I spent the last stretch pitching AI-assisted color grade LUT packs to production studios and YouTube channels, and the biggest mistake I see other colorists make isn't the pricing — it's the order of operations.

Most people lead with the pack. "Here's 50 LUTs, $99 one-time." That's a commodity pitch and it gets ignored or haggled down every time.

What actually works is showing the LUT on the studio's OWN footage before you say a single word about price. Pull a still from their last published project, apply your LUT to it, and send that as the opener. Not a demo reel. Not a generic before/after. Their footage, your grade.

Why this matters: a generic LUT pack is a gamble on whether it'll match their camera profile, lighting setup, and skin tones. Showing it on their actual footage removes that gamble entirely — you've already answered the objection before they think to raise it.

The second thing that changed everything: stop selling one-time packs. License it as a recurring drop — new looks every month for a flat fee. Studios don't want to re-shop for LUTs every quarter, and recurring revenue means you're not constantly hunting for your next sale. It also reframes you from "vendor selling a product" to "infrastructure they depend on."

The last piece is objection handling. Almost every "no" boils down to one of five things: they think their colorist already has it covered, price anxiety, footage-match uncertainty, subscription hesitation, or needing to loop in someone else for approval. Each of those has a specific reframe — and if you're ready for it before the call, you close a lot more of them.

If you're building LUT packs and not licensing them recurring yet, you're leaving real money on the table. Happy to answer questions on outreach or pricing in the comments.