Reviewed
Narration is the work most voice actors do most often, and the work they most often underprice. A training course, a safety film or a product explainer has no broadcast audience, so there is no usage line to anchor the fee. The price has to come from the work itself: how much script there is, how hard it is to read, and who will hear it. This page explains how to quote each kind of narration, and when a narration job quietly becomes an advert.
What counts as narration
Narration is a voice that explains rather than sells. It carries information from a client to an audience that has chosen, or been asked, to listen. Four kinds of job make up most of it.
E-learning is narration for a course: training modules, compliance units, product education and online classes. The scripts are long, they arrive in sections, and the same course often comes back for updates.
Corporate and industrial narration is made for a company's own use: onboarding and safety films, sales training, conference openers, investor updates and internal announcements. The audience is staff, partners or customers who already have a relationship with the company.
Explainers are short videos that describe a product or a service, usually on a website or a sales page. The read is conversational, the script is tight, and the video is often only a minute or two long.
Medical and technical narration covers clinical and pharmaceutical training, device instructions, scientific explainers and engineering content. It is narration with a specialist vocabulary, and the vocabulary is most of the work.
The calculator treats each of these as its own job type, because each one is counted differently. The glossary defines the words clients use for them.
Per word, per finished minute or per video
Narration is priced by how much of it there is, not by how many people hear it. There are three common ways to count, and each suits a different job.
Per word uses the word count of the final script. It suits e-learning and other text-heavy work, because the client knows the number before the session and can check it. It is the fairest method when the script is settled. It is the least fair when the script is still changing, so agree which draft the count comes from.
Per finished minute uses the length of the delivered audio. Corporate and medical narration are usually priced this way, and so is e-learning that arrives as video with a fixed running time. The finished length follows from the word count and the pace. A script of 3,000 words read at 150 words a minute is twenty finished minutes, one third of a finished hour. The voice over script timer does that arithmetic for you.
Per finished hour is the same method at a larger scale. It is used for long courses, and for audiobooks, where it is the standard unit.
Per video is one fee for one finished piece. It suits explainers, where the script is short and the work is mostly in the performance and the direction. The calculator prices a single explainer of up to ninety seconds this way. A longer video, or a series of them, is better priced by length.
Whichever method you use, set a minimum fee. A three-sentence module still needs the booth set up, the read recorded, and the files edited, named and delivered. The minimum makes sure the fixed part of the job is always paid.
Pace, and why narration reads slower
Narration is usually read more slowly than an advert. A course is there to be understood, and a learner cannot ask the voice to repeat itself. Medical and technical scripts slow down further, because every term has to land clearly.
That matters when you price by the finished minute. The same script read at a measured pace produces more finished minutes than a brisk read, and the client should know which pace the quote assumes. If you are unsure, record a short test paragraph, time it, and use that pace for the whole script. Put the assumption in writing: "about twenty finished minutes at a measured training pace" is a sentence that prevents an argument later.
Internal use, public web use and paid advertising
Most narration carries no usage line, because the audience is small and known. That is why a narration quote can be simple. It is also why it can go wrong. The same recording can move from an internal training platform to a public website to a paid campaign, and each move is a different licence.
Internal use means the audio stays inside the organisation: an intranet, a learning platform with staff log-ins, a presentation at a meeting. This is what a corporate narration fee usually covers, for a single video.
Public web use means the audio is on the client's own website or their own social channels, with no money spent to promote it. The calculator calls this non-paid web. It reaches more people than an internal video, and it is quoted as its own use.
Paid advertising means the client pays to put the video in front of people who did not ask to see it: paid social, pre-roll, streaming or broadcast. At that point the narration is an advert, and the usage is priced the way adverts are, by reach, term and territory. Usage and buyouts explains how.
Explainers cross this line more than any other kind of narration. An explainer that works on a sales page is an obvious candidate for a paid campaign, and clients often decide that after the session. Write the use on the quote in plain words, such as "internal use, one video" or "client website only, no paid promotion". Then add the line from the quote template: use outside the media, territory and term above needs a new agreement. When the campaign comes, the conversation starts from your quote, not from a surprise.
What raises the fee for specialist scripts
Two scripts with the same word count can take very different amounts of work. The difference is almost always preparation, and preparation is part of the job.
- Terminology. Drug names, anatomy, legal terms, engineering units and product codes all need checking before the session. A medical script can hold dozens of words you will need to look up.
- Pronunciation guides. Some clients supply one. Many do not, and you build it yourself. Ask for any existing guide, and ask who decides when a pronunciation is disputed.
- Review rounds. Specialist content is often checked by a subject expert, a legal team or a regulator after the session. Each round can return corrections, so agree how many rounds the fee includes.
- Pickups. Changes to approved copy are pickups, not retakes. Say how pickups are charged, and whether short fixes are included for a set period after delivery.
- Directed sessions. A live session with the client listening takes longer than a read recorded to notes, and the extra time belongs in the quote.
- Files. A course of fifty short modules is fifty files to edit, name and deliver. Delivery work grows with the number of files, not only with the minutes.
The calculator prices medical and technical narration as its own job type for this reason. The same length of audio takes more work.
Updates, re-records and versions
Courses and corporate videos change. A policy is revised, a product is renamed, a regulation moves on, and the client comes back for new lines months after the first session. That is good business if the quote planned for it, and a source of friction if it did not.
Agree three things at the start. First, how an update is charged: as a pickup at your usual terms, or as a new session with its own minimum. Second, how long the original read is supported, because matching a voice recorded a year ago in a different room is its own piece of work. Third, what happens when the client wants a new version, such as a shorter cut for social media or a version for another country. A new version is new work, and if it is going somewhere public it may also be a new use.
What a narration quote line looks like
A narration quote is easiest to approve when each line says what it counts, how it counts it and where the audio will be used. Written in words, a line for a course might read:
"E-learning course, twelve modules, about 9,000 words in total. Priced per finished minute at a measured training pace, estimated at sixty finished minutes. Internal learning platform only. Two review rounds included. Short pickups on approved copy included for thirty days after delivery."
A line for an explainer might read:
"One explainer video, up to ninety seconds. Client website and the client's own social channels, no paid promotion. One round of retakes on the approved script."
Each of those sentences answers a question the client would otherwise ask later: how much, measured how, used where, and what happens when something changes. Put your fee against each line, and the quote explains itself.
Questions to ask before you quote a course or video
Send these before you name a number. A client who answers them has usually thought the job through, which makes the quote easier to approve.
- How many words are in the final script, and is it final?
- How many modules, videos or files will you deliver, and in what format?
- Who is the audience: staff, customers, the public or specialists?
- Where will the audio be used: an internal platform, the client's own website, or paid promotion?
- Will any of it be cut into adverts, trailers or social clips later?
- Is there specialist vocabulary, and is there a pronunciation guide?
- Will the session be directed live, or recorded to notes?
- How many review rounds are expected, and who signs off?
- How will future updates be quoted?
- When is the deadline, and is there a date the files must be live?
The answers go straight into the quote. How to quote a voice over job has a template with a line for each of them.
Price it
Once you know the length, the type of narration and where it will be used, price the narration in the calculator. Choose the job type, enter the words or the minutes, and add a usage line for anything that goes beyond internal use. The quote shows each line on its own, so the client can see what the recording costs and what the wider use costs.