You’ve had a fantastic time with your first couple of guests and the time has come for publishing. Still, something bothers you in terms of quality when you compare your output audio with what’s already published online. It’s because there is a tedious but important step missing in your process: editing. The time has come for you to get in touch with a podcast editor.
Podcast editing is broadly the process of cleaning and enhancing your audio to make it sound professional. Simply put, it includes getting rid of any unwanted parts to condense content into a cohesive narrative, improve audio quality, and add supplementary materials like intros and outros.
The rise of podcasts as a contemporary source of content was accompanied by a growing community of podcast editors. These podcast editors range from professional audio editing companies to passionate rogue freelancers.
In this article, we want to share with you the available freelance services you can find for your editing needs, and cover the importance of finding a perfect fit for your podcast in this ever-growing market.
Let’s dive in.
WHY DO I NEED A PODCAST EDITOR?
It’s important to know how time-consuming and technical podcast editing can be. As the podcasting audience is growing by the day, quality expectations in terms of audio content are too. Your fans will need a listenable podcast with no annoying distractions. You can always pick up a DAW and learn how to do it yourself, but don’t expect your first couple of tries to sound as good as if you hired a professional.
HOW MUCH DOES A PODCAST EDITOR COST?
You can either pay your editor hourly or with an overall fixed price. There are two main components to podcast editing you should consider when paying a freelancer:
Fixed stems of work: Listening to your podcast, editing it, and relistening to validate. This component constitutes the bulk of the price.
Variable stems of work: The quality of enhancement needed for your audio will vary from one episode to the other. This is what can make the price fluctuate.
The fixed workflow is usually the same price everywhere and varies between 30$ to 50$ per hour of audio. Then the price might go up depending on what you give your editor to work on. If your audio is pretty much impeccable, then you won’t need them to apply heavy improvements. The opposite is also true.
If your audio needs a great deal of audio enhancement, it might become expensive to hire a podcast editor. This is why you should also consider re-recording if it’s not salvageable. Otherwise, you might have to pay between 100$-200$ to compensate for the massive effort your editor provides.
Generally, the fixed price contracts will cost the hourly rate applied to how many hours will be needed to provide the full service. If you’re looking for an independent producer, however, add to that the hours needed to manage the whole production of your podcast from guest list drafting to publishing.
BEST SITES FOR INDEPENDENT PODCAST EDITORS/PRODUCERS
Every freelance website you’ll find will present you with three main choices:
New sellers: This can be either an experienced podcaster just starting online or simply a beginner with skills to hone. In both cases, the advantage is a low price of 15$ – 20$ per hour of audio.
Mid-level sellers: These are freelancers you would typically find on every freelance website. They have the reviews to back up their modest expertise, but not enough to be considered professional. Their justifiable prices stay between 30$ – 50$ per hour of audio.
Top-tiersellers: There are professionals that have the ultimate expertise, 5-star reviews on every job accomplished, and 100% client satisfaction. When you hire a top-tier freelancer you pay around 50$ – 200$ per hour of audio, and you have every right to expect a flawless edit of your podcast.
That being covered, here is a list of websites where we think you can get the best freelancers for podcast editing:
UPWORK
Upwork is now considered to be the largest marketplace worldwide for freelance work with a 494 million revenue in 2021, and a stunning transaction volume of 3.5 billion dollars.
The price for a podcast editor on Upwork ranges from 10$ to 90$ an hour worked. You can easily negotiate a fixed price per project if that is more convenient for you.
Pros:
Most popular freelance platform
Intuitive interface
Huge range of skills (amateur to highly skilled professional)
Lower prices
Payment Protection (Upwork will protect you if your freelancer does not meet the expectations agreed upon)
Time tracker for hourly contracts
Free job posting
Good for long-term services
Hourly and Fixed price negotiations
Cons:
Scammers (every famous platform attracts them)
Pay-to-apply model ( for freelancers)
Non-vetted freelancers.
Customer support (a large number of transactions not met with fast-response customer service).
FIVERR
Fiverr is also a large freelance marketplace, but even cheaper than its competitor. Its range of skills is even bigger than Upwork, as you can easily find people that are willing to do simple tasks like data entry for 5$. However, don’t expect any quality work for that price.
You can find podcast editors on Fiverr charging between 5$ – 100$ per hour worked.
Pros:
Low prices (sometimes VERY low)
Fast work delivery
Easy to set up and use
Buyer protection
All level sellers
Job sample viewing
No subscription required
Good for package services
Cons:
Low-quality work ( The lower the price, the lower the quality)
Slow refund policy
Fake reviews ( Some freelancers make up their own reviews)
FREELANCER.COM
Freelancer.com started as a management system for hiring IT professionals from Freelancer Technology headquartered in Australia. It now encompasses a larger portfolio of expertise and offers a more inclusive platform to catch up with the competition.
A podcast editor on this platform will cost you between 15$-100$ per hour worked.
Pros:
Easy to use
Time tracker for hourly contracts
Customer service
Specialized recruiter consulting (for a fee)
Secure Payment
Project tracker and feedback
Cons:
Subscription-based
Web-based platform
Low-quality service
High fees for freelancers ( pushes them to refuse small projects)
Scammers
GURU.COM
Guru.com has been in the freelancing business since 1998, making it a platform rich with experience and expertise. They value trust and accountability and prioritize client satisfaction over everything else.
You can hire a podcast editor on guru.com for a price ranging from 5$ – 60$.
Pros:
Fair fees for clients
Multiple payment methods
Project management functionalities
Good filtering and segmentation of fields of expertise
An add-on app for Slack and a Chrome extension
Cons:
Scammers
Customer service
Poor interface
IS A FREELANCE PODCAST EDITOR THE BEST CHOICE?
There are many other freelance websites where you can get your podcast edited or produced for pretty much the same price range. As you might have noticed by now, there are some major risks to hiring a freelancer. You really need to make sure that the price you’re going for is worth the risk, and consider that with low prices comes low quality. In most cases at least.
Hiring a freelancer can help your budget but in most cases won’t free your mind. As you’re hiring someone who is not obligated to you by any legal means, you need constant monitoring and supervision to make sure that everything is going smoothly. This is mainly the biggest issue with freelancers.
If that is something you’re not ready to do, then head for a professional podcast agency with a reputation at stake. Obviously, you’ll have to significantly pay more, but keep in mind that with a professional team comes not only expert editing but also consulting, unlimited revisions, and all-inclusive audio production services with quality control. Furthermore, once you buy a package with a company you don’t have to worry about the variable stem of work we covered above. You pay the same price no matter the state of your audio.
If you ask for these extras from freelancers they would have to charge you more, which amounts to pretty much the same prices a company charges. You might as well go with an entity that organizes itself for optimal client satisfaction and long-term partnerships if you want a worry-free podcast editor.
At Saw and Sine, we offer just that. Check out what we can do for you here, and use the chat feature to reach out.
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