Hey, you know that time when you were shopping for a nice dinner, but that delicious cheese was $7, so instead you found a guy sitting on a street corner selling cheese with no label for 50c and bought that instead?
Oh… no?
How about when you needed a new laptop, but the Dells and Macs were out of your budget that day, so you found someone named DodgyComputersRUs on Craigslist and bought one for $19.50?
Oh, you didn’t do that?
You would never do that?
Why?
Because you want GOOD QUALITY. You want the thing you’re buying to be exactly as advertised, to taste and perform how you need it to, and to make you feel great about buying it.
Have you heard of a psychological phenomenon that says that as humans, we instinctively assign more value to items or services that we have paid more money for? Essentially – when we see that something costs more, we assume that it is WORTH more. And we then treat it accordingly.
The 50c cheese? You’re going to chuck that out the second it even thinks about looking funny. You’re not going to care about it.
You might even take a 2nd look when you get it home and realise it was a terrible waste of even 50c – so you go back to the supermarket and buy the delicious $7 cheese after all.
You know where I’m going here, right?
Voiceover rates.
You could find many a voice actor on the internet who will voice your 2-minute explainer for $5 or $10.
You could BE a voice actor on the internet who will voice that explainer for $15. Or $45.
But do you want to?
Do you want a top-shelf Dell laptop or a DodgyComputersRUs machine?
You get what you pay for.
As a video producer or eLearning creator or company representative – take my word for it, you want good quality. You want a voiceover artist who’s experienced, talented, professional… and probably at least a little bit fabulous. And you want to pay well for it, because you’ll know you’re getting good quality.
As a voice actor – you are worth it. You have trained and invested and your time and voice are worth good money to the people who need it. They want a fabulous voiceover and they can afford it.
If they can’t afford it – that’s okay. They might have to wait a while, or get more funding, or change plans. That’s their job, not yours. 🙂
I’m not going to tell you exactly what prices you should be paying or charging… but I am going to tell you it certainly shouldn’t be $10 or $45 for a 2 minute voiceover.
So, the next time you’re tempted by that low, low rate you found somewhere on google… please have a think about it. Charging and paying good rates for voiceover is good for everyone. I promise.
Images from Envato Elements.