Hiring voice over talent, without doing the casting yourself

There are two ways to hire a voice. You can open a marketplace, filter by language and gender, listen to a few hundred stock demos, guess which one suits your script, and hope. Or you can send the script to someone whose job is to know which four voices out of several hundred are right for it.

We do the second. It is the whole difference between a platform and an agency, and it is where most of the cost of a bad booking actually sits: not in the session fee, but in the re-record three weeks later.

What you actually get back

Within about 24 hours of sending a script you receive custom demos: shortlisted voices reading your words, not their showreel. That distinction matters more than anything else on this page. A showreel tells you what an actor has already been cast as. A custom demo tells you what they do with your copy, at your pace, with your product name in their mouth.

Three or four genuine candidates, not twenty near misses
Each reading your actual script
A fixed quote covering recording, direction, editing and usage
A recommendation, with the reasoning, that you are free to ignore

How the booking runs

You send the script, the brief and any reference you have
We shortlist and record custom demos
You choose, and we confirm the fixed price including usage
We record and direct the session, with you attending remotely if you want
We edit, quality check and deliver in the format you need

Why usage decides the price, not the word count

This is the part that catches people who have only hired through marketplaces. A voice actor is paid twice: once for the recording, and separately for how you use it. Term, territory and media all change the fee, and a spot cleared for online only becomes a problem the week it airs on television.

We quote usage upfront as part of one fixed price, so you know what you are cleared for and for how long before anything is recorded. If the campaign extends, we handle the renewal rather than leaving you to renegotiate with the talent.

Hiring in a language you do not speak

The risk is obvious and rarely managed: you cannot hear whether the read is good. A mispronounced product name, a register that is too formal, a regional variant wrong for the market, none of it is audible to you.

So every delivery in a language nobody on your side speaks gets checked by a native reviewer before it reaches you. You should not have to take our word for whether the Finnish is right.

What to send us

The more of this you have, the faster the shortlist is right. None of it is mandatory.

The script, or a close draft
Who the audience is, and in which market
The duration, if it is fixed
A reference: an existing advert, a competitor, a voice you like
Where it will run, so we can quote usage correctly

When we are the wrong choice

If you need one short read in English, you know exactly the voice you want, and nobody has to approve it, a marketplace will be cheaper and we will tell you so. Managed casting earns its cost when the stakes are higher: multiple markets, a brand voice that has to stay consistent, a language you cannot check, a client who has to sign off, or a deadline that cannot absorb a re-record.

What we cast for

Commercial voice over for broadcast, online and connected TV
Corporate voice over and elearning voice over
Explainer voice over for product and onboarding video
Animation voice over and video game voice over for character work
Audiobook voice over and documentary voice over for long-form narration
IVR voice over and telephone voice over for phone systems

Languages

We cast native speakers rather than fluent second-language readers, across more than 100 languages. The most requested are American English, British English, Spanish, French and German, and each of those hides a casting decision about variant that is worth making deliberately.

Send us the script and tell us who the audience is. Demos from real candidates and a fixed quote, usually within 24 hours.

Hire Voice Over Talent