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It depends on length, how you price it, and -- more than most narrators price for -- how the buyer plans to use the recording. The rest of this page works through both pricing shapes on real numbers, not rounded examples.
Commercial, e-learning, IVR, explainer, and animation scripts are priced per word or per finished minute, then scaled by usage/licensing term. Take a 150-word script at $0.30 a word:
| Figure | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Base fee | 150 words × $0.30 | $45.00 |
| Finished minutes (at 150 wpm) | 150 ÷ 150 | 1.00 min |
| Usage term | Multiplier | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Internal / training use only | 1.0× | $45.00 |
| Web / unrestricted digital use | 1.3× | $58.50 |
| Regional broadcast | 1.8× | $81.00 |
| National broadcast | 2.75× | $123.75 |
| Full buyout (all media, in perpetuity) | 4.0× | $180.00 |
A $135.00 spread on identical recorded audio, from usage term alone -- the recording does not change; what the buyer is licensing does.
A 75,000-word manuscript, narrated at a rate of $250 per finished hour, with no separate editing/proofing/ mastering fee:
| Figure | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated finished hours | 75,000 ÷ 9,300 | 8.06 hours |
| Narration fee | 8.06 × $250 | $2,016.13 |
| Effective rate per word | $2,016.13 ÷ 75,000 | $0.03 |
9,300 words per finished hour is a commonly cited rule of thumb, not a fixed conversion -- a slower, more heavily produced narration style yields fewer finished hours per manuscript word, and a faster one yields more.
The voice-over project rate calculator runs this same arithmetic on your own script or manuscript, your own rate, and your own usage term or editing fee, plus optional rush and exclusivity add-ons for script work. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
It depends on the script's length, how you price it (per word or per finished minute), and -- critically -- how the buyer plans to use the recording. A 150-word script at $0.30 a word has a base fee of $45.00, but the same script can reasonably run anywhere from $45.00 (internal-only use) to $180.00 (a full buyout) once the usage-term multiplier is applied -- a 4x spread on identical work.
A script recorded for one company's internal training video is worth far less to the buyer than the same script running as a national television commercial for a year -- the recording is identical, but what the buyer is licensing is completely different. Rate-guide convention prices usage in tiers for exactly this reason: internal use at the base rate, web use at roughly 1.3x, regional broadcast at roughly 1.8x, national broadcast at roughly 2.75x, and a full buyout at roughly 4x.
Per finished hour (PFH), the audiobook industry's own convention, most visibly used by ACX -- not per word and not per session hour. A finished hour is estimated from manuscript word count using a commonly cited conversion of roughly 9,300 words per finished hour, then priced against that estimate. A 75,000-word manuscript at $250 per finished hour comes out to roughly 8.06 finished hours and a $2,016.13 narration fee.