Price on the value of the outcome and the scope of the work, not on what other people in forums charge. For defined deliverables such as a mix or a produced track, quote per project with written scope and a revision limit. For open-ended work such as attended sessions, charge hourly. The single most common pricing failure is not being too cheap — it is quoting a price without defining what it includes, which turns a good rate into a bad one over four rounds of revisions.
You cannot price sensibly until you know what a job must cover.
Add up your annual costs — gear, software, room, insurance, subscriptions, accounting — plus the unpaid admin, quoting, and marketing hours behind every paid hour. Add the income you need, then divide by the billable hours you can realistically work in a year, which is far fewer than the hours in your week.
That number is your floor, not your price. It is the line below which the work costs you money.
Hourly pricing is honest and simple, and it punishes you for getting better — the faster you become, the less you earn per job. Use it for genuinely open-ended work: attended sessions, consultation, troubleshooting someone else's project, teaching.
Per-project pricing matches what the client is buying — a finished mix, a produced track, a recorded part. It rewards efficiency, gives the client certainty, and removes the awkward conversation about whether the coffee break was billed.
Use it for everything with a defined deliverable, but only with a written scope.
Value considerations raise a price legitimately. The same mix is worth more on a national ad campaign than on a bedroom demo, because the required standard differs. That is scope, not opportunism — commercial work involves more revisions, more stakeholders, and more accountability.
A price is only as good as its boundaries.
- What is included. Number of tracks or parts, stem limits, formats delivered.
- Revisions. A specific number, with a definition of what counts as a revision versus a new brief. Changing the vocal level is a revision. Rewriting the second verse is not.
- Turnaround. A stated number of working days, with a rush option priced higher.
- Deposit. A non-refundable portion upfront, before work starts. It filters out clients who were never going to pay and removes the worst risk in freelance work.
- Delivery. What they receive and in what format.
Put it in a short written quote — a page they can read in a minute, not a contract. Most disputes in creative services come from unstated assumptions rather than bad faith.
| Work type | Usual structure | Watch for |
|---|
| Mixing | Per song, revision-capped | Unlimited revisions, badly prepared stems |
| Mastering | Per track, often with a per-album rate | Requests to fix mix problems |
| Production | Per track or per project, sometimes plus points | Scope creeping into writing and mixing |
| Remote session parts | Per track, defined part count | Turning into an arrangement job |
| Attended session | Hourly or day rate | Setup and teardown time unbilled |
| Beat sales and leases | Tiered by rights granted | Unclear rights on the licence |
Where production involves a share of the master or a writing credit rather than a fee alone, that is a rights negotiation, not just a price. Get those in writing, and for anything substantial, get a lawyer to read it.
Raise when you are consistently booked, when nobody hesitates, or when you resent the work. All three mean the same thing.
Raise for new clients first, give existing clients a grace period and then clear notice, and state the new rate without apology — explaining at length invites negotiation. Expect to lose some clients. That is the mechanism working, and the ones who leave over a modest increase are usually consuming the most revision time.
Ask what the project is for before quoting. Release, pitch, ad, demo — the answer changes the standard required and therefore the scope.
Quote a specific number rather than a range, because ranges get heard as the bottom of the range. Then say the price and stop talking.
If someone cannot afford you, reduce the scope rather than the rate. Fewer revisions, longer turnaround, fewer tracks. Discounting the rate teaches the client your price was never real.
Work out your floor this week, write a one-page scope for your two most common services, and add a deposit requirement. Those three changes fix more freelance income problems than any rate increase.
Related reading: session musician work, teaching music online, and selling beats online.
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