V.O.F.A.Q. - 6 How much work do you (I) get from platforms?

Are platforms or pay to play sites really worth it? Well... some people are making money there, I chose a different path... like usual. Hey, might work for you though.

When I decided to get serious about all this, I made lists of platforms and meticulously tracked every metric, read a metric ton of material on best practices for getting my auditions heard yada, yada, yada. I think I still am on about 20-25 of them, but as far as platforms that give you the option to pay for a premium or pro account, I bought the membership to Mandy.com. When I started, I got some crappy gigs from Upwork and dutifully auditioned every day for any job that was remotely in what I thought my wheelhouse was for V123, VDC (voices.com), Freelancer, etc., or at least the ones I had access to with a free account. In the end, I scoured the FB groups and that changed my life, lol. Nowadays, I get some work from some international "platforms" but they aren't pay to play and many of them have a barrier to entry based on whether or not they need a voice like yours and if your quality is good enough for them to shop you. I don’t consider them platforms, but I get 10-15 jobs a month from a handful of them from East Asia, Middle East, the Baltic, and the EU.

The Reality of Voice Over Work

I’m probably the wrong guy to ask about platforms because, like other things, I’m pretty cynical about them. I read about people who are literally spending 4 hours a day doing nothing but throwing dozens of totally, super high-quality auditions at anything that looks their direction and keeping track of it all like "my hit rate is 1/120, that’s better than when I started! Yay" or "I made the first search page for a three-minute corporate video on Fiverr! Woooo." Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got friends and know people that get at least half of whatever they make from VDC or Fiverr (usually a combo of several platforms) but they are spending crazy time tracking, auditioning, following up, and I guess when they aren’t doing that they are "marketing"… somehow.

A Turning Point

That’s how I got on the trajectory I’m on. The first guy that offered me three 5-minute videos a week for like $5 each, I took. That’s 60 bucks a month and 60 more than I was making pretending to be a VO. I decided I like getting paid to practice and work on my sound and workflow instead of pretending that I know what I’m doing. Then I took another YouTube channel and answered a call on a FB group from a Chinese guy… that’s when my life took a big turn.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Voice Over Sites

Anyway, in my completely non-qualified opinion, I think most of the pay-to-play sites have had their day and most of them are toying with AI, and the client base is way different than it was even 4 years ago. I don’t think more than a couple of them offer any value to the VO at all… and if you are just starting out, you wouldn’t qualify for the ones that do. If you just want practice and good feedback, check out castingcallclub.com (or something like that, you’ll find it).