Voice acting pays by the session, the finished hour, or the usage, and the rates are published. A union session runs about $1,135 to $1,204 for up to four hours of work, non-union audiobooks pay $150 to $350 per finished hour, and a national commercial campaign can pay more than both combined through residuals. The spread between a hobbyist and a booked-solid professional is enormous, and the difference is volume, not rate.
Price a year of voice sessions, after fees and taxes, with our free Actor Salary Calculator.
The published rates, lane by lane
| Work | Rate | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Film / TV voice session (union) | $1,204 / session | SAG-AFTRA, recognizable voicing of five lines or more |
| Video game session (union) | $1,134.95 / 4-hour session | Interactive Media Agreement, up to 3 voices, Nov 2025 to Oct 2026 |
| Audiobooks (non-union) | $150–350 / finished hour | GVAA rate guide, the standard non-union reference |
| National TV commercial (non-union buyout) | from $650 | GVAA rate guide, usage-based |
| Local cable commercial (non-union) | from $225 | GVAA rate guide, usage-based |
Union commercial voice work prices differently: a session fee plus residuals scaled to markets and duration, the same structure as on-camera commercial work, and a national campaign in rotation multiplies the session fee many times over.
What a working year looks like
The median actor, on-camera and voice combined, earns $23.33 an hour per BLS data from May 2024, with the top 10% above $97 an hour. Those hourly figures hide the real variable, which is booking density. A voice actor recording three union sessions a week grosses around $170,000 a year. One session a month is a side income. The rate card is identical in both cases.
Audiobooks show the same math from the other side. A finished hour typically takes about two hours in the booth plus editing, so a 10-hour book at $250 per finished hour pays $2,500 for roughly a week of full-time work. Narrators who stay booked year-round turn that into a steady living, and the busiest names record dozens of books a year.
Where the big voice money is
Recurring animation leads hold the top of the field. When a show runs long enough, per-episode fees get renegotiated like any hit sitcom, and the principal Simpsons cast famously reached reported per-episode fees in the hundreds of thousands at peak. Video game franchises now create similar anchors, with lead performers booking sessions across years of production and, since the 2024 interactive negotiations, fighting to keep AI voice replication licensed and paid rather than free.
Narration fame is its own asset. Morgan Freeman's voice became a licensable brand of its own, and narration appears as a documented income lane in our Morgan Freeman profile alongside his film salaries. That is the ceiling of the profession: the rate card stops mattering because the name is the product.
What lands after the invoice
Voice work is gross income like any acting job: agents take 10%, managers 10% more where used, and self-employment taxes apply. Home-studio costs, the booth, the microphone chain, and editing software are deductible business expenses. The Actor Salary Calculator nets any session count down to take-home, and our methodology page documents the fee and tax rates it uses.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do voice actors make?
Union sessions pay about $1,135 to $1,204 for up to four hours, non-union audiobooks pay $150 to $350 per finished hour, and national commercials pay the most through residuals or buyouts. Booking density decides the annual number: three sessions a week is a six-figure year.
How much do video game voice actors make?
$1,134.95 for a four-hour session covering up to three voices under the Interactive Media Agreement for November 2025 to October 2026. Leads in big productions book many sessions, and vocally stressful work runs shorter sessions at the same fee.
How much do audiobook narrators make?
$150 to $350 per finished hour for non-union narrators, more for established union names. A 10-hour book at $250 per finished hour grosses $2,500 for about a week of work.
Who is the highest paid voice actor?
Long-running animation leads top the accumulated earnings list, with the principal Simpsons cast reaching reported per-episode fees in the hundreds of thousands at peak. For a single voice as a brand, Morgan Freeman's narration career is the reference case.