Voices

Voices is a marketplace where voiceover artists can post profiles to get connected with potential clients. The site books voiceover actors for commercials, audio books, animations, advertisements, e-learning and video narrations.

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How it works

Voiceover artists can sign up for free and create a “guest” profile. This profile includes information about you, your services and your background. And, it allows you to upload as many audio files as you want.

Thus, if you offer voiceover services for animations and ebooks, you can post two different audio files — one illustrating your animation work; the other your e-book work. You work in all categories? Upload a sample or two for each. There is no limitation.

If a client finds your profile and wants you to bid on a job, you can. Assuming you get hired, Voices will collect payment for you and release it to you as soon as the job is complete. The only cost is a 20% site commission.

Membership option

However, what you can’t do with a free profile is get matched to jobs by the site. If you want the site to help clients find you, you need to pay $499 annually for a membership.

The value of the membership is primarily that the site will help clients find you. It also allows you to enhance your profile a bit with a “talent profile card.” Notably, paying this fee does not get you out of paying the site’s 20% commission.

Is the membership worth it? Not according to voiceover artists, who talk about the site on Reddit. (see below)

Pay:

Voices collects payment from clients once the job is booked and releases payment to the artist as soon as the job is complete. Payments are made through PayPal.

Getting work

There are two ways to get work. Clients can find you via your profile and ask you to bid on their project. Or, if you’re a “member,” you can get matched to jobs by the site. However, actors can’t search the site for available jobs on their own.

Additionally, even if you have been matched or contacted by the client, you are not likely to be the only actor auditioning for the job. Many actors who use this site say they might get 10% of the jobs that they audition for here.

What we like

There seems to be little downside to creating a free profile here. The site gets plenty of web traffic — roughly 2 million page views a month, according to SimilarWeb. And the ability to post as much audio as you like is a nice feature.

What we don’t like

Normally, sites that charge substantial commissions don’t also have upfront fees and vice versa. To expect actors to pay both a $500 membership fee and 20% of their revenue seems excessive.

And while site says that more than 5,000 jobs are posted on the site each month, users say that many of the jobs are cheap ones — $100 – $300 a pop for many hours of work. The fact that you still have to audition for these jobs, even though the clients are easily able to listen to your tapes, also makes getting work a time consuming and frustrating process.

Moreover, where actors can post plenty of audio, they don’t get to post their rates. So, seasoned voice-over actors are likely to get pestered to bid on jobs that would not meet their income requirements.

Recommendations

We don’t recommend buying a membership here, but you might want to create a free profile. The free profile feature is why this site gets a neutral Husl$core.

But you may do better finding voice-over work at Fiverr. Fiverr charges the same 20% commission. However, there’s no fee to set up and you are in control of your pricing. Fiverr’s set-up also eliminates the need to audition. (You can find more details in our Fiverr review. Or, you can sign up with Fiverr here.)

What their users say (from Indeed)

With Voices, you audition online for multiple voice-jobs many times a day and depending on how much you match that particular job. Your audition is one among many, and you’re only notified if you got the job and nothing else. One benefit is that even when you’re notified of a potential job you can audition for, you can come back at any time of the day and audition for it. However, it’s best if you audition as soon as you’re notified, and even then, that’s not a guarantee that you’ll get it.

I have been using Voices.com for the past 6 months, and I found some fantastic auditions through it. Their customer service is also really helpful and provides you with the advice on how to improve your skills as a voice actor.

From SiteJabber

I’ve been a talent there for over a decade so I can give you the good, bad, and ugly. Good: IF you get hired, it’s usually easy money. Bad: You’re competing with newbies/those with zero experience willing to take any job at any cutthroat price. Ugly: their annual fees are not worth it at all anymore. $500US PLUS a 20% fee on each job. Yikes. Also, tons and tons of “this has a run time of about ten hours of voice work, and our budget is $250.” Rather than set those clients straight, Voices’ replies are “well, just don’t bid or bid what you think it’s worth”. Waste of time. You won’t earn a living with this site at all. As a pro, I get maybe 5 contracts a year. MAYBE.

This past year is where things started to go downhill. Budgets shrank and lots of commercial work began drying up or paying significantly lower with ridiculous “in-perpetuity” buy-outs for global usage. Now, I receive private invitations for jobs paying a mere $150 so I have to pass on them. I’ll get 15 public invitations and 2 privates and most of them are jobs paying between $100 and $200 dollars tops. Great for newbies, not so much for pros.

Too many fees

I was a member around 2005-06 and recently revisited their fees and rates. Some platforms charge you a flat one-time annual fee. Others charge you a fee only when they get you a job. Voices does both, plus they handle all invoicing and charge a processing fee to the clients. This stops you from building a personal, ongoing relationship with clients. I don’t know of any other platforms that impose so many different fees on the talent budget. Talent already have a tough enough time making a living and this seems excessive, especially for those trying to start in the business.

From Reddit

So my membership is up in March. I’m still new to voiceover, and been on the site for a year. I’ve just in the last week finally reached enough jobs to pay off the $500 membership fee (1 year). Now of these jobs, all came from the same company except for one. I won’t be renewing my membership though, as the competition is so hefty, along with what others have stated about their shady practices, that it doesn’t justify it at the moment. However, it is a good way to read numerous auditions everyday to help practice new tones and cadence’s.

I did it for one year, booked a handful of jobs and kept in contact with those clients so I can deal with them without Voices taking a cut for doing nothing. I signed up for a second year around Black Friday because they had a decent discount but it seems the competition is growing and I’m booking on there less often. Best to focus your efforts elsewhere in my opinion.

You can be successful on it but most aren’t. You will be working much more than your manager would be to make it successful on that site. Every audition gets like 60 applicants, there’s a lot of competition that’s hard to stand out