David Toback

Rates in the voiceover industry are somewhat of an enigma. In days of past, Union work was the only work, agents held the keys, drove the bus, and took care of everything. Talent went to their agent to audition, got direction, then went home, wiping their hands from the “business” aspect of their job.

Enter the internet…

Once the internet grabbed a hold of the industry, it changed dramatically. Now talent could audition and complete jobs from home, anywhere in the world, not needing to rely on agents and studios. No longer was work confined to the traditional methods and Non-Union work began to explode.

The internet also allowed an explosion of talent into the industry. Advancing technology meant that good, even professional, quality audio was available to even beginner talent and at a fraction of the cost in previous years.

To accommodate the increase in Non-Union work and connect buyers with this growing supply of voice talent, online casting sites were born. At first it seemed like these sites were great, they provided a source of auditions outside of agents and your own marketing efforts. But as we would come to learn, a downfall of this new business format would be the impact on rates.

Rates for voiceover are complex with so many different types of voiceover work, all commanding differing values based on genre, usage, recording time, recording amount, etc.

The traditional values for voiceover, held by agents and more traditional voiceover industry participants, was no longer the rule of the land. Now, a client’s budget dictated the rate, not the value of the service they were getting.

This created a large problem for the industry from the talent perspective. As the barriers to entry as a talent dropped, so did the amount of industry education of business norms and rates. New talent were flying blind and becoming a victim of the gig economy auditioning and accepting jobs for FAR below industry averages. It became the Wild Wild West.

While this rising problem grew, I happened to come across my own rates quandary and the help of my mentor, Cristina Milizia.

What happened next would change the Non-Union voiceover industry and propel my career in new and unbelievable ways…

Stay tuned for The GVAA Rate Guide & Me

While it was a great feeling, I finally got a client with my own marketing efforts, it brought a glaring problem I had into focus. What do I charge for my services?

Until then, I had always relied on my agent and online casting sites to “tell” me what the rate was. I had no knowledge of what the rate should be for any one particular job, let alone have a handle on rates for all the possible types of jobs I could offer. I realized I needed to have a rate card that I could reference when quoting clients.

This is where I asked my mentor, Cristina Milizia, for help. “What do I charge for X, Y, & Z Cristina? How am I supposed to know in the future?”

Cristina is a research and results oriented person, and being such she passed along some rates resources available at the current time, and told me to have fun. From those I realized I quoted too little for the job, but the lesson was learned. Now, I could create a rate guide from these rates resources to help me for future projects.

I fired up Excel, analyzed all the data, and created as comprehensive a rate guide possible (I knew all those years in the corporate world would pay off!).

Feeling pretty proud, I sent it to Cristina to see what she thought, and her response wasn’t what I was expecting.

“Oh my God, this is exactly what we need in the industry! Would you want to work with me on expanding this?”

That was an easy answer…YES!

And that’s how the GVAA Rate Guide began. From there Cristina and I gathered rates from agents, casting directors, coaches, and industry pro’s, and expanded the scope of the Rate Guide. I joined the GVAA staff in March of 2016 and in April we launched the first version of the GVAA Rate Guide!

From that day, everything changed. Talent now had a reliable rates resource to know, understand, and command their value. It quickly became the most used rate resource in the industry and garnered the GVAA good-will as a leader in rates education.

Continually updated and improved, the GVAA Rate Guide is the most comprehensive rates educational resource in the industry. Used by agents, casting directors, talent, and clients all over the world, the impact this guide has had is immeasurable.

I’m not sure anyone thought the Rate Guide would have had this kind of impact, but being a part of helping to shape, educate, and support the voiceover industry is one thing I’m most proud of.

And to think, it was born from an over analytical guy anxious to use Excel to make a pretty guide…