunting or a divorce. The market above the floor is free to pay whatever it likes; the floor itself refuses to rank genres.

Which means the honest version of a genre pricing table is really a budget table with genre labels loosely stapled to it. Found footage horror and chamber thrillers cluster under the low budget line because that is what they cost. Large scale action clusters above it for the same reason. If you want a genre premium, you have to find it in negotiation, in demand, or in backend. You will never find it in the schedule.

This matters practically, not just philosophically. When a producer says "we can't pay that, it's just a horror movie," they are making a budget argument wearing a genre costume. Ask what the picture is budgeted at, because that single number decides which floor applies, and whether any floor applies at all.

The WGA Floor: What a Guild Production Must Pay in 2026

Here is the last fully published schedule, covering May 2, 2025 through May 1, 2026, the third period of the 2023 MBA. These are the numbers most working deals over the past year were measured against.

For a High Budget picture, an Original Screenplay Including Treatment carried a minimum of $170,655. Excluding treatment, or for the outright sale and purchase of an already written original screenplay, the minimum was $125,023. That second figure is the one spec sellers should memorize: it is the guild floor on buying a finished script for a picture costing $5 million or more.

For a Low Budget picture, the same two categories were $90,904 including treatment and $61,064 excluding it.

Rewrites and polishes are priced separately, and they are not decoration. A rewrite of a screenplay carried $45,470 High Budget and $29,826 Low Budget. A polish carried $22,736 and $14,924. Beyond the script fee, credited writers receive a $12,500 aggregate Script Publication Fee, payable within 30 days of final credit determination, for the company's right to publish the script on disc or new media. That applies regardless of budget tier and, once again, regardless of genre.

Then the floor moved. WGA members ratified the 2026 WGA-AMPTP Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement on April 24, 2026, with 90.38% in favor, 4,282 yes votes against 456 no on 4,738 ballots cast, for a four year term running May 2, 2026 through May 1, 2030. The Memorandum of Agreement dated April 4, 2026 confirms that the Flat Deal Screen Minimums table that sets theatrical screenplay pay is subject to the general minimums increase: 1.5% effective May 2, 2026, then 3.0% on each of May 2, 2027, 2028, and 2029, compounding.

Apply that confirmed 1.5% to the last published figures and an Original Screenplay Including Treatment lands somewhere around $173,215 High Budget and $92,268 Low Budget. Treat those as arithmetic rather than quotation: they are derived from the prior schedule plus the confirmed escalator, not lifted from a newly published schedule document. When you are papering a deal, pull the current schedule from the guild.

Three other 2026 changes move real money. The agreement created a new Page-One Rewrite minimum, for a writer directed to replace all or substantially all of an existing screenplay, at $57,500 High Budget and $31,500 Low Budget for contracts entered into on or after May 2, 2026. The Guaranteed Second Step threshold rose from 200% to 225% of the applicable minimum, so more first draft deals now carry a built-in, paid rewrite step. And the Health Fund contribution rate rose to 16.25% from 13%, with the per-writer compensation ceiling used to calculate it raised to $325,000 from $250,000, then $375,000 in 2027 and $400,000 in 2028.

Two more mechanics belong in any serious pricing conversation. On commencement of writing services, a writer must be paid the greater of 10% of the agreed total compensation or a flat commencement payment, which was $6,867 for the 2025 to 2026 period. And the backend: theatrical residuals pay credited writers 1.2% of the distributor's gross receipts for reuse in free TV, pay TV, basic cable, and new media including rental, streaming, and ad supported. There is no residual for the worldwide theatrical release itself. Disc residuals run 1.5% of accountable receipts on the first $1 million and 1.8% thereafter; electronic sell-through pays 20% of 1.8% of accountable receipts on the first 50,000 units and 20% of 3.25% thereafter, which nets out at 0.36% and 0.65%.

The Low Budget Agreement: How Sub-$5 Million Deals Really Get Priced

Most working screenwriters will never touch the High Budget column. The more useful document is the WGA Theatrical Low Budget Agreement, which for the May 2, 2025 to May 1, 2026 filing period covers feature length theatrical pictures with a total production cost of $1,200,000 or less, counting every above and below the line cost across pre-production, production, and post.

The LBA is where price becomes a genuine sliding scale, and it slides on budget.

Under $200,000, the company and writer may agree to pay just 25% of the applicable Schedule of Minimums. Against a base of $61,064 for an original spec excluding treatment, that is $15,266, payable in full on sale. Including treatment, 25% of $90,904 is $22,726.

From $200,000 to $499,999, the parties may elect 50%: $30,532 for an original spec sale excluding treatment, $45,452 including treatment.

From $500,000 to $1,200,000, the discount disappears entirely. The full Low Budget Schedule applies: $61,064 excluding treatment, $90,904 including, whether the writer is hired or the finished script is bought. Employment at this tier is not deferrable; a spec purchase is treated differently, with $10,000 due on commencement of principal photography and the balance deferrable on director-equivalent terms.

Deferral is the clause to read twice. Below $500,000, up to 100% of the minimum may be deferred, on terms at least as favorable as those given the director. From $500,000 up, that full deferral is gone. A deferred fee is a promise, not a payment, and it should never be quoted as your price. Meanwhile the Script Publication Fee, $6,250 at this level, becomes non-deferrable once the budget reaches $500,000. A rewrite of a spec script under the LBA carried $29,826, matching the standard Low Budget rewrite minimum, which is why "we'll just do a quick pass" is always a conversation about money.

Notice what did not happen anywhere on that ladder. At no point did anyone ask what the movie was about.

What Horror, Thriller, and Action Specs Actually Sold For Recently

Above the floor, the market does have opinions, and they move. The most recent reported picture of open market activity comes from 2025, so read what follows as a snapshot of that year rather than a description of this week.

Trade reporting compiled by Final Draft counted 23 feature original spec scripts and pitches purchased by major studios and streamers across the summer of 2025, with August 2025 alone producing 9 sales, described as the highest monthly volume of spec sales since March 2017. That is a functioning market, not a dead one.

The named sales that same reporting uses as its price comparison are not uniformly dated, so treat them as market texture rather than as a single year's tally. Alignment by Natan Dotan, Love of Your Life by Julia Cox, and Over Asking by Caroline Dries each sold for over $1 million, with no year attached to them in the source. Hurt People by Melissa London Hilfers and Test Drive by Matt Venne are reported to have sold in the mid six figures, and those two are the ones the reporting explicitly places in the previous year. All of them sold as spec scripts with no talent attached, which is the detail worth internalizing: the pages alone cleared those numbers.

On genre appetite, that same reporting characterized 2025 as favoring high concept action and thriller specs, with comedy and romantic comedy staging a comeback, while horror had cooled to the point that even indie buyers were described as preferring broader audience thrillers over straight horror. The Black List's 21st annual survey, published December 2025, points in a compatible direction: 74 screenplays from 86 writers, voted on by nearly 500 film executives, topped by Best Seller, a literary thriller set in the New York publishing scene. Coverage of the list describes a genre spread rather than a concentration, which is the useful signal even though no single source pins down the exact mix. Whether that appetite still holds today is not something the available reporting can tell you, and any writer who prices on a year old trend as though it were current is guessing.

The horror question deserves its own correction, because it produces the single most common mispricing in the business. A Stephen Follows data study published in November 2017, covering theatrically released films from 1996 to 2016 with profitability measured on films budgeted over $500,000 released between 2000 and 2016, found that 53% of theatrically released horror movies were estimated to have generated a profit, against a 37% average across all genres. Thrillers came in at 32%, drama at 31%, black comedy at 28%, westerns at 16%.

Writers read that and conclude horror should command a premium. Financiers read the identical data and conclude the opposite. Horror's appeal is its low cost of entry relative to its odds of returning capital, and a low cost of entry means a low budget, which means the Low Budget column, which means a lower floor. The genre that returns money most reliably is also the genre most likely to be shot for under $1.2 million. Nothing in the available research prices a horror screenplay above any other genre at the same budget tier.

The Non-Guild Market: Options, Low-Budget Deals, and First Sales

An option rents exclusivity for a window. A purchase transfers the copyright. Confusing the two is how writers end up telling people they sold a script for a number that was actually a holding fee, and the screenplay option fee vs purchase price distinction is the first thing to get straight in any non-guild conversation.

The guild sets the shape even when your buyer is not a signatory: a company may option literary material from a professional writer for up to 18 months for not less than 10% of the applicable minimum, with each additional 18 month renewal costing at least another 10%. That structure, a percentage of an agreed purchase price, a fixed window, and priced renewals, is the template worth copying wholesale. The percentage is negotiable outside the guild. The structure should not be.

Below the guild line there is no published rate card and no verified going rate. Commentary repeats rough ranges running from a nominal dollar through the low thousands and occasionally higher, but no primary dated source supports a specific figure, so treat any confident number you are quoted, in either direction, as an opening position rather than a market rate. As industry context rather than a pitch, licensing platforms have become a channel through which producers acquire material outside the WGA schedule entirely, and it is worth understanding that channel as part of the pricing landscape rather than as a substitute for the schedule.

On a first sale, the thing to protect is rarely the headline fee. It is the purchase price the option converts into, the rewrite step, and the credit. A generous option on an undefined purchase price is a trap: you have sold your window and left the actual number to be argued later, from a weaker position.

How to Price a Screenplay by Genre When You Have No Guild Comps

Here is the method that works when nobody has offered you a comparable deal, and it is the practical answer to how to price a screenplay by genre without pretending a genre rate card exists.

Step one: price the movie on the page, not the label. Count your locations, your speaking roles, your night exteriors, your stunts, your vehicles, your effects, your period wardrobe. That inventory produces a realistic budget band. The budget band is your price band.

Step two: map that band onto the guild ladder. Under $200,000 and the LBA's 25% tier gives you $15,266 as a reference for a finished spec excluding treatment. Between $200,000 and $499,999 the 50% tier points at $30,532. Between $500,000 and $1,200,000 the reference becomes the full $61,064. Above $5,000,000 you are anchoring against $125,023. Even if your buyer is not a signatory, those are the only defensible reference points in the industry, and quoting them changes the tone of a negotiation immediately.

Step three: discount deliberately, not reflexively. A non-signatory buyer will pay less than scale. Decide before the call how far below the relevant anchor you will go, and what you get in exchange: a shorter option window, a defined purchase price, a paid rewrite, a producer credit, or a first look at the next script.

Step four: price the rewrite separately, always. The guild treats rewrites and polishes as distinct paid services for a reason. Fold them into a flat buyout and you have agreed to work for free for a duration nobody has defined.

Step five: apply demand as an adjustment, not as a rate. If the recent reporting is right that buyers have been leaning toward high concept thrillers and action while horror softened, that affects how quickly you find a buyer and how hard you can push, not what the category is worth in the abstract. Demand shifts your leverage. It does not create a genre column.

Common Pricing Mistakes Screenwriters and Producers Make

Quoting a genre rate. There isn't one. No official body publishes a genre specific minimum or standard price for screenplays, and confidently citing one marks you as someone who has not read a schedule.

Anchoring on headline spec sales. The seven figure 2025 sales were major buyers acquiring finished specs at the top of the market. They are the ceiling of a distribution, not its center, and pricing a first script against them wastes everyone's time.

Believing horror pays a premium because horror is profitable. The profitability advantage belongs to the financier who bought in cheap. Same budget tier, same floor.

Treating an option as the sale. A 10% payment for an 18 month window is not a screenplay purchase, and a renewal at another 10% is not a raise.

Comparing a guild deal to a flat buyout on fee alone. The guild deal carries a commencement payment, a $12,500 Script Publication Fee for credited writers, a rewrite floor, and residuals at 1.2% of distributor's gross across free TV, pay TV, basic cable, and new media. A flat non-guild buyout carries none of that. The headline numbers are not comparable quantities.

Counting deferred money. Under the LBA's upper tiers, up to 100% of the minimum can be deferred. Deferred compensation is contingent on things that may never happen. Price on what is payable on signature.

Forgetting the second step. With the Guaranteed Second Step threshold now at 225% of the applicable minimum, a larger share of first draft deals carry a built-in paid rewrite. If you are negotiating near that line, the structure of the deal is worth as much attention as the fee.

Price the budget, structure the option, protect the rewrite, and let genre do the only job it was ever doing: telling you what the movie costs.