Are you looking for a way to hire cheap voice actors? This article will tell you where voice actors are used and where to find them for an affordable price.
If you’re a content creator or an owner of a particular product or service you want to promote, you’ve probably considered hiring a good voice-over talent for promotional or entertainment purposes. However, hiring professional voice actors may be expensive, considering that you might also have to invest in renting a recording studio, or pay for additional services.
This article will help you learn more about voice-over jobs and where you can hire voice actors for a lower price.
What precisely is voice acting, and where can you use it?
Voice acting is described as lending your voice to different characters or providing information about something to an audience, and it’s more present in your life than you might think. It’s there when you listen to a TV commercial, scroll through your social media platforms, play video games, or listen to an automated message from your bank.
The first voice-over was created in 1900 by Reginald Fessenden, who reported the weather. After that, voice acting was commonly used for radio, cartoons, and similar media. Nowadays, they’re used for much more and play an essential role in marketing, education, entertainment, etc.
Entertainment
Entertainment is one of the main spheres where voice acting is utilized. Everyone knows Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and other animated characters that became famous due to their recognizable voices.
Nowadays, this sphere also includes video games, which require similar voice acting and sound effects to be engaging and seem realistic.
Promo material
TV commercials, radio spots, and online adverts are some of the most frequent examples of voice-over work. They’re also the primary source of income for most voice-over artists or at least provide them with entry-level work.
Education and training
Voice acting is extensively used in tutorials, e-learning, and explainer videos. It’s a popular and useful way to convey new knowledge and information to students, and new employees, or just provide instruction to someone interested in how a mobile app works.
Dubbing and translation
To make a service or product available to a larger audience, many brands rely on dubbing their content into a different language. In addition, some people dislike subtitles and prefer to watch movies and other media in their native language.
With dubbing, there’s no need to re-record a movie or other media. A voice recording in a new language can simply be synced with the original one.
Narration
Voice acting is also used as the narration in movies, documentaries, audiobooks, radio dramas, podcasts, or other media that are more descriptive in nature. It can be a movie character’s inner thoughts or the same person voicing five different characters for a story on the radio.
Other uses
Some other uses that involve voice acting are interactive voice response (IVR) and automated audio replacement (ADR). IVR is a telephony system that interacts with callers and provides more information or directs them to appropriate recipients. ADR refers to the post-production process of replacing an on-site recording with a cleaner studio recording.
Where to find voice acting that won’t break the bank
You can find professional and new voice actors on multiple platforms. However, finding cheap voice-over services that will provide you with the best voice-over talent for your project can be more difficult. Fortunately, many platforms feature voice-over beginners whose services are less pricy than professional ones’.
Voquent
Voquent is a great voice-over service that allows beginner talents to sign up for free. They post voice samples of their work to make the hiring process more straightforward. There are over 80,000 demos you can browse for free and find the type of voice that best fits your project’s needs.
If you need a place for audio production, Voquent also offers audio editing tools, as well as dubbing into 600 languages, and localization.
Voice123
Voices123 is a big voice-over marketplace that has had over 25,000 job postings. You can search for cheap voice-over talent, post the project description with details about your budget, and listen to 50 auditions for free before you decide on the perfect voice-over talent for your job.
Voices.com
Voices.com might be the largest marketplace for voice-over talent. It allows beginners to find job opportunities, so you’ll surely find a voice-over talent within your budget. You can find talent for a variety of jobs and roles and choose between different languages and voice styles.
Fiverr
As one of the biggest freelancing platforms, Fiverr is definitely a place for finding cheap voice-over actors. You can browse through more than 34,400 voice-over artists that currently offer their services on the platform and filter them by budget, language, accent, age, gender, purpose, and more.
Upwork
Upwork is another freelance platform that allows you to find voice-over talent for a variety of prices. You can post the job with a set budget and wait for candidates to audition, search through hundreds of gigs, or let their team find the talent that will do the job within your budget.
Speechify voice overs – The most affordable, high-quality alternative to voice acting
If you want to pass on the job posting, audition holding, and everything else involved in the long process of finding the right voice for your voice-over work, try Speechify. Speechify is excellent text to speech software that allows you to turn any text into a high-quality natural-sounding voice and use it as the voice-over for your next project.
There are over 120 male and female voices, and you can even use celebrity voices or customize new ones. Apart from English, there are 30-plus other languages to choose from, including Portuguese, Korean, Hindi, German, etc.
Try Speechify for free today by downloading it on your favorite device, or try the online version first.
FAQ
How much should a voice actor cost?
The cost of a voice actor depends on their years of experience, the type, length, and word count of the voice-over project, whether it’s broadcast or non-broadcast, and additional services. Consider all these aspects and check the average rates for your project.
What is the lowest-paid voice actor?
The average minimum wage for a voice-over artist per year is $13,500.
What are the benefits of hiring a voice actor?
A voice actor can make your content more engaging and appealing to your audience and consumers. They can also bring in new consumers, especially if they’re a known and recognizable voice-over artist. In addition, professional voice talents are more familiar with what’s popular on the market and can improve the scripts.
Do voice actors charge by the hour?
Voice actors are more frequently hired for individual voice-over projects than employed for a long time on one project. For that reason, they’re usually paid by the hour.
What is the average cost for a voice actor?
Hiring a voice actor for a one-minute recording that has about 150 words costs between $50 and $200 on average. However, a professional voice-over actor can charge up to $5,000 for a finished audio recording.
