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Hi everyone, I've been asked to start making music for short, corporate videos and campaigns as I produce music on my spare time but have no idea of what sort of rates to ask.
I agreed to be paid "per track" and most of the videos are short, (1-2 mins).Does anyone here has any experience with this sort of work? Considering that I'm not a professional (but would like to be in the future), how much do you think I should charge (8 hrs of work and not just using free samples layered)?
Thank you in advance!

Hi there

I'm a little bit experienced with this topic, although, the procedure was slightly different. I created a few music tracks for the production music department of EMI Records. I was paid a large advance per track that was recouped afterwards through sync royalties.

For you however, there are two approaches to this.

The first is to go to a production music library service i.e. PremiumBeat.com and contact them to enquire about payment pricing for services rendered. They will break down to you the average payment per track of a certain type. But be warned, these services often work by paying royalties per download only, not commissions so it might be hard to calculate for yourself what each track is worth without any downloads.

The second is you personally calculate roughly the time it will take you to make each track, you'll have to do a bit of guessing to make an average because they are all going to vary in production time frames.

After you have determined this, you can set the price that you value your own services. You can see how many hours it will take roughly to produce one track, and set the rate you think is fair for this. Usually this will be determined with [X hours in a day = X days work] You might perceive this calculation as high, which is ok, you can subtract some until you think it's a fair price, but when doing business in this industry you have to avoid falling into the trap of undervaluing your own work in order to seem congenial to your client.

I read a very interesting article once on this topic which you might find very useful

How To Set (And Get) The Right Price For Your Audio Word - asoundeffect.com

Best of luck to you