The voice market has two distinctive types of providers: Voice talents that are members of the unions (union talents), and voice talents that are not part of the unions (non-union talents).
Non-union talents rates tend to be the most affordable ones. Rates vary a lot as there is no market regulation. It all depends on the agreement you reach with the voice talent or voice producer. When you post a project on Voice123, non-union talents will give you quotes of their rates, along with demos of their work.
Union talents charge union rates. Although the rates depend on the union to which the talent is affiliated (SAG, AFTRA, etc.) they all tend to be similar. Union rates are usually more expensive than non-union rates.
"There are some talents that charge rates well over any union or non-union standard. This is usually the case of celebrity-talents. These well-paid talents are likely to be union talents. People is willing to pay more for them because their voices are widely popular.
Some voice over talents can also do post production work themselves (like adding background music, special effects, etc) so that you save time and money. We call these talents ‘voice producers’. Most of this type of of post-production work is not regulated by unions. As such, rates of post production work will always depend on the agreement you reach with the voice producer. When you post a project on Voice123 for post-production work, voice producers will give you quotes of their rates along, with demos of their work.
The Voice123 team blog for our community of talents and voice seekers.
3 comments:
Is the question only about money? No way.
While there are a large number of non-union talent who are truly professional and are worth the money, in short, choosing a union talent more often means:
1. You've Hired a Professional. Unless we're in a market where we HAD to join--and there's a lot of us from radio who started this way--it took getting hired for some real, name-brand work to join AFTRA, SAG or AEA. We aren't just putting our name out there without the experience.
2. You've Hired a Real Talent. To get hired for these union jobs in the first place, we had to be good.
3. You Help to Maintain a Standard. While those hiring may not care about it, voice talent should care more. The higher rates a union talent charges go towards health care and pensions, and allow us to earn a living wage. If voice seekers keep getting (at least average) talent to read a local radio spot for $50, we're not helping ourselves or our clients.
Whar are the union rates? Do they differ depending on the size of the market?
Yes, the union rates are different depending on the size of the market, you can check some examples here:
http://www.aftra.org/contract/contract.htm
http://www.sag.org/sagWebApp/Content/Public/Contract_Summary.htm
Thank you for your comments.
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