studio rates

[aramism]

hey quick question i was approached with an opportunity to do a bunch of voiceovers for internet commercials. they are gonna do one and if they like how it comes out they will do a lot more. they asked me how much it would cost to just do voiceovers. no editing, mixing, anything. just give me like the commercial jingles i load it in, and they record whatever they have to record. i give them a cd with the audio. pretty simple.


however i have NO clue or idea what some "standard" rates are for this? do i charge per day, hour, song, etc.???

 

[whoispetty]

well I got approached by someone wanting to do the same thing about a month ago.
all I did was charge a set-up fee, and went by the hour from there.

i felt pretty awkward when that call came in, but hey man, it goes by real quick.

hope that helps man!

 

[aramism]

so whatever i would be charging per hour for regular recording?

it's just weird because i generally don't look at it as a per hour basis more like how long it's going to take me sort of deal. but regardless thanks for your help. any other input is appreciated, as detailed as possible.

 

[wishtheend]

Something small like $20/hr should be fine. I think the small setup fee is a good idea, as most likely they will go through the voiceovers pretty painlessly. So maybe $50 setup, and $20/hr.

 

[aramism]

yeah the majority of the voiceovers are 15-30 seconds long so it's not like i'm going to be there all day. thanks for your help.

 

[LSD-Studio]

hey quick question i was approached with an opportunity to do a bunch of voiceovers for internet commercials. they are gonna do one and if they like how it comes out they will do a lot more. they asked me how much it would cost to just do voiceovers. no editing, mixing, anything. just give me like the commercial jingles i load it in, and they record whatever they have to record. i give them a cd with the audio. pretty simple.


however i have NO clue or idea what some "standard" rates are for this? do i charge per day, hour, song, etc.???

just did that...
since it was only like 7 mins total (and only 1.5 hrs work incl editing) I charged 100€/hour.

if someone would be booking for a whole day it would be cheaper of course...

but I don't set up a mic, Cubase-project etc for less than 100€

 

[smy1]

Once again: don't go too cheap. Every business knows that you have overhead and taxes to pay, so if you are at the bottom end of the price chain a number of people will assume you deliver amateur results.

When in doubt, I would always look for the lowest and highest price on your local market and then choose the middle ...

 

[jesterroot4]

ahhh i got a 6 hour session today of voice overs to do. i must admit, it can get so boring, but its the easiest thing.

to save you time when they fuck up and there reading through a massive paragraph, just tell them to stop, clap, then start again from the last sentence.

this makes all the fuck ups really easy to find and fix quickly saved me hours of editing time lol

editing voice overs is such a mind numbing experience lol

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

For what it's worth:

When John Walsh (the America's most wanted guy) was in at Subcat it was $55 an hour. So I say whatever your norm hourly rate is that is what I would charge. It took him 2.5 hours to do all the voice over shit for the show.

 

[aramism]

ahhh i got a 6 hour session today of voice overs to do. i must admit, it can get so boring, but its the easiest thing.

to save you time when they fuck up and there reading through a massive paragraph, just tell them to stop, clap, then start again from the last sentence.

this makes all the fuck ups really easy to find and fix quickly saved me hours of editing time lol

editing voice overs is such a mind numbing experience lol

great tip! thanks a lot to all