How should I charge for creating on hold music?

February 1, 2007 8:37 PM

I have an opportunity to provide on hold music and voice over messaging for a car dealership..but I have no idea what to charge for something like this. Does anyone have any guidelines or experience they could share? Thanks!
posted by thehipcola to Work & Money (5 answers total)

For a one-time thing, not very much. It would depend on the complexity, of course.

For greetings services, the money is in a subscription model, where they pay you a monthly/quarterly fee and you provide them changes in the message/music at reasonable and/or regular intervals.

For a car dealership, they likely have a heavy advertising budget, so it would be prudent to use whatever music and "message" they use in local radio and/or tv advertising. They probably have a jingle, use it. They also tend to change the "message" very often, usually in conjunction with their radio/tv/print advertising. 0% financing. No taxes. Free oil changes for a year. Push, pull, drag it in, etc etc. Tie this into offering a subscription model, offering to update their messages as their advertising changes. Make sure you have a quick/easy/painless/efficient way to do this, something that literally takes minutes, not hours, and "wow" them by keeping their message new and fresh.

For instance, record the main phone tree information as one file, and record the greeting as another. You could change the greeting very regularly, but you have the main tree carved in stone, and can just swap out as needed. A literally 15 minute switch if you have remote access to their phone system, and you look like a hero.

How much to charge is tough. If it is a one-time thing, job it out based on an hourly rate of how long you think it'll take you. For a subscription, get creative.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:20 PM on February 1, 2007

I tend to pay around 75 an hour for the work I've contracted out.
posted by muddylemon at 9:23 PM on February 1, 2007

I also wouldn't be at all interested in writing music for just the phone system. With the 10's of thousands of royalty free production music tracks out there at minimum cost, it's just not cost effective.

Now, writing a jingle on the other hand, with the possibility of years of life and multiple media usage, now that's something to check into.

On preview: that's funny from muddylemon... I've been paid about $75/hr for such work. However, complexity and location could affect this greatly.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:25 PM on February 1, 2007

and what DO those royalty-free tracks cost? ive been wantin to know.
posted by oigocosas at 9:33 PM on February 1, 2007

Response by poster: Wow, that's great info. Thanks very much all!
posted by thehipcola at 10:47 PM on February 1, 2007