How Much Should I charge?

[Andy RobinsonParticipant]

Hi guys - Hope everyone is getting into the holiday spirit!

I've got a production job come in for an unsigned artist. He wants me to record and produce his EP for him. this will mean the whole process from start to finish with editing and vocal tuning, to mixing and final mastering.

What are you guys charging per track? are you doing it by the hour or per day? Maybe its per track??

Andy

[Chris SweetParticipant]

Hey Andy.Tough question. If you want to make sure you're comp'd for your time I'd charge by the hour. Now since I mostly just mix for clients at this point I usually get $300-400 a song for mixing, assuming its gonna take 7-10 hours of editing and mixing. Now I'm very affordable but not dirt cheap compared to some of whats out there, but I think I'm worth it and my clients gladly pay it. I also don't do this strictly for a living yet. If you want to give a clean number, I think $800-1000/song would be fair, but of course it depends on how involved the project is. Sorry all these figures are a bit arbitrary, i've paid producers $75/hr that weren't worth it, and $500/song for mixes that were decent. And then guys like Michael Brauer get $5-6k per track just to mix so the scale is all over the place (I've gotten a quote from his management). I'd try and figure out how much your time is worth given your life circumstances. Don't be too cheap because then people won't value you, but don't punch above your weight either. Hope this helps somewhat.

[Johnny FullerParticipant]

I liked what Graham Cochrane has put forth...
Figure what you want to make an hour (He suggests starting around $25) multiplied by the average of how long it takes for you to mix a song and you can pad it by a couple of hours and then multiply that by how many songs in the project. Then give the customer that final figure as a package deal. If you finish early, the customer still pays the package price. If it takes longer, the client STILL pays the package price. (That means you need to get faster.) But both of you know what that package price is gonna be. They're excited cuz they know what they have to pay and you should collect half up front. You're excited because you have a goal and you know what you're gonna make. Give them a two (And two only) corrections on the mixes. They will use both (Unless Scott is doing it. Scotts mixing is VERY good!) Tell them all of this upfront.
What do ya think.
I paraphrased Graham, but that's the gist

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