Question about a fee, for people who did professional dubbing / voice recording.

[Parafia]

Hello everyone.

Friend of mine got an offer to record about 400 words for use in medical application for mobile. He is a respected artist and a professional singer but to this day he was only getting payed for singing He's role will be crucial to the way, the app communicates with the user and his contract will be open in a way that in the future, the app with his recordings can be implemented in medical equipement for example. If any of you can provide any information, how should he price his work and should he consider fee for future use and distribution based on a percantage from sales? We live in Poland and company making the app is also Polish if it helps. Thank you in advance.

[m0ds]

Getting a % of sales is typically harder to negotiate with a company. It's more likely they'll want to pay him once and be done with it. I'd recommend he set a per word/line rate (or a price for the full 400 lines) so he gets a one off payment for his work and can perhaps negotiate it. For example, 20p per line or such x 400. Someone like Doug Lee charges about £2 a line, so there is room to charge a per line fee that you feel reflects this person's talents etc. But too high and they risk not getting the job at all, cos you can always find other voice actors...

I'm speaking from a company perspective though not as an actual voice actor, so someone else may have some alternative ideas about what to charge And there are probably even fairer ways to do it than I've suggested. With that in mind, the company that made the offer, should be able to make an offer on payment also, perhaps even before you give them a fee. Did you ask them what they're willing to pay?

[Snarky]

He might want to look into joining an actors' union or guild (or a voice actors' guild), if such a thing exists in Poland. They might have guidelines or rules about standard rates and conditions.

[KodiakBehr]

I'm not a voice-actor, but I believe $300-500 USD to be more or less the zone for 400 words of high-end voice-work in North America.  Local talent television commercials and that sort of thing.

But I've seen offers for 500 words for $30-40 on Fiverr, so there's always a recourse for companies with a small budget and willing to gamble.

[Radiant]

I think a couple cents per word is reasonable. A dollar per word is pretty crazy unless you're a celebrity.

[Yitcomics]

Whats the general price for amateur voice actor per line(when I said amateur,i meant just some guy on the internet),cause i've been thinking of using voice actor for my game.How do we handle redo for a line,do I have to pay for a redo or I don't pay until i'm satisfied with my line.

[Andail]

I ended up paying a dollar a line in advance and another 50 cents a line once I started making any money. The actors ranged from amateurs to professionals, and I never had to argue about anything, prices or retakes or anything.

[Radiant]

Yeah, we had one hilarious guy who insisted that even though everybody else was paid in dollars, he should get the same amount of euros (at a time when that was roughly twice as much) since he lived in Europe; and then he ended up sending only half the lines until he was fully paid, and refused to do retakes. Guess who is now the sole entry on our "don't contact again" list?

[Mandle]

Guess who is now the sole entry on our "don't contact again" list?

Ermmm...is it me? I'm really bad at these kinds of quizzes...

So I will just answer "me" for now and hope for the best...

[Parafia]

Wow thanks for all the suggestions! I will have him check the guild/union situation in our country since it can be usefull in the future (after all his voice is his main source of income). As i thought it seems a one time payment will be probably easier to negotiate.

I really appreciate your help!