Can I import my existing Movie Magic or Excel budgets?

Yes. Saturation supports importing budgets from Movie Magic Budgeting and Excel spreadsheets, so you do not have to rebuild from scratch. The account structure, line items, and numbers carry over.

How is this different from just using Google Sheets?

Google Sheets gives you a grid and real-time editing. Saturation gives you account-based navigation, budget phases, fringes, overtime calculations, share views, PDF exports, and a direct pipeline into actuals and expense management. It is a budgeting tool that understands production, not a general-purpose spreadsheet.

What templates are available?

Saturation includes 34+ templates covering AICP commercial, feature film, television, documentary, music video, branded content, photography, and more. Templates include standard account structures and numbering conventions. You can also start from a blank project and build your own.

Can different people see different parts of the budget?

That is exactly what share views are for. You can create custom views that expose only specific accounts and phases to each collaborator — a department head sees only their accounts, a client sees only the top sheet, and accounting gets full access.

Does the budget connect to actuals and expense tracking?

Yes. Saturation is not just a budgeting tool. Actuals, bank transactions, invoices, and P-Card spend all flow back into the same budget so you can see estimate vs. actual in real time without maintaining separate systems.

Saturation has a free tier that lets you create a budget with up to 1,000 line items. Paid plans start at $25 per month for unlimited projects and 10,000 line items, with the Production tier at $75 per month for unlimited line items, workspace collaboration, and advanced features.

Is it secure enough for studio or network productions?

Saturation is SOC 2 compliant, meaning it meets the security standards that studios, networks, and completion bond companies require for vendor approval.

PRODUCTION BUDGETING

The budget is the blueprint. Build it where the whole team can see it.

Create, version, and collaborate on production budgets in real time — from a six-line photography gig to a feature with thousands of line items. No desktop installs. No file versioning. No broken formulas.

Start Budgeting Free Book a Demo

Accounts, not tabs

Navigate your budget by clicking into accounts instead of hunting through spreadsheet tabs. Think of it as a nesting doll — top sheet down to the detail level.

Phases for every scenario

Compare estimate vs. working vs. committed side by side. Create unlimited budget versions without duplicating files or losing your place.

Familiar from the first click

Copy, paste, drag, drop, double-click to edit. Everything works like a spreadsheet — it just does more.

34+

industry templates

AICP, feature film, documentary, music video, branded content, and more. Start with a proven structure or build from scratch.

8,000+

producers in the system

The same production finance layer used for budgeting, actuals, expense management, and payments.

$2.7B

in managed production spend

Trusted across commercials, features, series, documentaries, music videos, and branded content.

Built for how production budgets actually work.

Spreadsheets were not designed for production finance. They break when teams collaborate, lose context when files get emailed, and force accounting to reconstruct what happened after the fact. Saturation was built from the ground up for production — every column, every workflow, every export.

REAL-TIME COLLABORATION

Stop emailing budget files back and forth.

Invite line producers, department heads, UPMs, and accounting into the same live budget. Everyone sees the same numbers. No version conflicts, no formula breakage, no file-naming nightmares.

Live multi-user editingRole-based accessShare views per department

ACCOUNT-BASED NAVIGATION

Your top sheet is a table of contents, not a prison.

Click into any account to see its sub-accounts and line items. Expand a line item into a full account when you need more detail. Collapse back to the top sheet when you need the big picture.

Nested accountsExpandable line itemsKeyboard navigation

SCALES WITH YOUR PRODUCTION

One-page estimate or thousand-line feature. Same tool.

A photography gig with six lines, a commercial with standard AICP structure, a feature film with departmental sub-accounts — Saturation handles all of them without forcing you into a rigid format.

Unlimited nesting depthCustom column visibilityAuto-incrementing IDs

How production budgeting should work.

Inspired by the account structures producers already know, but designed for how modern productions actually move — fast, collaborative, and always changing.

Start from a template or from scratch

Choose from 34+ industry-standard templates — AICP, feature, TV, documentary, music video — or create a blank project and build your own account structure in minutes.

Detail at any level of depth

Add line items with quantity, rate, and multiplier fields. Right-click to expand any line into a full sub-account when you need more granularity. The top sheet totals update automatically.

Collaborate, version, and share

Invite your team with role-based permissions. Create phases to compare scenarios. Build share views to give clients the top sheet and department heads only their section.

WHY PRODUCERS SWITCH

Production budgeting without the production tax.

Every hour spent wrestling with Excel formulas, reconciling file versions, or rebuilding a budget PDF is time not spent running the show. Saturation removes the tax so producers can focus on the work.

CORE CAPABILITIES

Cloud-native (no installs)Real-time collaborationUnlimited budget phasesGlobals and variablesOvertime calculatorUnion and non-union fringesCustom PDF exportsTags and filtering

Built to connect budgeting, actuals, and payments in one production finance platform.

That is the difference between a budgeting tool and a financial operating system for production.

What makes Saturation budgeting production-native.

These are the workflows that matter once a budget stops being a planning document and becomes the operating system for real production spend.

Phases for versioning and scenarios

Create estimate, working, and committed phases side by side. Compare LA vs. New York. Lock a bid so nobody can touch it. Set currency per phase for international shoots.

Globals and variables

Change shoot days from 13 to 10 in one place and watch every linked line item recalculate. Use variables in any number column — quantity, rate, multiplier.

Overtime calculator

Set day rate hours, choose where time-and-a-half and double-time start, and let the calculator handle the rest. Adjust per state, per city, per negotiation.

Share views for every stakeholder

Give the art department only their accounts. Give the EP a top-sheet-only view. Give accounting full access. Each view is a link — no separate files, no data leakage.

Custom PDF exports

Build presentation-ready budget reports, cost reports, actuals details, or invoice summaries. Choose which accounts, phases, and columns to include. Save presets for reuse.

Tags for filtering and reporting

Tag line items by location, tax credit eligibility, internal vs. external cost, or anything else. Filter the budget view by tag to see only what you need.

Spreadsheets and desktop software vs. Saturation.

The old way

Budget lives in a desktop application or a spreadsheet that one person owns
Sharing means emailing files, hoping nobody edits the wrong version
Formulas break when someone accidentally deletes a row or pastes over a cell
Creating a new scenario means duplicating the entire file and manually syncing changes
PDF exports require hours of formatting in a separate tool
Actuals live in a completely different system with no connection to the budget

With Saturation

Budget lives in the cloud — accessible from any browser, on set or in the office
Teams collaborate in real time with role-based permissions and share views
Account-based structure protects the budget — details stay where they belong
Phases let you create and compare unlimited scenarios without file duplication
Custom PDF exports are built in, with presets you can reuse across productions
Actuals, expenses, and payments feed back into the same budget automatically

Over 8,500+ integrations

Connect spending, payments, and downstream reporting to the accounting, banking, and workflow tools your team already depends on.

QuickBooks

Xero

Plaid

Slack

Zapier

Google Sheets