Producers: Charge a Session Fee

Producers on the come up have hard choices to make. They need to spend time in the studio to get paid, but all that time is just a waste if you only get paid if the song is placed in which case the producer would receive an advance after signing the production agreement which will often be months after you’ve spent time in the studio. Too many up-and-coming producers don’t get paid for their time in sessions so one of the first pieces of advice that I give a producer is to break up payments your payments like this.

You need to charge a session fee.

Without knowing the specific details of where you are in your career I can’t tell you how much it should be, but it needs to be something. In general, I’ve seen local producers charge as low as $50/hour and $150 per 4-hour session block to record and mix local artists.

This is why it’s important to have a close relationship with the studios in your city because if you serve as the liaison to the studio you can include that in the studio hourly hour session fee and increase your rate.

To sell them on the session fee you tell them that if the song is placed the session fee can be subtracted from the producer advance.

For example, a local artist or label hires you for a 4-hour block at $150 per hour and your normal producer advance is $1000. When the contract comes over the total advance should be only $850.

This is a good business model because when you start doing business with major labels you can negotiate your session fee to be non-recoupable so instead of recouping $1000 you only recoup $850 which decreases the time for you to receive your producer royalty which should be retroactively paid from the first record sold.

This is how most major producers structure their payments.

Those rumors of super producers charging $100k per beat aren’t usually $100k advances for just one song either.
When an artist signs a deal they’ll be advanced a recording fund. From that recording fund, the producer will be allocated $100k. The producer will be responsible for managing that $100k over the length of the sessions.

Any reasonable production costs will come from the $100k that is managed by the producer including studio rental, equipment rental, live instrumentalists, food, etc.

This puts the responsibility of managing the production costs on the producer so the producer balances minimizing production costs, pocketing more of the budget, and ensuring that they spend the money necessary to ensure that the label gets the best work from the artist which often means spending part of the budget getting the artist into the “creative mood” whatever that may need.

These costs are subtracted from $100k and the producer or production company pockets whatever is left over.

Up-and-coming and established producers need to charge a session fee so that they are paid for their time in the studio, as well as get their advance and royalties to ensure that they are fully compensated for their services.