The same production promise, with one difference at the end: the rushes, the approvals and the real cost stay in your workspace, not the supplier's.
The platform is included at no cost with every PLAY production service.
Updated: September 2026
Lemonlight is a full-service production company: in-house crews, strategy, shooting and post-production under one roof, with a presence in more than 80 cities and tens of thousands of videos delivered. Play produces too, through PLAY /Services, but it also brings Play Platform, the software where that work is planned, approved and stored, and which you can use free even if you commission nothing. The practical difference: with a production company you receive the video, with Play you receive the video and the system it lives in.
You need to shoot in the United States, you value its city coverage and its production volume, and what you are looking for is exactly one delivered piece, with no further infrastructure around it.
You produce regularly, you want to compare cost between pieces, and you need the material and the approvals to accumulate in your house rather than the supplier's.
On production they are far more alike than different. The gap appears the day after delivery.
| What you get | Play | Lemonlight |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy, scripting and creative direction | YesPLAY /Services | YesPart of their service |
| Shooting with a local crew | YesMore than 20 countries | YesMore than 80 cities |
| Full post-production | YesEdit, colour, sound, motion and VFX | Yes |
| Coverage in the United States | PartialAn office in Toronto and local talent per project | YesTheir main market |
| Working platform included | YesPlay Platform, at no cost with the services | No |
| Using it without commissioning a single piece | YesFree LITE plan, forever | No |
| Rushes in your own library when it wraps | YesTagged and ready to reuse | PartialDepending on what is agreed on the project |
| An approval history you can consult months later | YesVideofeedback by version | NoIt lives in email and delivery links |
| Cost comparable between pieces inside the tool | YesCost Control, expenses and purchase orders | NoOne quote per project |
| Managing what you or your agency produce too | YesUnlimited external collaborators | No |
| A searchable talent network | YesMore than 1,200 vetted professionals | PartialIn-house crews and associated crew |
Lemonlight is a full-service video production company. It covers strategy, pre-production, shooting and post-production with in-house crews, and works per project or in fixed packages. Its scale is notable: more than 80 cities with a crew, thousands of brands served and tens of thousands of videos delivered, with its main market in the United States. Its site publishes no rate card: you request a quote and a salesperson replies.
Play is a Production-Tech company. It combines three pieces in one flow: Play Platform, the software where production is planned, managed, approved and optimised; PLAY /Services, the creative, production and post-production team that makes the content; and KAMI AI, the assistant that structures briefs, organises projects and tags footage. Play comes out of having run more than 10,000 video projects, so the platform reflects how a production actually works.
A DAM only stores. A project tracker only organises tasks. Review software only covers one stage. And a traditional production service hands you the video but gives you no platform and no control. Play is the only option that puts platform, services and AI in a single flow, from brief to publication. Lemonlight is the fourth box, the production service, executed at considerable scale. What it does not include is the platform.
None of them is about the quality of the shoot, which cannot be generalised about. They are all about what is left afterwards.
When a commission with a production company ends, you have a delivered file and a folder. With Play you have the whole project: the brief, the versions, who approved what and when, the raw footage and the charged cost, all consultable months later inside your own workspace.
The reason behind each decision is still there when somebody asks six months later.
Trying a production company means booking a production. Play's LITE plan is free and is enough to organise what you are already producing, with your current team and suppliers. If you then want us to shoot, it is the same environment.
You test the system before moving a euro of the production budget.
Every project quote arrives in its own format with its own line items, so two similar pieces can cost very differently with no clean way to see why. Play works from a transparent rate card and the spend is charged inside the project.
Average cost per piece and per campaign, comparable across projects and markets.
Your agency, your freelancers and your in-house team join the workspace as external collaborators, without taking a licence. So the archive and the history grow with everything the brand produces, not only with what you commission from us.
One system for all the content, whoever shoots it.
They are not mutually exclusive: a brand can use Play's platform and shoot with whoever it likes.
Both quote production per project. The difference is that with Play there is also a platform you can have without commissioning anything.
0 €
149 €/month /workspace
Custom
Annual billing works out at 10 months. Extra storage at 29 €/TB per month.
Access to Play Platform is included at no cost with every PLAY video production service. You can come in through the platform door and pay only for the software, or come in through the production door and take the software with it.
To be straight about it: Lemonlight has more city coverage in the United States than Play and an enormous production volume, and for an American brand that only wants delivered pieces that counts. Play is the option when the content is recurring and what is needed is not only the video, but the system that produces and keeps it. See PLAY's production services.
The first step touches nobody: open the system and put what is already under way inside it.
The LITE plan is free, allows 3 internal users, unlimited external collaborators and 250 GB. Commissioning nothing.
Ask for the pieces and rushes you are entitled to keep and upload them to your library. It is the step that starts building your archive.
They join without taking a licence and upload the versions there. For them it is less email; for you, seeing the status without asking.
From here each piece carries its cost inside the project, whoever produces it.
A fixed quote and a transparent rate card. Same need, two suppliers, and the decision gets made on data.
Yes. PLAY /Services covers consultancy, creative, shooting with local talent and full post-production, just like a full-service production company, and adds Play Platform: the system where the project is planned, approved and stored, included at no cost with the services.
A production company delivers the piece. Play delivers the piece and also leaves the whole project in your workspace: brief, versions, approvals, rushes and charged cost, all consultable months later.
Production is quoted per project on a transparent rate card based on real costs, so you know the figure before starting. The platform is separate: LITE free, PRO 149 € per workspace per month with 5 users included, custom Enterprise. If you produce with PLAY, the platform is included at no cost.
Their site publishes no rate card: you request a quote through a form and a salesperson replies. Their own blog puts scripted videos from 3,750 $ and typical budgets between 3,500 $ and more than 25,000 $ depending on the project.
PLAY /Services activates local crews in more than 20 countries from a network of more than 1,200 vetted professionals, with offices in Barcelona, Madrid and Toronto. If your production is mostly in United States cities, Lemonlight's coverage is greater.
The material is stored in your workspace library, rushes included, tagged and ready to reuse. It is one of the biggest practical differences from the project-by-project model.
Yes. The LITE plan is free and works with your in-house team and your usual suppliers, your current production company included, which joins as an external collaborator at no licence cost.
Open a free LITE workspace, upload the material from what has already been produced, invite your team and your production company, and switch on cost control. If you want to compare, commission one piece from us in parallel on a fixed quote.
The same comparison, against the whole model rather than one company
Creative, global production and post-production, with downloadable case studies
The other platform with a creator network, and what a vetted network changes
LITE, PRO and Enterprise, with the full module comparison
90 Seconds is a global creator marketplace.
A DAM stores and finds your footage.
A project tracker orders tasks, but knows nothing about versions, review or what a shoot costs.
An agency delivers the piece.
A traditional production company delivers the video.
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Try the Lemonlight alternative that leaves you the system too. Production with local talent and a platform that stays with you, free from day one.
No card required. 250 GB and unlimited collaborators on the free plan. More than 350 brands and agencies already produce with Play.