Minimum fee for a music cue on RF sites?

[glen]

I’d be very curious to hear what everyone has to say. Please share your thoughts on minimum fees RF sites should charge or what YOU should charge when you can set the price on a RF free site? Please voice your opinion a fee for:

1. A Full length Instrumental Music Cue
2. A Full Length Song with Lyrics

Lets leave 4 to 5 second stings or “sound effect” style tracks that are very short. Just interested in Full Length Tracks…30 seconds minimum…
What should we charge on the RF market….knowing that the end buyer has no obligation to us other than paying that fee we ask. They do not need to file cue sheets with Pros, they buy the track, use it royalty free, and can put it on the air on the Big screen for whatever they want…and run it for however long they want to.

[Desire_Inspires]

I say $250. Assuming a 50/50 split, the composer gets $125.

I have not received a ton of sync fees, but all of them were at least $250, since I got a minimum of $125.

[Advice]

I think someone mentioned this before. The RF market serves different types of customers with different budgets. Projects needing music can vary all over the board from film school videos to full blown broadcast use. A student or film festival video may only be able to pay $50-$100 (or even less), while larger budget projects may be fine with $250-$500.

So I don’t think there is any easy way to set minimum prices in such a general sense. You have to know what market you are serving the most.

If, of course, you have a history of selling tracks you can look at what types of clients your music attracts most and what price ranges. That is, assuming there is a pattern.

Footnote: My experience with RF is limited so grain of salt here.

[Jay]

I’m in the process of raising all my prices @ my RF sites as well so i’d be interested in this info too…i’m @ around $60.00 minimum for full instrumental tracks and quite a bit more for vocal trax…my stings/bumpers are pretty low but they’re going up as well..my feelings on this is if you’re getting placements and I just got one today on NBC (found out about it today anyway) that means there’s a demand for what you do…I think a lot of us are really selling ourselves short just trying to get in the “game” – if you’re already in the game and still writing/recording quality stuff you’re hurting your brand by selling cheap…(just my opinion) not judging here but I use all live instruments (occasionally canned drums) and damn it’s A LOT OF WORK for a lousy $15 – $30.00 payment…I’d rather make a few good to great sales than a bunch of tiny micro payments…sure it’s great getting that email saying you’ve had a sale but then when you see the amount it’s more than a little deflating…sorry for the ramble..I’m jacked up on espresso and my first NBC placement..it’s a good day 🙂

[Musicmatters]

Congrats Jay, NBC should result in a healthy backend for you. $60 sounds about right for many RF sites but sounds low for tracks with all acoustic instruments. Sometimes, when i go through a period of low sales, i get discouraged but then patience is the name of the game here as many of us have realized. Also, i am sure that many of us have weak and strong tracks and your pricing should reflect that. In any case, the lowest price of any track should be $60. It would also depend on how long you have been doing this. In my case, i have been at this a couple of years now and my client base is still small. Ideally, I would like to see the $60 become $100 and as my sales pick up, i will be doing that.

[MichaelL]

When I practiced law, and settled cases, I looked for the “happy” number. That is dollar figure at which both sides were comfortable and satisfied with the outcome.

In the law, not all cases are created equal. Personal injury, for example, generally results in higher damages than property damage, because there can be many other factors involved, like lost wages, future treatment, and less quantifiable things like suffering.

To some degree it may be the same with music. Should a full on orchestral piece, two minutes long, recorded with 50k worth of samples, or live players cost more than a two minute drum n’ bass cue recorded with Garage Band on a laptop? What if one took a week to produce and the other just a few hours? What about the less quantifiable aspects? What if one composer has a music degree and a lot of experience/credits and another can’t even read music?

If the argument here is about getting paid properly for your labor and cost of production, then the piece that took a week and was composed by a degreed composer with experience should, in theory, be worth more than the drum n’ bass cue.

How often, in commerce, do we measure things stricly by quantity? Rarely. An ounce of gold is worth more than an ounce of silver. A pound of lobster costs more than a pound of squid.

So, I guess we need to ask, what is the criteria / standard for the “minimum” piece of music? Is drum n’ bass the floor (pun intended) and full on orchestral the upper limit?

_Michael

[Desire_Inspires]

I go with the floor being $250.

[mikevan]

I’ve been reading this thread and the one on Exclusive/NonExclusive sites and I’m wondering where are all those sites that sell tracks at 100/200$ or even more.
The libraries that let you set your own price have thousands of composers and my stuff gets lost in the multitude and I hardly get a sale while I get a steady stream of sales from sites in the 30/40$ range (sometimes more depending on the type of license).
I’ve been composing RF music for the last seven years and use a lot of live instruments and I would love to get more for a single sale but I’m happier getting lots of ‘microsales’ that eventually add up to 1 or 2K $ per track than see my tracks sit on a shelf with a high price tag…
…Or maybe I haven’t got into the right libraries yet… 🙁

[GeorgeMichael]

30 dollars has always been the lowest I’d go. 40 dollars has been my minimun this year.

[MichaelL]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY (thanks Rob)

[glen]

It’s great to see this discussion develop some momentum and discussion. I think we all need to think about what a “healthy” price is. I just do not see $40 as “healthy” especially since a company can pay $40 and turn it into a national spot for Apple or Microsoft or IBM or JP Morgan. Oh no…this would not be healthy…even if it is a “drum and bass” track. Orchestral Scoring should absolutely command a high price, as should a pop rock track that required hours of live bass and guitar tracking, drumming, mixing, vocal recording, synth programming, percussion overdubs…etc…etc…I have not heard anyone say…$40 is great!…

You know, WE CAN set the price. It is up to US to set the price. I remember clients apologizing for only having $2000 for a car commercial. I also remember everyone ALWAYS having at least $5000 for a TV spot, but often they had 10K or 15K or even 35K. Now we are talking about $40?…..I am no “old Stodgy” guy living in the past…Most composers/colleagues I talk to say “we did it to ourselves” or “Musicians did it to themselves”…well, just reverse the trend and ask for more…plain and simple…at least get the price to $100. Then from there we can all go to $200. They have the money. Don’t worry. Corporations have the money.

Corporations pay for everything. Big companies can afford $200 for a track…even medium and small companies can. They’ll take it for $40 and just laugh about it too. When I hear about guys who have their music running on TV spots from RF libraries for a $40 sale…I just feel so horrible…that’s just terrible! We need to do better! That’s my 2 cents on the subject.

[glen]

All this ranting brought me some good luck…I just made a sale for $99 guys. Honestly…3 seconds after I posted the last comment above, the email rang up $99. I hope they don’t put it on a TV spot! All my tracks are $99 in RF land…I also had another outfit sell one for $100 today too. Their minimum license is $100. I want to raise my prices again…it’s getting tempting. Join in with me…

[Michael Nickolas]

Hi all, I’ve been away for MLR for a while, been really busy with a custom song writing project outside of the library world. It’s great to see all the talk here of raising prices! I’ll all for better compensation!

[Jay]

i’m cranking my prices up 🙂
I hope to have all sites done by the weekend…

Thanks Musicmatters i’m hoping for a good payout from this one…Jay

[More advice]

$100 RF prices are working well for third month in a row. Really glad I upped the prices of all my tracks. I am making double of what I was making at $40 and $50.

[Author]

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