How much should i charge?

TheDriller

TheDriller

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Jun 8, 2008
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Fuck burning churches, lets burn down schools and
Hey lads,

I searched but found nothing on this topic. so anyway,
I'm focusing all my efforts on mixing, mostly for electronic artists and bands.

I've done a few good mixes for people and they've all been really happy, one of my mixes was played on BBC radio last week (which i think is pretty rad :lol: ) yadda yadda yadda, so now i've been offered to mix a 5 song EP for one of those artists. trick is, this is going to be my first paid gig and i have absolutly no idea how to set rates.

right now i don't care about "making money", but i do want to get something back to make it worthwhile. i should mention that the artist is happy to pay for the work, he was even the one who suggested i should start charging.
so, with an eye to the future i want to start sussing out what i should be charging.

so guys, should i set a per-song rate? or an overall project price according to estimated workload?
suggestions?
(By the way, im in Scotland, £ ftw)

and it would be cool to develop this thread into a wider discussion on rates and all that racket.

thanks.
 
I'm about to start my first paid recording job as wel. The band is a beginning band and I have to do all recordings and production except drum recordings (they already had someone to record drums at their rehearsal spot). I'm getting paid per hour because I have no idea how long it will take... The band has no studio experience, so I don't want to be stuck with hours of editing or remixing, without being paid.
So if you're able to predict how much time you need for your project, you can use a fixed price. If not, just charge per hour if the artist is fine with that!
 
Forceps, thanks for the reply,

Yeah, see im just mixing, not recording, so i can't really do a by-the-hour rate.

I've already mixed a song for these guys in the past month and it went pretty smoothly. editing was nice and quick and it didn't take too long to get a nice mix going. so yeah, i think its going to be a per-song rate. i just honestly don't know what the ususal rates are for this kind of thing, or what is appropriate at my level.
 
I would almost say mixing this genre is more difficult than metal - you're dealing with material and a vibe that is almost all sound design. I am not certain what you'd want to charge, and since this is your first paying customer (and since the customer told you to charge), I wouldn't go high - just enough to cover your time.

What I'd do is similar to Zack - determine a per hour rate, estimate how much time it would take you and provide that as an estimate.

EDIT - Oh, and congrats on the recent success dude - getting on air is like a drug!
 
If you can get the artist to pay per hour then I'd go for that.

I started out mixing for free back in the day and I can comfortably say I'll never do it again. Too many hours spent trying to get things right and the band constantly wanting revisions.

For me it all depends on the band, some guys are on super tight budgets so I charge £25 a song for them, really cheap considering the amount of work that goes into it, but they literally can't afford any more. I did a mix for one band that was by the hour (£7 an hour, my wage for the studio I work at) and it's easily the most fun mixing session I've ever done. The guitarist from the band was there as he knew how he wanted the stuff to sound like (like actually, not some moron who thinks they know what they want when they really dont) and he understood that we needed to take a wee bit of time on it instead of rushing it. Also the band did sound awesome, had their tone's and performances together so the mix wasn't that hard. God I hope I get the chance to work with them again someday, lol.
 
Wow, thanks lads

@Zack : this sounds interesting, could you explain how you go about quoting a price to the customer? and how do you keep track of the hours? just count em up or is there a specific super-legit way of tracking the time spent on the job? if i go for an hourly rate should i just charge minimum wage or something like that? i always assumed that mix jobs were a "project estimate" kind of deal

@ Chris : yeah its true. these guys are kinda electro-pop, and in that tune i mixed for them i had to "re-amp" some of the midi to improve on the sounds, so there is quite a bit of work and creative input on my end.
and thanks, its pretty cool havign your work on the radio :)

@Trevoire :yeah, im done with mixing for free, though i have been lucky with some awesome clients.

I should point out that for this upcoming project, the client will not be around, in fact i've never met this guy in person :lol:

I'm starting to like the idea of either £25-35 per song. Or maybe something like £5 per hour, but with a cap. i'll have to suss out what the dudes can afford.

thanks
 
The problem of the forfait price, is that bands have always something to change, they are never happy so.....you spend hours and hours adjusting shitty things like "raise 0.1 dB the vocals" or "turn down 0.2dB the guitars"....And you'll become crazy.
If you wanna go for a forfait, charge more than what you would charge and include in the price all the probably shitty request and the time you'll lost (for sure). My forfait price at the moment for a complete work (tracking/mixing/mastering) is 300€ per song (I will start a 5 song ep too this saturday and the final price is 1500€).
If you choose the hours rate, go for a 8-10-12€/hour
 
::XeS:: said:
The problem of the forfait price, is that bands have always something to change, they are never happy so.....you spend hours and hours adjusting shitty things like "raise 0.1 dB the vocals" or "turn down 0.2dB the guitars"....And you'll become crazy.
If you wanna go for a forfait, charge more than what you would charge and include in the price all the probably shitty request and the time you'll lost (for sure). My forfait price at the moment for a complete work (tracking/mixing/mastering) is 300€ per song (I will start a 5 song ep too this saturday and the final price is 1500€).
If you choose the hours rate, go for a 8-10-12€/hour
Click to expand...

i like this. perhaps a forfait price up until the mix is delivered, and then an hourly rate for any mix revisions? best of both worlds?

but yes, im liking this idea very much. thanks! :)
 
I have done my work for free so far, but only for good friends. The band that aproached me this time are guys from my town, so I know them and we walk into each other at local festivals and stuff. As the job they asked me for will be more than 20 hours (I count 1 hour/ track/ instrument, so 5 songs = 5 hours of bass guitar, 5 hours of guitar A, 5 hours of guitar B, 5 hours of vocals, etc.) they understood I didn't want to do it for free. As I have a regular job as well, I don't have too much time to spend on making and/ or recording music, so I proposed 15 euro's/ hour and they agreed. More experienced guys charge 30-35 euros here, so I think I made them a nice deal.
Next is to put up a plan in which we try to predict how many hours it al will take, so the band knows what they have to pay afterwards (aproximately).

I believe this is the most honest way to work for me and the band as well.

Oh, and they came by to record some clicktracks and guides for the drum recordings and we arranged that those hours were for free when they deceided to hire me for the remaining recordings and production ;-)
 
The problem with this approach is that you don't know how many hours you need for each instrument. The 90% of the musician says that they can play without problems but the truth is different, very different. So if they need more hours to track, it's their problem not mine.
 
Zack Uidl said:
I estimate how much time I will spend mixing. That is where I place the cap. If I go under, they pay less, if I go over (which is rare) they pay the cap (which is just the maximum I quote)

I use this to keep track of hours, etc

http://stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob/


Definitely charge your normal hourly rate, not lower. When you lower your pricing, people view you as amateur.
Click to expand...

hi, thanks for the link,

and i get what you are saying, im definatly intent on not under-selling myself.

I really wish i could remember how many hours it took to get the last song done :lol:
 
"hey man can we hit the studio soon?"
"yea totally. late september should be good."
"sick!! how much?"
"uhm........ ahm... how many songs?"
"5 and an intro!"
"oh...uhm........ i dunno, 3hundred bucks?"
"SIIICK"

damn...put me on the spot again. siiigh
 
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