Sound Design Cost Breakdown: Audio Post Pricing

Audio post-production is the most underpriced stage of video production. Most budgets allocate 70-80% to production (shooting) and 20-30% to post (editing, color, VFX), leaving audio as an afterthought. This is a mistake — audiences will watch mediocre visuals with good audio but will not watch excellent visuals with bad audio. This page provides specific pricing for each stage of audio post-production so you can budget accurately.

Dialogue cleanup is the process of making production dialogue usable in the final mix. This involves noise reduction, de-hum, de-reverb, mouth de-click, and manual repair of isolated problems. What is included: - Broadband noise reduction (aircon, fan, ambient noise) using iZotope RX Voice De-noise - Electrical hum removal (50Hz/60Hz and harmonics) using De-hum - Room echo reduction using De-reverb (4-8 dB reduction) - Mouth click and lip smack removal using Mouth De-click - Manual spectral repair for isolated noises (door slams, phone rings, equipment beeps) - Room tone filling (every gap between dialogue lines filled with consistent room tone) - Breath reduction (loud breaths brought down 6-12 dB, not deleted) - Clip gain balancing (consistent dialogue level across all takes) Price varies based on noise severity: - Light noise (controlled indoor environment, minimal cleanup needed): $5-10/min - Moderate noise (cafe, restaurant, outdoor covered area): $10-15/min - Heavy noise (street recording, construction nearby, wind): $15-20/min Turnaround: 1-3 business days per 10 minutes of content. Revisions: 1 round included. Additional rounds: $30 each. Honest note: dialogue cleanup cannot fix everything. Heavily distorted or clipped audio, wind that overloaded the microphone, or dialogue completely masked by loud foreground noise cannot be restored to pristine quality. In these cases, ADR (re-recording) is the solution, not more cleanup processing.

Sound design is the creation and placement of audio elements that support the visual content. Foley (performed sound effects), library effects, ambient backgrounds, and designed sounds. What is included: - Foley recording: footsteps on matching surfaces, cloth movement, prop handling (door closes, glass sets, paper rustles). Performed and synced to picture. - Sound effects: hard effects (impacts, crashes, mechanical sounds), design effects (whooshes, transitions, UI sounds, sci-fi elements), and ambient effects (room tone, weather, traffic). - Backgrounds and ambience: continuous environmental sound beds that set the location — forest ambience, city traffic, ocean waves, office murmur, crowd walla. - Layered design: each significant sound built from 3-5 layers for richness and realism. - Spatial placement: effects panned to match on-screen position and perspective. Price varies based on content type: - Dialogue-heavy content (interview, talking head, podcast video): $15-25/min. Minimal sound design beyond room tone and occasional hard effects. - Standard content (corporate video, branded content, documentary): $25-40/min. Full backgrounds, hard effects for on-screen actions, transitions. - Action/creative content (music video, commercial, short film with significant sound design): $40-60/min. Custom foley, layered effects, designed transitions, creative audio treatments. Turnaround: 3-7 business days. Revisions: 2 rounds included. Additional rounds: $50 each.

Stock music subscriptions (Artlist, Epidemic Sound, Musicbed) provide unlimited downloads during the subscription period. License fees cover sync rights (using the music with video) and mechanical rights (distribution). Costs range from $10-50/month for a personal plan to $200-500/month for a commercial/team plan. For a single project, individual track licenses from libraries like Musicbed, Marmoset, or PremiumBeat cost $50-200 per track for standard web use. Broadcast use (TV, cinema) increases the license fee to $200-1,000+ per track. Custom composition gives you exclusive music that no other creator can use. This matters for brand videos, commercials, and any content where the music becomes part of the brand identity. Custom music also allows the composer to sync musical hits and transitions to specific visual moments, which stock music cannot do.

Mixing is the process of balancing all audio elements (dialogue, effects, music, backgrounds) into a cohesive soundtrack. The mix ensures dialogue intelligibility, appropriate music levels, and consistent overall loudness. What is included: - Level balancing: dialogue, effects, music, and backgrounds set to appropriate relative levels. Dialogue is always the priority — music and effects must not mask speech. - EQ: frequency carving to prevent elements from competing. Music is EQ'd to create space for dialogue in the 2-5 kHz range. Effects are shaped to sit naturally in the mix. - Dynamics: compression on dialogue for consistent level, limiting on the master bus to prevent peaks from exceeding delivery spec. - Panning: stereo placement of effects and music to match on-screen perspective. Dialogue typically centered. Effects panned to match visual position. - Automation: level and EQ changes throughout the program to adapt to scene changes. Music ducks under dialogue. Effects rise during action sequences. - Loudness compliance: final mix measured against the target LUFS specification (-14 LUFS for YouTube, -23/-24 LUFS for broadcast, -27 LUFS for Netflix). - True peak limiting: peaks limited to -1 dBTP (streaming) or -2 dBTP (broadcast). Price varies based on complexity: - Simple mix (2-3 tracks: dialogue, music, basic effects): $10-15/min - Standard mix (4-8 tracks: dialogue, foley, effects, backgrounds, music): $15-25/min - Complex mix (8+ tracks: full production with multiple dialogue sources, extensive sound design, surround sound): $25-30/min Turnaround: 2-5 business days. Revisions: 2 rounds included. Additional rounds: $50 each.

Mastering is the final quality control step before delivery. The stereo or surround mix is processed as a single entity to ensure it meets the delivery specification and sounds consistent across all playback systems. What is included: - Final loudness adjustment to hit the target LUFS specification exactly - True peak limiting to prevent digital clipping on any playback system - Final EQ adjustment if the overall mix sounds too bright, too dark, too bass-heavy, or too thin - Noise floor check: ensure no hum, hiss, or artifact is present in the final output - Format conversion: bounce to all required delivery formats (WAV 48kHz/24-bit, MP3 320kbps, AAC 256kbps) if needed - Technical QC: verify timecode alignment with video, verify channel assignment, verify sample rate and bit depth Price: $5-10/min for stereo content. $10-15/min for surround (5.1, 7.1) content. Turnaround: 1-2 business days. Revisions: 1 round included.

Essential Audio Post covers the basics needed to make your video sound professional: clean dialogue, basic sound effects for on-screen actions, a balanced stereo mix, and loudness-compliant delivery. Suitable for corporate videos, talking-head content, and social media clips. Standard Audio Post adds full foley, layered sound design, background ambience, stock music licensing, and a more detailed mix with automation. Suitable for branded content, documentaries, wedding films, and commercial projects. Premium Audio Post includes everything: custom music composition, surround mixing capability, full stem delivery (DX, FX, MX, BG, M&E, Full Mix), and additional revision rounds. Suitable for music videos, high-end commercials, short films, and any content targeting broadcast or streaming platform delivery. All packages include dialogue cleanup appropriate to the noise level of your production audio. If your audio requires ADR (re-recording dialogue), ADR sessions are quoted separately at $50-150 per hour of studio time.