What this audiobook calculator does
Audiobook production is priced and scheduled around the finished hour — 60 minutes of fully polished, edited audio, not raw studio time. This tool starts from your manuscript word count, converts it into an estimated number of finished hours, and then turns that into the figures narrators and indie authors actually negotiate: flat per-finished-hour (PFH) pay, royalty-share earnings, total work time, and how many days the project will take to record.
How to use it
- Enter the word count. Use the manuscript's true narrated word count (skip front matter you won't read).
- Set your pace. Keep 9,300 words per finished hour as a starting estimate, or lower it for dense, technical text and raise it for fast dialogue.
- Add your deal terms. Type your PFH rate and your typical work-hours per finished hour to see real effective earnings.
- Fill the royalty scenario. Enter retail price, royalty rate, your split and an honest sales estimate to compare against the flat fee.
- Check the schedule. Your daily studio hours and per-session output give an estimated number of working days.
When and why you'd use it
Reach for it when a casting call lists only a PFH rate and you need to know the total fee before you audition; when an author offers royalty share and you want to know how many copies must sell to beat a flat deal; or when you're an indie author budgeting production and deciding whether to pay up front or split future sales. It's an in-task tool — re-run it for every new title, because pace, length and terms change each time.
Worked example
A 90,000-word novel at 9,300 words per finished hour is about 9.7 finished hours. At a $250 PFH rate that's roughly $2,420 flat. If each finished hour takes 6 hours of work, that's about 58 hours of studio time — an effective rate near $42/hour before tax and expenses. Whether royalty share beats that depends entirely on your price, split and how many copies actually sell.
Common mistakes
- Quoting studio hours, not finished hours. PFH is based on the final runtime, so a slow recording day doesn't raise your pay — pace matters.
- Ignoring edit/proof time. The headline rate looks generous until you divide by total work hours.
- Optimistic sales in royalty share. Most titles sell modestly; use a conservative copies estimate and check the break-even.
FAQ
How many words are in one finished hour of audiobook?
A common industry estimate is about 9,300 narrated words per finished hour, because the average narrator recites roughly that many words in 60 minutes of polished, edited audio. Word counts vary with pacing, dialogue and pauses, so dense non-fiction can run longer per hour and brisk fiction shorter. To estimate audiobook length, divide the manuscript word count by your words-per-finished-hour figure — for a 90,000-word book at 9,300 words per hour that is about 9.7 finished hours.
What does PFH mean in audiobook narration?
PFH stands for per finished hour, the primary way narrators and voice actors are paid in the audiobook industry. Unlike an hourly studio rate, a PFH rate is based on the final length of the completed, edited recording, regardless of how long production actually took. One finished hour is 60 minutes of polished audio, which often takes six or more hours of recording, editing and proofing. Total flat pay equals your PFH rate multiplied by the estimated finished hours.
How is audiobook royalty share calculated?
Under a royalty-share deal the narrator records for no upfront fee and instead earns a percentage of net sales royalties, often split with the author. Your share equals the royalty rate multiplied by your split percentage multiplied by units sold multiplied by the per-unit royalty amount. Because earnings depend entirely on sales, royalty share rewards books expected to sell well and is riskier for slow titles. This tool lets you enter your own split, price and sales estimate to compare it against a flat PFH deal.
How long does it take to record an audiobook?
A widely used rule of thumb is that each finished hour of audio takes roughly six hours of total work once you include recording, retakes, editing, proofing and mastering. Experienced narrators with efficient workflows may be faster, while complex texts take longer. Multiply your estimated finished hours by your own work-hours-per-finished-hour figure to budget total project time, then divide by the hours you can work per day to estimate calendar days.