FAQs & Tips

*** SHORT VIDEO TUTORIALS ARE AVAILABLE HERE***

When logging into the site, you will now be directed to your dashboard.

Your dashboard provides you with a quick summary of any pending proposals, jobs in progress and your total earnings.

The ALL PROPOSALS section shows you a list of projects and their status, indicating whether or not you have submitted a quote for them.

Clicking on a particular project will open up the project details, its message board, and any files that have been shared between you and the client for that particular project.

You are awarded a project whenever a client funds it and an email is sent to notify you that you are clear to begin recording.
The funds will be held securely until the project is completed successfully.

All files should be uploaded through the message board and can be retrieved from the FILES section for the given project.
The message board is also where you and the client can communicate about the project.
Be sure to make good use of it and clarify any questions you may have with the client to manage mutual expectations effectively.

Once the project is complete, be sure to click the “Mark project as complete” button in the PROJECT DETAILS tab. The client will be asked to release funds from escrow and rate your work.

Once the client releases funds, the will be released to you within 1-5 business days.

The EARNINGS tab in your dashboard summarizes your earnings per project.

*** Contacting a client directly is prohibited [PLEASE READ] ***

If a client asks you to contact them outside Voice Crafters’ platform – politely refuse and ask them to send their message via the message board.

Providing your contact details or messaging clients outside of Voice Crafters is a violation of our policy and can get you removed from our website.

HOWEVER, some clients will want to live-direct you via Source Connect / Skype, etc., so it’s okay to connect with them directly for the purpose of the remote session only, and only after they fund the project.

Dealing financially with the client directly also exposes you in case there’s a dispute between you and the client that you are not able to resolve amongst yourselves.

Please only accept work through the site.

If a client you worked with on our platform finds you online and reaches out to you for a new project, we ask that you please request that they open a new project on Voice Crafters’ site.

Clients are not obligated to reply and unfortunately often times they do not.

Many times after you send a proposal, you’ll get radio silence. It’s perfectly normal.

Understand that the client may be getting proposals from other voice actors (and possibly from other sources), so don’t be alarmed or discouraged if a client doesn’t reply.

By all means, feel free to send a client a follow-up message to check if they considered your quote. Doing this (tastefully, without harassing the client) will show initiative and clients do appreciate it.

If a project hasn’t been funded, you can easily change your proposal by navigating to the PROJECT DETAILS tab and clicking the “Change Quote” button.

You will also have the opportunity to change other parameters in your original proposal such as the usage term and revision policy.

If a project has been funded and the client wishes to add more funds as a result of a change in the project scope, the client would need to do this on their end.

If they are unsure, you can direct them to go to the PROPOSALS tab and to click the “Add More Funds” button.

After having completed a voice over project, simply click the “Mark Project as Complete” button in the PROJECT DETAILS tab.

The client will be prompted to release your funds via email.

We highly recommend confirming with the client that the job is indeed complete and to their satisfaction before marking a project as complete.

Payments for voice over projects are sent via bank transfer.
Payments will only be issued through PayPal to countries that are not supported by business payments through Wise.

Please refer to this list of countries supported by Wise (We use Wise.com for bank transfers).

You will be able to select your preferred method of payment in your Account Settings.

Some countries do not support payments from one of these services, so be sure to check if your country supports business payments from a U.S. account.

Once a client releases payment to you, you’ll receive it within 1-5 business days.

Voice Crafters has no membership fees.

Instead, we charge a 20% commission on every job. This fee is split between you and the client.

10% is deducted from you, and 10% is added to the client’s final payment.

So, for example, if your quote is $300, you will be paid $270 and the client will be charged $330.

The fees will be totally transparent to you when sending a quote and to the client ordering the service.

Yes.

We bank with Wise.com. Currency conversion and bank transfers to your bank are done through them. Their transaction and conversation fees are very low, but this is something you should keep in mind.

You can see Wise’s fees here. Bear in mind the source currency (the currency our Wise account is in) is USD.

Additionally, there may be some fees charged by your bank when receiving funds. These fees may vary from one country to another.

For jobs performed through our platform, there’s no need to invoice the client or Voice Crafters.

When a client funds a project, they will automatically receive an invoice generated by our system, so there’s no need to send them an invoice.

Furthermore, you are not required to send us an invoice (You can generate one for your purposes of course).

For jobs you receive through us directly (not through the platform), you will need to invoice.

Payment is sent on EOM (End-of-Month) + 45 days.
This means that if an invoice is submitted on March 10th, it will be paid on or by May 15th.

Please make your invoice out to:

Voice Crafters, LLC
8 The Green, Suite 4000
Dover, DE 19901
United States

Please ensure that you mention the project name and recording date.

It’s okay to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) provided that the client funds the job first.

Make sure you agree on the price and terms.

After that, the client can fund the project and send you the NDA via the message board.

Only with the client’s explicit approval.

Violating this rule will get you removed from our roster and possibly prosecuted for any damages a customer may suffer as a result.

Many clients prefer that you send them the raw audio. Therefore, it’s recommended that you edit out all the errors, and if asked, mouth clicks and breaths.

If the client asks for the audio to be processed, you should also be able to process it with EQ, compression, De-Essing, etc.

We recommend sending audio in WAV/AIFF format (24-bit/48 kHz, mono) as it’s uncompressed and will be at its highest quality.

Do not send mp3 files unless asked.

No problem at all!

Our system supports sending attachments of up to 5GB.

You can use the Attachments button to browse and upload file/s or just drag and drop them to the MESSAGES area:

When you mark the project as “complete”, our system sends out an email to the client, asking them to release funds to you.

We highly recommend you do this only after the client has confirmed that the job is signed off.

Asking the client to release funds before providing them ample time to check the work and sign it off internally will make it seem like you’re in a rush to get paid.

If your client has already funded a project but needs to add more work, like extra recordings, post-production, or extending usage rights, they can just add more funds to the same project.

Ask the client to go to the PROPOSALS tab for that project and click the Add Funds button below your proposal.

They’ll be able to add funds, and you’ll receive a message once they do.

REMEMBER: The project is never closed (unless canceled), so the client can add more funds at any time.

We highly recommend checking whether the job is signed off with the client before marking it as complete.

However, clients are often not very responsive at that stage. Therefore, if a client doesn’t reply for a week or two (use your best judgment, you can mark the job as complete without their official sign-off.

When you mark a job as complete, our system periodically sends reminder emails to the client, notifying them that they need to release the funds.

It may sometimes take clients time to review the work you did for them.

Yes, even several weeks.

During that time, it’s not uncommon for some clients to be unresponsive.

Remember that clients have end-clients and/or other stakeholders who need to review and approve the voice over, before they are authorized to release payment to you.

What can you do? 🤷‍♂️

You can send them reminder messages (tastefully, please) using the message board.

In case a client is unresponsive for 30 business days, please contact us, so that we can intervene and resolve the issue.

PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT US TO RELEASE FUNDS BEFORE 30 DAYS HAVE PASSED AND HAVING TRIED TO CONTACT THE CLIENT FIRST!

It’s never ideal when a client that chose you for a recording isn’t happy with your delivery, but it happens.

Sometimes it isn’t the client, but the end-client who makes the decision and they may change their mind or simply decide they want to go a in different direction.

If you have already performed the recording, ask the client to make a partial payment to cover the session fee.
It is possible to do so on our portal. You would need to agree to initiate a partial refund for the client.

If you’ve exhausted all options and cannot reach an agreement with the client, please contact us to resolve the dispute.

Make sure you add the project ID and the words – “Dispute resolution needed” in the subject line.

Clients tend to initially be more responsive to quotes than messages.

Therefore, we encourage you to send a temporary (or “placeholder“) quote if you are unsure of any of the details of the project.

If anything is unclear, you have a section in the quote form that allows you to send the client a message.

REMEMBER:

1. Your visibility score is calculated based on your response time, so the faster you send a quote, the higher your visibility score will be.
2. It’s okay to negotiate your rate via the message board, but always make sure you send a quote using the form in the project details tab. Otherwise, the client will not be able to fund the project.

As you know, in our industry, audio tasks usually comes at the end of the post-production process,

So when a potential customer sends a quote request, assume they have a tight deadline.

Responding quickly will increase your chances of landing the job.

Clients appreciate talents who are highly responsive.

Be very clear about what your service includes.

How many revisions do you allow?

Do you include editing / post-production work (like audio sync to picture, file splitting for e-learning, etc.)?

What services / situations incur an extra charge?

PRO TIP: Spend some time drawing up exactly a revision policy that takes all contingencies into account, be it pickups, extra post-production work, etc. Formulate it into a template and simply copy and paste to every quote you send.

Doing so suggests to the client that you are not confident about the value of your service and that you are willing to bargain for it.

You should know what your services are worth.

Besides, if a client has a set budget, they will probably tell you off the bat.

You can always specify a price and mention that you are open to negotiate it if you’d like.

We ask potential clients to enter as much information about the project as possible so you can easily understand the scope before quoting.

Unfortunately sometimes customers don’t provide all of the information you need.

Going back and forth with a client to establish the exact scope of a project may deter them from working with you (especially if they are under a tight deadline).

Therefore, we recommend using a placeholder quote.

For example, you could quote based on a 6-months usage period. Then add a comment about what the cost would be should the client need usage for 12 months.

Or you could quote based on online usage only, and specify what it would cost to add in an additional channel, like TV, Radio, Social Media, etc.

Providing them the information this way will save time for both of you.

Some clients will ask you to record an audition and then use it for their purpose without paying.

Protect yourself from dodgy clients

ALWAYS record a few lines of the script – just enough for the customer to get a feel for what you sound like – Even if the word count on the project is higher than the audition script.

If the script is too short, you can simply add a watermark. Here’s a link to a free beep audio file you can download and mix into your audition.

Alternatively, you can record the client’s script and change the name of the brand.

NEVER RECORD A FULL AUDITION AS IS, UNLESS IT’S FOR A CLIENT YOU KNOW AND TRUST.

This is kind of obvious.

Your goal should be to have them put you in their “Favorites” list and come back to you for more projects.

It’s also up to you to find the fine line between “The customer is always right” and “This customer is blatantly taking advantage of my goodwill”, and act accordingly.

Avoid disputes as best as you can but not at the cost of losing too much precious time and/or money.

Again, clearly defining the scope of work before starting a project  is a great way to avoid misunderstandings.