Someone asks what you charge. Most voice actors answer with one number, and most of the time that number is wrong. It is not wrong because you guessed badly. It is wrong because the question was incomplete. A rate is not a property of your voice; it is a property of the job. Until you know what the job is, there is nothing to price.
This page sets out how a voiceover rate is built, what each part of it does, and which part to ask about when a client has left it blank. It does not settle any of these topics on its own. Each section points somewhere deeper, and to the calculator, which does the arithmetic once you have the answers.
The four inputs
Four things decide almost every voiceover rate: union status, term, media and exclusivity. Everything else is detail hanging off those four. Name them before you quote, and most of the difficulty in pricing goes with them.
Union status
Union work is priced from published union scale agreements. Those figures are negotiated in advance and written down. You do not set them; neither does the client. Non-union work has no such agreement, so the number comes from what the market pays for comparable jobs. The two systems also differ in how you are paid, how pension and health contributions are handled, and who is permitted to hire you. Read union and non‑union voiceover work compared before you quote either one.
Term
Term is how long the client may run the recording. A rate buys a licence for a period. When the period ends, the licence ends. Longer terms cost more, though not in a straight line; a second year is rarely priced like the first. If a client has not named a term, they have not told you what they are buying. Ask before you answer.
Media
Media is where the recording plays. A regional radio spot, a national television campaign, a video on a company website and an internal training module are four different products, even when they come from one script and one session. Reach is the reason. A recording that reaches more people is worth more to the buyer, so the licence costs more. Media is also the input clients describe most loosely. Pin it down: which channels, which territories, how large an audience.
Exclusivity
Exclusivity is a promise not to voice a competitor for a stated period. It is the only one of the four that costs you work nobody has offered you yet. Price it separately. Define the category narrowly and put an end date on it. A client who wants a broad category locked for a long time is asking for a lot, and the fee should say so. Any term in this section that is unfamiliar is defined in the voiceover rate glossary.
Session fee and usage fee
Two different fees sit inside one quote; confusing them is the most common way to underquote.
The session fee pays for the recording: your time, your room, your performance, the direction you take and the edit you deliver.
The usage fee pays for the licence. It is what the client pays for permission to use that recording, in the places agreed, for the length of time agreed.
The two move for different reasons. The session fee follows the length and difficulty of the work, while the usage fee follows term, media and exclusivity. A short script can carry a large usage fee; a long day in the booth can carry almost none. Quote them as separate lines so both sides can see what is being bought. Usage and buyouts covers how licences are worded, and what the word buyout actually means when a client uses it.
Why a range is the right answer
A single number implies a precision that does not exist, because rates are not published prices. They sit in a spread that shifts with the client, the region, the market and the negotiation. Two honest quotes for the same job can differ. Both can be defensible.
A range tells the client the job has a scale rather than a price tag, and it gives you somewhere to move without appearing to invent numbers halfway through the call. It also stops you naming the lowest number before you know what the job is.
So quote a range, then narrow it as the missing inputs arrive. If the client presses for one figure, give one, but attach the conditions to it in the same breath. A number attached to no term and no media list cannot be defended once the real brief turns up. That is a guess, not a quote.
What moves the number up
Reach moves it up first and hardest, which means a larger audience, more territories and more channels carrying the same recording. Term comes next, because every extra month is more value taken out of a single recording. Exclusivity follows, priced by how wide the locked category is and how long it stays locked.
After those come the practical additions. Multiple versions of the same script cost more; so do the tags, lifts and cutdowns made out of one session. A turnaround short enough to displace other work is worth charging for, and so is live direction, which costs you a scheduled block rather than a flexible one. Anything the client will still be using after the term you quoted should be quoted again. Do not absorb it quietly.
What moves the number down
The number falls for the mirror image of all that: smaller audiences, shorter terms, no exclusivity and internal use rather than broadcast. Non-broadcast work is a genuinely different product. Pricing it like an advert helps nobody.
Charity and low-budget work moves it down too, but treat that as a decision you make on purpose rather than a discount conceded under pressure at the end of a call. When a budget really will not stretch, reduce the scope instead of the rate: a shorter term, fewer channels, no exclusivity. You keep your rate intact; the client keeps the project. That is usually the better trade for both of you.
Where to go next
If you want a number now, open the calculator, answer the questions and read the range it gives you. The first three quotes cost nothing. After that it is $2.99 a month or $28.70 a year, and you can cancel whenever you like.
If a word in a brief is unfamiliar, start with the voiceover rate glossary. If the question is really about a licence, read usage and buyouts. If you do not know which side of the union line a job sits on, read union and non‑union voiceover work compared. If a client has simply asked the flat question, how much a voice over should cost answers it in the terms clients expect.
The figures behind the calculator come from public and private industry sources, and are fine-tuned with input from industry experts. Sources explains that in more detail. The calculator is a reference point, not an agent and not a contract; you set your own rates independently. If something about your situation does not fit, support is where to ask.