The MEAA Voiceover Rate Card v9 took effect 1 July 2025 and it is the document every Australian TVC producer quotes against when a voice booking is in play. It replaces a lot of the older "one rate, one buy" thinking with three parallel branches, a published territory ladder, platform bundles that actually cap out, and a mandatory submission fee. This is the plain-English walkthrough — what the card says, how the cells stack, and where the AI Rider 2024 bolts on.
The three branches
The rate card splits into three independent branches. A brief can pull cells from one, two or all three, and each branch has its own length brackets, platform logic and multiplier rules.
- Visual. Television, online video, platform bundles, DOOH (digital out-of-home) and cinema. This is the busy branch — most TVC briefs live here.
- Audio. Radio and audio streaming. Lower headline cell than Visual but the same ladder logic on top.
- VO Subs. Voiceover submissions — i.e. the fee paid to a performer to record and submit an audition or guide track. Flat figure, no multipliers.
Every cell in Visual and Audio is published as a hard-dollar base for a specified length and usage window. You then stack the territory multiplier on top. Mix branches freely — a TV plus radio plus online-video buy is three cells added together, not one compound cell.
Length brackets
The card publishes two primary length brackets for most Visual and Audio cells: 15/30s and 60s+. A 15-second spot is paid at the 15/30s cell. A 45-second cut-down is paid at the 60s+ cell. There is no pro-rata halfway. Producers cutting multiple edits from a master session should budget on the longest length actually delivered, not the average.
Platform bundles
Platform bundles are the defining feature of v9. Rather than pay a separate cell for every channel, you buy a bundle and the card gives you a capped, predictable figure.
- Single platform — standalone cell at 100% of the published base.
- Two-platform bundle — 15/30s 12-month sits at $1,375.
- Three-platform bundle — caps at 155% of the base cell. Extra platforms beyond three do not keep scaling linearly.
Two-platform voiceover bundle, 15/30s, 12-month usage: $1,375 (MEAA Voiceover Rate Card 1 July 2025 v9).
VO Subs — the $220 flat fee
Section 11 of the rate card introduces the submission fee. $220 flat, paid to the performer for recording and submitting an audition or guide track, regardless of whether the performer is ultimately cast. This is the line item producers most often miss in the first-draft budget. It applies per submission, per performer, and it is not a deposit against the eventual booking fee — it sits on top.
VO Subs submission fee: $220 flat (MEAA Voiceover Rate Card 1 July 2025 v9, section 11).
The territory ladder
Every Visual and Audio cell is published at a base territory. To license beyond that, MEAA publishes a fixed six-step multiplier ladder:
- Metro — base.
- Regional — step up from Metro.
- National — Australia-wide.
- Oceania — Australia + New Zealand + Pacific.
- Asia Pacific — adds the APAC region.
- Global — caps at 6× the base cell.
The multiplier applies to the hard-dollar base of the cell. A Global buy is not re-quoted from scratch — it is 6× the published figure for that length, branch and usage window. This is the single most useful mechanical lever the card gives producers: once you have the base, every territory becomes arithmetic.
Rollover multipliers
Usage windows are 12 months by default. When a campaign extends past its original window, the rate card publishes rollover multipliers rather than forcing a new full buy. Rollover applies to the same cell that originally covered the spot, with the multiplier applied to the base figure for each additional window. If the client wants to renew a two-platform TV+online buy for a second year, you roll the $1,375 cell — you do not re-run the whole calculation.
The AI Rider 2024
If the brief involves synthetic voice, voice cloning, AI-assisted manipulation beyond standard post, or a generative voice model trained on the talent, the MEAA Voiceover Standard Contract + AI Rider 2024 applies on top of the rate card. The rider is a consent and licensing framework — it does not replace the base fee. Full detail on when it fires and how it interacts with base cells sits in the AI Rider 2024 guide.
Super and agency commission
Every figure in the rate card is a performer gross. On top of that, the Super Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 requires employer super at 12% for FY25–26. Agency commission sits above the super line — typically 10% on a performer's own agency, or 20%+GST for a non-represented booking routed through a casting house. None of these come out of the talent's gross.
Want to price a live brief against these cells? Route through the voiceover calculator, or if you need a worked-example tour of the actual dollar figures, how much a voiceover costs in Australia walks each producer scenario end-to-end.