How Much Does Professional Audiobook Recording Cost?

If you're pricing out your first audiobook, the honest answer is: it depends — but not in a vague way. A handful of concrete factors drive the cost, and once you know them, you can estimate a reasonable range before you ever request a quote.

Manuscript length is the biggest factor

Audiobook pricing is almost always anchored to finished runtime, which maps fairly predictably to word count. As a rough industry rule of thumb, a narrator reads around 9,000–9,500 words per finished hour at a normal pace. A 70,000-word novel typically lands around 7–8 finished hours; a 100,000-word book closer to 10–11. Studio time, editing time, and file delivery all scale with that runtime, so it's the single biggest lever in any quote.

Who is doing the narrating

This affects both cost and workflow more than most authors expect. Author-narrated books usually involve more retakes and more coaching time per page, since most authors haven't performed a manuscript aloud for hours at a stretch before. A professional narrator you've already cast or hired tends to move faster through the same material.

One thing worth being direct about: Hi-Tunes Audiobooks provides the studio, the engineering, and the production — we don't supply or cast narrators. If you need one, you'll bring your own or hire one separately before booking studio time.

Recording only, or full production

A quote for recording and a quote for recording plus post-production cover different scopes. Recording-only covers studio time and engineering during the session. Full production adds editing (removing mistakes, breath noise, mouth clicks), mixing, mastering and final file preparation according to the agreed project scope. Client-supplied specifications are reviewed before work is accepted. Most authors and publishers want the second one — it's worth confirming which you're being quoted.

Remote producer or director participation

If a publisher’s producer or director needs to participate, discuss the requested workflow and confirm technical arrangements with the team before scheduling sessions.

What to have ready before you request a quote

• An approximate word count or page count for the manuscript
• Whether you're narrating it yourself or bringing a cast narrator
• Whether you need recording only, or recording plus full post-production
• Any hard deadlines (a release date, a distribution requirement)

With those four things, most studios — including ours — can put together an accurate, scoped quote rather than a generic price range.