I regularly hear veterans complaining about how the market voice over rates are being squashed. Especially in P2P platforms, the jobs offered are far more reluctant to pay the standard voice over rates based on usage. This trend of complaining gets increasingly toxic when it takes a turn and start blaming new comers in the industry as the reason for this less than desirable shift!
They go on to ask “How are we supposed to make a living if the jobs are offered at 1/10th the rate of what it is supposed to be and there are takers for it!”
I do think they have a point somewhere, there is truth to the core idea of valuing experience, professionalism and quality. I do believe appropriate pricing is required to run any sustainable business. But the way it is put forward ,generally, is highly condescending.
Their frustration is evident and sometimes they go full on bully mode towards their peers who work for less than the voice over rates which are so called “standards”.
This packaging of it as a phenomenon new comers brought along with them due to ignorance and inexperience sounds to me ,sprouting out of their own insecurities. Jibes like “Know your worth”, “don’t kill the Market” etc. are thrown around like in a verbal street fight with no holds barred.
With 5 years of experience in the industry, I feel I am somewhere in the middle and probably have a birds eye view , since I am sitting on the fence between a veteran and a newbie. Also maybe because I come from India ,where I have to ritualistically explain the concept of ‘usage rights’ to most of my Indian clients.
Voice over is a Broad category ,so is Content creation and Video production -ranging from tiktok videos to top end studios making feature films! There are premium clients and premium service providers. There are clients who need similar services within a tight budget and there are service providers whose business model work in sync with that. I can’t repeat it enough, its a free market place.
A Rolls Royce and a Subaru can be side by side on the same freeway.
As long as you are not part of any union or any other controlling-regulating benefactor body , the rule is simple. You make the rules ! That which are comfortable to you and your business model. There is no voice over church, There is no judgement day.
If you do it for 1$ or 10000$ there is no one who has the right to police you in anyway. Even if you are quoting 1$ – an extreme example- clearly undercutting all of us by the max, but if you need that 1$ and is worth your time, go for it. I have no right to be patronizing to you in anyway. At the best, I can politely tell you this business model is eventually going to be so exhausting for you and doesn’t sound financially feasible in any sense! But you may have a different plan?
I would never dare tell you to spend thousands of dollars in coaching ,demo producing which maybe in-turn another source of income for these price-warriors, then wait and wait a little longer until you get that 1000$ commercial booking. Those are privileged people’s way of doing things.
I price my services keeping in mind the effort involved, revisions that may come, the kind of usage involved and quote a price that I am sure to completely motivate me to give my best to the client and support them by being part of their team till the project is finished successfully!
To the veterans who are pissed off ,and raging verbal wars, the only thing productive they can do for the situation is to educate – and who best to do that , than them with years of industry experience, , but without being condescending! If they can’t find a civil way to put opinions forward, then it is just a huge load of entitlement and nothing more.
To presume the market is getting affected only by the new comers who are charging low and to say that they should hold off from taking work until they are capable of charging the voice over rates that veterans do , so that they are not undercutting anyone, is just bizarre in all sense. And unfortunately all the discussion I have encountered, points to this utopian view.
Audio and Video production technologies have become affordable and accessible to everyone. Loads of information is available for free on the internet. Lets not even consider AI voices for the time being..
Voice over is not a niche anymore as much it might have been before !
I call it Evolution! So we better evolve in our strategies and I hope we do not end up like t-rexes hunting velociraptors with an asteroid right above our head!
Track Fade out.
