A voice-over artist charges $40 to $85 an hour on Upwork, which is the median range Upwork gives for its voice actors. Priced per job, Voices.com's cost calculator shows $215 as the average for a one-minute explainer video, plus a 4% to 6% processing fee. Audiobooks are priced per finished hour: ACX's guide puts it at about $200 for narration and $200 for production.
Ads cost more, because broadcast work is priced on where and for how long it runs.
How much do voice actors charge per hour?
On Upwork, voice actors "Cost $40–$85/hr." as median hourly rates, in Upwork's own headline, and audiobook narrators "Cost $25–$55/hr." Upwork's narrator page adds typical rates by level: "Beginner: $28 per hour," "Intermediate: $79 per hour" and "Advanced: $480 per hour."
Upwork notes that "This data represents typical hourly rate ranges of certain historical contracts worldwide," so they mix voice actors in every country and every kind of job.
Hourly pricing is less common in voice-over than in most freelance work, because the client is buying a finished recording, not studio time. Most of the published prices below are per minute of audio, per finished hour, or per use.
| Source | Published figure | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Upwork, voice actors | $40 to $85 | Median hourly rate |
| Upwork, audiobook narrators | $25 to $55 | Median hourly rate |
| Upwork, audiobook narrators by level | $28, $79, $480 | Beginner, intermediate, advanced, per hour |
| Voices.com calculator | $215 | Average cost, one-minute explainer video |
| Voices.com processing fee | 4% to 6% | Of the job, "depending on your payment method" |
| ACX guide, narration | About $200 | Per finished hour of audiobook |
| ACX guide, post-production | About $200 | Per finished hour of audiobook |
| ElevenLabs Starter (AI voice) | $6 | Per month, with commercial licence |
Figures from each source's own page, read 18 October 2026, in US dollars. The ACX figures are from its 2013 guide "Money Talks", which is still published on acx.com. The Voices.com figure is what its calculator shows for its default setting; we could not read its other settings.
How much does a voice-over cost per minute?
Voices.com's cost calculator shows $215 USD as the "Average Cost" for a one-minute explainer video, its default setting. Voices.com says non-broadcast jobs such as training videos, explainers and podcasts are "typically priced per word or per finished minute," and its fee on top "ranges from 4% – 6% depending on your payment method."
On a $215 job, that fee comes to about $8.60 to $12.90, so the client pays about $224 to $228. That is our arithmetic from the published percentages.
Finding a voice on Voices.com costs nothing: "Finding and Auditioning Talent Is Always Free," and the client pays once they have chosen. The talent fee, in Voices.com's words, "is set by the talent and may vary based on factors like project scope, usage, and their level of experience."
How much do audiobook narrators charge per finished hour?
ACX, Audible's marketplace for audiobook production, puts it at "roughly $200 PFH for narration and another $200 PFH for the post production work", where PFH is per finished hour. It estimates "about 9,300 words equals one hour of finished audio," so a 93,000-word book is about 10 finished hours, or about $4,000 at $400 PFH.
That figure is from ACX's 2013 guide, which is still on its site, so treat it as the shape of the market rather than today's going rate. Upwork's current narrator range, $25 to $55 an hour, is per working hour, not per finished hour, and the two are not the same thing.
ACX explains the difference: "it can take about four hours of work to produce one hour of finished audio." At that ratio, $400 per finished hour is about $100 per working hour.
ACX also offers a second way to pay: a royalty share, where the author pays nothing up front and agrees "to split your portion of the royalties 50-50" with the narrator. It is "only available when you grant ACX exclusive distribution."
Why do voice-over rates for ads cost more?
Broadcast work is priced on usage, not length. Voices.com says ads on TV, radio or online are priced on "Location: where it’s airing," "Duration: how long it’s running" and "Platform: TV, radio or online," and that because they reach more people, "they come with higher rates to fairly compensate the talent."
A 30-second national TV spot and a 30-second explainer on a company's own website take the same time to record. The ad pays more because the voice is heard by more people, for longer, in a way that sells. That is why voice-over quotes ask where the recording will be used before they give a price.
We could not read Voices.com's calculator figures for its ad settings, and the GVAA Rate Guide, which Voices.com refers clients to, sits behind a sign-up form whose terms forbid republishing it. Neither is quoted here.
Can AI voice-over replace a voice actor?
For simple narration, often yes, at $6 a month. ElevenLabs' Starter plan lists a "Commercial License" for $6 a month; its $0 free plan does not include one. A YouTube video's narration, a training module or a product walkthrough can be voiced that way for less than one minute of a human voice costs on Voices.com.
What a human voice still sells is performance: acting, character, a brand voice that is theirs, and the judgment to read a line the way the script meant. Audiobooks, ads and games still mostly buy that, which is why the per-finished-hour and usage-based prices above hold.
How AI narration fits into a one-person video studio, and what it costs alongside the rest of the tools, is in AI YouTube automation.
The honest hard part
The published figures are the easy part. Most voice actors quote per job and in private, and the most-cited rate card, the GVAA Rate Guide, cannot be republished, so the public numbers are a thin slice of the market.
The second hard part is that the units do not line up. An hourly rate, a per-minute price, a per-finished-hour rate and a usage fee measure four different things, and a client comparing them side by side will get it wrong. Ask every quote the same three questions: how long is the finished audio, where will it be used, and for how long.
The third is AI. At $6 a month for a commercial AI voice, the price of plain narration has fallen for good. A voice actor charging for simple explainer reads is now competing with that, and the work that holds its price is the work that needs acting.
