Voice actor hire in Australia: the complete guide

Voice work is the only category on this site where nobody sees the performer and most of the job happens in a cupboard lined with foam. It is also the one where clients most often go looking for entertainment pricing and find something that looks nothing like it, because a voice recording is not priced by the hour.

The figures here are live from the voice actors listed on the site. Before you read them, it helps to know what actually drives a voice quote, which is the script length and where the recording ends up rather than how long somebody stood at a microphone.

Phone systems and on-hold messages are the steady bread and butter, and they are worth doing properly because the greeting is the first thing anyone hears about a business. E-learning and training modules are the largest growth area, usually long scripts read in a clean, warm, unhurried register that people can listen to for forty minutes without getting tired.

Then there is narration for corporate video and documentary, character work for animation and games, audiobooks, radio and television advertising, and announcements for public spaces and events. An Australian accent that sounds like an actual Australian rather than a caricature is a genuine commercial asset, and it is most of why local voices get booked over cheaper offshore options.

Three things set a voice fee, and only one of them is time. The first is the length of the script, usually counted in words or finished minutes. The second is usage: where the recording will be heard, for how long, and how many people will hear it. The third is the production work, which is editing, noise cleanup and delivering the file in the format your system needs.

Usage is the part that surprises people. The same two minutes of narration costs differently for an internal induction module and a television campaign running nationally for a year, and that is standard practice across the industry rather than anybody being difficult. Tell them where it is going at the outset and the number you get back will be the right one.

Most professional voice actors now record from their own treated booth and send finished audio, which is why you can hire a voice in another state without anybody travelling. The practical benefits are speed and cost. A short script recorded and delivered the same day is completely normal.

You can also join the session remotely and direct it live if the read matters, which is worth doing for advertising and anything with a specific tone. For long e-learning scripts most clients skip it and send written notes instead. Ask which the actor prefers, because some are much better with a live director and others are faster left alone.

Send the script as a document, not a picture of one, with the pronunciation of every name, place, product and acronym spelled out phonetically. Say how long the finished audio needs to be if there is a hard limit. Say who is listening and what you want them to feel, in plain words: reassuring, brisk, friendly, serious.

One thing helps more than all of that: a reference. A link to a recording whose tone you like, with a note about what specifically you like in it. Saying you want it warm means nothing, because everybody thinks their read is warm. Pointing at thirty seconds of audio and saying more like this ends the guessing immediately.

Agree how many rounds of revisions are included and what counts as one. A retake because the actor stumbled is fixed for free by anybody decent. A retake because you rewrote the script is new work, and that distinction is worth putting in writing before recording starts.

Agree the file format too, especially for phone systems, which often need a specific and slightly unusual encoding. Ask for the raw files as well as the processed version if you might edit later. And if the script is likely to change every few months, ask about a rate for short pickups, because the same voice for future updates is worth planning for.