Understanding Voiceover Rates, Part 1

One of the most confusing things about the voiceover industry is understanding rates.

How to quote a project is one of the most common voiceover-related questions, right up there with "Which microphone should I buy?", "How do I get an agent?", and "Which Pay-To-Play site is better?" Figuring out terms like buyouts, rebuys, perpetuity, conflicts, and exclusivity can make your head spin.

"Most people would rather live with dull despair than experience one moment of genuine pain to escape it." - Tom

Mine too, so let's work on that. This blog entry is the first in a series of entries I will write from time to time that focuses on understanding voiceover rates. I'll pick a term or two each time to give you a basic understanding so you don't freak out every time you see them in a casting notice...

Let's start with the most basic concept of understanding voiceover rates: session fees and usage fees.

A session fee is how much you get paid to record a project. A "session" can be you going to a remote studio or recording from home. You can be directed during the session or you can self-direct. If you go to a remote studio or are directed while recording from home, often you charge by the studio hour. If you self-direct, often you charge by the word, finished minute, finished hour, or some other rate structure depending on the genre and length of the project.

A usage fee is how much you get paid for the client to use the audio you recorded during the session, usually for broadcast purposes (TV ads, radio ads, online ads) but it comes up in other mediums. This is where it gets complicated. I'll drill down on this in future blog entries, but for now all you need to now is that the usage fee depends primarily on where the audio will be heard and for how long. The bigger the market (local cable vs. regional vs national), the bigger the usage fee. The longer it will be heard (2 weeks, 6 weeks, 1 year, etc.), the bigger the usage fee.

SAG-AFTRA has a pretty clear breakdown in their contracts of how much union voice actors get paid both during the session and in "residuals" aka usage fees. You can check them out on their website.

Many non-union voice actors use the Global Voice Acting Rate Guide to help them quote both session fees and usage fees. It's pretty comprehensive and can be a big help.

Here's the big takeaway; every voiceover you do will always have a session fee but not always a usage fee.

Here's what I've got going on in the next few months - register to attend and add your voice to the mix!

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Tom Dheere is the VO Strategist, a voice over business & marketing coach and demo producer since 2011. He is also a voice actor with over 25 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voiceover you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.