Saturation is a production budgeting platform built specifically for the way film and TV productions actually operate. At NAB 2026, co-founder and CEO Jens Jacob showed how Saturation handles the complexity that spreadsheets and generic accounting tools cannot.
Key takeaways:
Purpose-built for film production budgets with line-item tracking tied to specific departments, locations, and shooting days
Real-time collaboration lets producers, line producers, and accountants work in the same document simultaneously
Template library includes budgets from real productions that users can adapt to their own projects
Why Not Just Use Excel
Film production budgets are not standard financial documents. They track hundreds of line items across departments, tie spending to specific shooting days and locations, and need to handle contingencies, fringes, tax incentives, and currency conversions all at once. A spreadsheet can hold the numbers but cannot enforce the relationships between them.
Saturation models those relationships. Change the number of shoot days and every department budget updates. Adjust the location and the tax incentive calculation changes. Move a scene from day five to day three and the logistics costs recalculate.
Jacob demonstrated a budget for a commercial production that automatically adjusted crew costs, equipment rentals, and location fees when the shoot schedule changed from five days to four. The software recalculated overtime, travel, and per-diem allocations across every affected department.
Built for the Actual Workflow
The platform mirrors how productions actually build budgets. Users start from templates based on real productions: feature films, commercials, music videos, documentaries. Each template includes the line items, category structures, and formula relationships that match that type of production.
From there, producers customize. Saturation supports top-down budgeting (start with a total and allocate down) and bottom-up budgeting (build from individual line items up to a total). Both approaches stay linked, so changes at any level propagate correctly.
Collaboration is real-time. Multiple users can work in the same budget simultaneously. Jacob showed a scenario where a line producer adjusted equipment costs in one tab while the accountant updated fringes in another, with both changes reflected in the master budget immediately.
Integration and Export
Saturation integrates with accounting systems and payroll providers used in production. Budgets can be exported as PDFs, CSV files, or formatted reports that match standard industry submission formats.
The platform also handles cost tracking during production. Actual spending gets logged against the budget in real time, showing variances as they happen rather than after the production wraps.
Who Uses It
Jacob said the user base spans independent producers managing their first feature film budget, commercial production companies running multiple simultaneous projects, and studios managing large-scale productions. The template system scales from a $50,000 documentary to a $50 million feature.
Saturation is a production budgeting platform that ties line items to shoot schedules, locations, and departments so every change propagates automatically.
