Voice123.com used to be a decent moneymaker for me as a voice actor. But over the past couple years, not so much. Was I not auditioning much? Were the jobs that were available all dried up now? No and no. They changed their algorithm. BOY, did they change their algorithm. It's become a convoluted mess of clients liking your auditions and how much you're spending on a membership and, frankly, it sucks now. For a while I was on their $3-500 annual subscription plan but after a while of trying to navigate their new algorithm I eventually quit my subscription outright as I was making more money on voices.com. And by 'more' I mean ANY money at all because v123 was not the ROI it used to be. So I let it sit there, my account still in the 'free' mode when all of the sudden I got a message from a client. I THINK we've worked together in the past but couldn't be certain. He asked for a quote on a project (messaged me through voice123), I gave him my quote, he accepted and I did the job and got him the audio, he got me paid. Great!....but... But to reply to him and get this job going I had to do the bare minimum $50 membership with voice123 . 'Cool,' I thought, maybe I'll get some more work on the site! Months passed and their was MAYBE 2 jobs I was invited to audition for. I stopped checking and forgot about the whole thing. Eventually I landed a decent payday with another job through a NON-voice123 avenue and decided, 'screw it. I'll do the $600 membership as there's less competition and more decent paying jobs to audition for.' Surely, I can make that $600 back in a year with v123.
Here's the reasoning and numbers they give you for each plan tier:
And here's the weekly summary email they send out:
Those budgets look pretty good, right? Well THAT'S THE POINT! I did the $600 figuring I'd get a crack at that $3600 job or the $2000 job but when I hit voice123 up for an explanation as to why I'm just getting a few $250 or $300 jobs, they said that the $4000 membership people get the first crack at the sweet jobs. Talk about pay to play! Fuuuck! Adding insult to injury, when I DO get a $1500+ job invitation it's for a fucking AI project. In that, they want to record my voice so they can use it for AI speech. Effectively, 'give us your voice so we can use it for jobs that you won't be paid for!' uh, NO! When I DO get a somewhat decent job to audition for there ($500) it's usually an 'accent' or 'this or that accent' thing. I have to decline it. In the rare instance that the stars have aligned properly for me and a project and I actually audition for it I feel a little dirty 'cause (per voice123 support) it's recommended to ask the client to 'like/thumbs up' my audition because that'll help me in their algorithm. Yuck. Why don't you just have a 'please, PLEASE, validate my existence' button? How about you just set up the algorithm to not put weight on whether or not someone remembered to 'like' something. Ugh. Look, I know I'm shitting all over voice123.com but they've earned it because what's making this even more frustrating is that even THEY don't know how their algorithm works! No, really! Just listen to this podcast where the CEO of voice123 admits that even he doesn't know how their system actually goes about getting auditions out. If you went into a car dealership and asked the salesperson what was under the hood and they replied with 'you know I don't really know. It's pretty complicated under there,' you'd push your checkbook extra deep into your pocket, turn around and walk the hell out that door, wouldn't you? Damn right you would. So why is it voice123 has to be so convoluted and mind-boggling? Why can't even their own CEO explain what's under the hood? Or at least explain it without giving away trade secrets! Dumb it down for me, Rolf! Just another reason whey you can't rely on just the P2P websites for voice work. Now, if you'll excuse me I gotta go do some marketing and...oh what's this? A job for $200 at voice123? I gotta go!
PS. I'm not the only one. Just read the comments here (Yes, I chimed in there)
