Key Takeaways
- Both these platforms offer two very different approaches to hiring voice actors. Voice Crafters offers a curated, agency-style experience, while Upwork provides an open freelance marketplace with far more choice but less built-in quality control.
- Voice Crafters pre-screens voice actors for experience and studio-quality audio, whereas Upwork allows any freelancer to set up a profile on the platform, meaning clients must vet voice actors themselves.
- Voice Crafters follows industry-standard, project-based pricing, while Upwork enables wide-ranging budgets, from low-cost beginners to premium voice actors.
- Hiring voice actors on Upwork requires much more time for reviewing proposals and filtering talent than Voice Crafters.
Hiring voice actors online has never been easier. Whatever your budget, deadline details, or quality requirements, nowadays you’ll always find someone who fits the bill.
Whether you are debating between Voice Crafters vs Upwork, be prepared to do a lot of research. Particularly if you’re still a bit hazy on how to find the best of what’s out there.”
That’s why we’ve been running a series of comparative articles, assessing Voice Crafters against some of the industry’s other heavyweights.
These include Bunny Studio, ElevenLabs, and the huge general online marketplace Fiverr.
In today’s article, we’re looking at another major gig platform, Upwork, to help you decide the best and most appropriate place for hiring voice actors today.
Company Backgrounds
ID: Voice Crafters
Voice Crafters is a boutique voiceover agency and marketplace founded in 2009 by sound designer Mony Raanan.
Originally launched as a boutique voiceover production service, the company has gradually grown into an online marketplace enabling clients to hire voice actors across the world.
Today, the platform’s roster of vetted voice talent boasts over 80 languages between them, while the platform itself provides services ranging from casting and voice recording to post-production and localization.
ID: Upwork
Upwork is a broad freelance marketplace rather than a specialized voiceover platform, though thousands of voice actors have profiles here.
The company traces its roots to two earlier platforms, which are Elance (founded in 1998) and oDesk (founded in 2003).
In 2013, both these platforms merged and rebranded two years later as Upwork.
It is now one of the largest global online freelance marketplaces.
It connects millions of businesses and creators with freelancers across hundreds of skill categories, including software development, design, writing, marketing, and, of course, voice acting.
Voice Crafters & Upwork: Service Model
|
FEATURE
|
VOICE CRAFTERS
|
UPWORK |
| Service Model |
Hybrid (Agency + Marketplace) |
Open freelance marketplace |
| Vetting |
Pre-vetted, curated professional voice actors |
No upfront vetting; open to all freelancers, quality determined by reviews and metrics |
| Roster Style |
Boutique / Curated |
Large-scale / Open marketplace with thousands of freelancers |
| Speciality |
Multilingual Commercial & Corporate (High-end) |
Freelance services of all kinds, including voiceover & voiceover production services |
| Project Management |
Clients can manage projects themselves or opt for full agency support |
Clients completely self-manage their projects |
| AI Policy |
Restricts or controls AI voice use; the focus is on human professional talent |
Allows AI-related services depending on the freelancer’s offerings |
| Payment |
Client payments are safeguarded: held until project is approved & paid via Stripe/PayPal/bank transfer.
Online platform fees are 10% charged from the client and 10% from talent. Voice actors are not charged a subscription fee |
Payments held & released upon milestone/project approval.
Platform fees are typically 10% for freelancers; clients may also pay service fees.
Freelancers are not charged a subscription fee but must buy tokens (“connects”) to bid on jobs |
| Contract Type |
Project-based |
Hourly or project-based contracts |
What Are Voice Crafters’ & Upwork’s Talent Vetting Processes?
When it comes to vetting talent, the two platforms are positioned at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Voice Crafters
Voice Crafters uses a curated model for its business.
Voice actors are only accepted onto the platform after passing a strict screening process.
They must demonstrate proven commercial voiceover experience and the ability to record broadcast-quality audio from a professional studio environment.
Additionally, Voice Crafters’ talent needs to have close to 5 years of professional experience before being accepted.
While this means there may be fewer voiceover artists on the platform (currently around 1,700), clients planning to hire voice actors here can be confident they’ve been vetted for both performance quality and technical audio standards.
Upwork
In contrast, Upwork operates as a completely open freelance marketplace, meaning anyone, regardless of experience or caliber, can create an account and start offering services.
Freelancers are not vetted, and quality is largely determined through client reviews and portfolio samples.
Clients can also use indicators such as Job Success Scores and “Top Rated” badges to gauge a freelancer’s reliability and performance.
However, due to the platform’s scale and the sheer number of voice actors available, evaluating and selecting the right talent does mean clocking in a much greater amount of time than would be necessary on a dedicated voiceover marketplace.
Voiceover Services & Pricing for Hiring Voice Actors
Voice Crafters
Voice Crafters provides voice talent for TV, radio, and online commercials; animation and video games; movie trailers; documentaries; podcasts; corporate videos and training materials; and narration for a wide host of professional industries.
It also offers a range of voiceover-focused services beyond simply hiring voice actors.
These include:
Pricing on Voice Crafters follows standard industry-suggested guidelines and depends on several factors such as usage rights, script length, and talent experience.
Clients can also negotiate rates directly with talent if posting and handling their own projects.
Upwork
As Upwork operates as an open marketplace, clients usually post their projects with all requirements included, and voice actors submit bids for the jobs.
Clients can also browse through freelancer profiles and invite those they are interested in to apply for their project.
With a wide choice of professionals across the voice industry available, it’s possible to find voice actors of every level.
Typical voiceover fees on the platform range from:
- $50 per hour for beginners
- $100 per hour for intermediate talent
- $150 – $200+ per hour for expert voiceover artists
Projects can also be priced per finished hour of audio.
With this form of contract, rates generally start from around $200 and go up to $400 if the talent is highly experienced and has a high job success score.
Because rates on Upwork are set within an open marketplace, clients can choose to hire voice actors at a lower price point or pay out higher fees, depending on the level of quality and professionalism needed.
As a massive marketplace, clients can also find other services to complement the voice-over. These can include audio post-production editors, music mixers, etc.
How do Voice Crafters and Upwork Rate on Search Functionality and User Experience?
Voice Crafters
Over the last number of years, Voice Crafters has greatly grown as an online marketplace.
In tandem with this, the platform’s user experience has improved significantly so as to accommodate all types of professional and global businesses that now use it.
Its search and discovery functionality enables clients to either manually browse talent profiles or submit project briefs that trigger automated talent matching based on campaign type, language, style, and other criteria.
The platform also provides integrated tools for scheduling and conducting live-directed recording sessions, managing multilingual projects, and easily locating and hiring voice actors that the client has worked with before.
Upwork
As a global freelance marketplace, Upwork offers a broad search system that covers many types of freelance work, including voiceover services.
Clients have the option of posting a job and receiving proposals or searching for freelancers directly using filters like category, experience level, hourly rate, location, and language.
Both clients and freelancers have commented in public reviews on the ease of using the platform.
In terms of user experience, clients handle all the details of their project themselves, from posting their job and finding talent to managing communication and payment.
However, while this obviously gives them more control, it can also take up a lot of time and effort.
How Do Talent & Clients Rate Both Voice Crafters and Upwork?
Voice Crafters
Both talent and clients tend to speak well of Voice Crafters, with online reviews from recent customers commending the platform for its high-quality talent pool and production support.
In fact, several reviewers comment on the Voice Crafter’s team’s willingness to go the extra mile to solve any issues that might keep the final outcome from being the very best it can be.
On the talent side of things, a recent voice actor gave a five-star review for the great communication and high standard of jobs, noting, “Not being forced to turn down AI gigs constantly is very awesome.”
Upwork
Upwork has received mixed feedback from both clients and freelancers, but as a massive global marketplace, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
The competitive environment for talent and the potential for hiring voice actors that aren’t quite up to the job are part and parcel of using a platform of this scale.
That said, on Trustpilot, an impressive 72% of all reviews given are five-star reviews, though, of course, this reflects work in all types of services, not just when hiring voice actors.
Positive comments from freelancers on Trustpilot note an easy-to-navigate platform, the ability to find work quickly, and reliable payments.
In other areas of the Internet, some community discussions stress high platform fees and the number of “connects” (Upwork’s paid-for tokens that freelancers use to submit proposals and apply for jobs) needed when applying for certain jobs.
For clients, it seems Upwork’s main advantage is its flexibility. Customers can review large numbers of proposals and compare rates quickly.
However, the open marketplace model does mean more time is required to vet freelancers and evaluate quality.
Final Words
The differences between hiring voice actors on Upwork or on Voice Crafters are many, and for most users, the right choice comes down to how much time, control, and quality vetting you demand.
If you want to manage every aspect of the project from posting the project to final payout, are looking for a relatively (or even very) low-cost voice actor, and have the time to sift through a large number of bids, then Upwork is obviously an option to keep in mind.
On the other hand, if you want complete confidence from the outset that you’ll be working with professional, high-quality voice actors, and prefer a faster turnaround from hiring to final delivery, then Voice Crafters ticks all the boxes.
So, if you’re choosing between these two, simply ask yourself how much budget and time you want to spend, and whether quality without question is a consideration.
With those answers, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the direction you want to take.
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