Where the rates come from

Last updated August 3, 2026  ·  Effective August 3, 2026

Every number this calculator produces comes from a published source, and the build fails if a figure cannot be found in one. This page says exactly where each figure comes from and what we do to it.

The two rate books

GVAA Rate Guide (non‑union)

Non-union figures come from the GVAA Rate Guide, published free by the Global Voice Acting Academy. It is the most widely cited non‑union rate reference in the industry.

The guide publishes it as an educational and informational resource. It is explicitly not a fixed price list and not a minimum. We reproduce the figures as a factual reference, with attribution, and link to the source throughout the app.

SAG‑AFTRA contracts (union)

Union figures are SAG‑AFTRA scale from the union's commercials contracts. Scale is the contractual minimum for signatory work. It is a floor, never a ceiling, and everything above it is negotiable.

SAG‑AFTRA's own site blocks automated access to its rate sheets, so the underlying tables are read from the Voice Over Resource Guide, which publishes them in full. The GVAA Rate Guide cites the same source for its union benchmarks. The union's own contracts page remains the authority.

What we calculate rather than copy

Two things in the app are derived, not transcribed, and both are stated wherever they appear in a quote:

• The 2026-2027 union figures. SAG‑AFTRA published the commercials

increase as a percentage rather than a fresh table, so we apply the 4% increase effective 1 April 2026 to the published 2025-2026 scale. This was checked against the union's own 2026-2027 member cheat sheet, where the off-camera session fee reads $643.00 against $618.30 the year before. The increase is applied only to the two commercials contracts; Interactive Media, Corporate/Educational and Animation are separate agreements on their own cycles and are carried at their stated rates.

• Terms the guides do not list. An 11-week buy is interpolated between the

published 4-week and 13-week figures. A term past one year uses the guide's own published renewal rule rather than repeating the one-year price. Any quote built this way says so in its notes.

How we keep it honest

• Every figure in the app is looked up in the scraped source at build time.

If a figure has moved or vanished, the build fails rather than shipping a stale number.

• A refresh tool re-fetches both sources, compares every row, and reports

exactly what changed.

• The full reference library is in the app under Rate guide, so you can

read the source rows yourself rather than trusting a total.

Not affiliated

We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or acting on behalf of the Global Voice Acting Academy, SAG‑AFTRA, or the Voice Over Resource Guide. Their names appear here to credit the sources of the figures, which is the honest way to present someone else's published data.

Independent pricing

Found something wrong?

If a figure here does not match its source, we want to know today. Email rider@ridervo.com with the category, the row, and what the source says. Corrections get priority over everything else.