13130: Brand New IVR Rates From SAG-AFTRA

Hey there, hero!

After a bit of back and forth, SAG-AFTRA has successfully negotiated a new payment format for IVR work for actors and voice talent.

And I am so happy they did – it reflects higher compensation for the hard work that talent does in the category of IVR, and the nature of IVR recording and usage.

What’s IVR? What are the new rates? Watch/listen to this podcast episode for all the lovely details.


Responses

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  1. David. Thanks for all that you do. You put so much valuable information out for people to use, if they so chose, quite a bit of which is out of the kindness of your heart, i.e. free of charge.

    I have an example. In some email exchange we had a couple of years ago, you were kind enough to provide me with the necessary java script to make my actor website easier for visitors to use and interact with. Well, I took the advice and worked with it until I got it all right and it improved my website by 1000%. I don’t think I ever thanked you for this, so thank you Sir.

    Kindest regards.

  2. Wonderful info.
    I never got an audition for a job like this through my agents. Do you have any advice about how to get work for IVR?
    Thanks a lot for your generosity and your great work on improving the rates payment conditions.

  3. Good gravy! It’s hard to imagine someone who spent so much time on the phone with a company that they actually recognized the voice of the IVR in the wild. Great story. (And good news, too!)

  4. Great news! Two questions – will this rate increase drive clients to pursue non-union talent? I’m hoping not! And will clients increase the length of prompts? I usually see a prompt to be anywhere between one word and a paragraph. Is there a union definition of prompt? Sorry, so many questions!

    1. I doubt it, as most jobs will actually cost clients less money, but will protect voice talent from being paid less than they are worth for really big jobs, as noted in the podcast. And I don’t care how long the prompts are – there are far more short prompts than long narrative prompts, so it always has worked out for me, over 4 decades, in my favor. If it becomes a problem, we’ll address it.

  5. Hi David,
    I’m so happy to hear about these rates for IVR work. Excellent! I just listened to this podcast because anything with IVR piques my interest due to the fact that I used to work for Verizon in IVR Reporting. I had nothing to do with the prompts, it was about analyzing and reporting on what choices the customers were making within the IVR (and transfers out to a customer service agent). I always wanted to get involved in the voice part of IVR, but that was not an option. Anyway, I am so excited to learn about VO IVR work!!