Voiceover pricing has its own logic: you’re not selling hours, you’re selling words read, spots delivered, and the usage rights a brand walks away with. Fee-Lion lets you quote exactly that way, lock in a deposit before you ever open the booth, and bill the inevitable revisions and added usage as clean line items instead of awkward emails.
Quote by the word, the spot, or the usage
Start with an estimate from the left sidebar. The line-item types map neatly onto how VO work is actually priced:
- Units (qty × rate) for per-word, per-spot, or per-finished-minute pricing — set the rate to your per-word number and the quantity to the word count, or rate-per-spot with a quantity of three.
- Tasks (hours × rate) for studio time, directed sessions, or live-direction calls where you genuinely bill by the hour.
- Fees for flat charges like a session minimum, file delivery, or a rush turnaround.
- Surcharges for the things that quietly inflate a job: broadcast or paid-media usage, added regions, or exclusivity. A discount line handles a returning-client courtesy.
Then set your tax and a deposit % on the estimate so the numbers reflect real, complete pricing. To save yourself the repeat setup, fill in your defaults under Settings → Preferences (Estimates, tax, and deposit defaults) once.
Tip: Put usage rights on their own surcharge line with a clear label like “National broadcast — 1 year.” When a client later wants to extend usage, you add a second surcharge instead of renegotiating the whole rate. Itemized usage is the difference between a pro VO invoice and a guess.
Take the deposit before you record
The booth is your time, so collect a deposit before you commit it. Send the estimate from the sidebar and your client opens it in a no-login portal via a magic link — no account, no password.
- Open the estimate and confirm the deposit % is set (a default lives under Settings → Preferences).
- Send it. The client reviews and clicks Approve right in the portal.
- From the approved estimate, hit Convert to turn it into an invoice in one click.
- The invoice carries a Pay button; the client pays the deposit by card and the money lands in your own Stripe account.
Because payouts go to your Stripe (Stripe Connect, minus a small platform fee), you’re not waiting on Fee-Lion to forward your money — it’s yours. Record a wire or cash deposit instead? Mark it as an offline payment on the invoice so your books stay honest.
Bill revisions and added scope without the awkwardness
Revisions are where VO rates quietly leak. Decide what’s included up front — say, one round of pickups — and when a client asks for more, bill it as its own line.
- For extra pickup rounds or a re-record after a script change, revise and resend the estimate with a new surcharge or unit line, or add the line directly to the open invoice.
- For a script that grew, bump the word-count quantity on a units line so the math updates itself.
- For a usage upgrade after delivery, add a surcharge line for the new term and reissue.
Need to move fast between sessions? The ⌘K command palette handles it from anywhere — type “create invoice for Acme” or “pay INV-204” without clicking through menus.
Tip: Spell out your revision policy on the estimate itself (“Includes one round of pickups; additional rounds billed at $X”). Clients approve it in the portal, so when round two arrives, you’re pointing at something they already said yes to.
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