Audio description
cost per video,
in plain language.

Short answer: for a typical brand video, all-in audio description cost is roughly $45 to $105 per minute with non-union voice talent — meaning $20 to $50 for a :30 spot or $300 to $700 for a 5-minute brand film. Add SAG-AFTRA union voice for broadcast use and the per-minute math can multiply 3–5×. Vicaps, Descriptive Video Works, and Bridge Multimedia do not publish rates — every quote starts with a sales call.

Audio description (AD) is a narration track that describes important visual information for blind and low-vision viewers. WCAG 2.1 criterion 1.2.5 (Level AA) requires it on prerecorded video; ADA Title III plaintiffs increasingly cite it. The pricing question is uneven across the vendor landscape because vendors are pricing very different deliverables — some sell a script, some sell a finished mixed master, and some sell a broadcast-spec tape.

What does audio description actually cost per minute in 2026?

Public-rate vendors price AD between $7.25/min (3Play Media standard tier) and $36/min (Gotham Lab all-in, NYC). 3Play's own blog cites the broader industry range as $15–$75/min, with broadcast specialists at the upper end. Voquent prices AI-generated AD from $16/min including scriptwriting; their human AD pricing is quote-only.

Three vendors (Vicaps / Video Caption Corporation, Descriptive Video Works, Bridge Multimedia) do not publish rates. Vicaps's own pricing page explicitly refuses, citing program length, deliverable spec, turnaround, project size, and content type as factors. The quote-only model is the norm at the broadcast-specialist top end of the market.

What is Vicaps, and why does the comparison matter?

Vicaps is the trading name of Video Caption Corporation, an accessibility production house based in New York and California. The website is vicaps.com (not vicapsmedia.com, which sometimes surfaces in search). Vicaps has been operating 20+ years and offers captioning, subtitling, AD, transcription, and DVD/Blu-ray authoring. AD is performed in-house with their own writers, voice talent, and audio engineers.

Why the comparison comes up frequently: Vicaps is a known name in broadcast and corporate accessibility circles, and brand video buyers comparing options frequently shortlist them alongside 3Play and DVW. Vicaps's deliverable depth runs from a timed AD script through a mixed track to a broadcast-ready tape master, DVD, or digital file — covering most use cases a brand would face. The quote-only pricing makes apples-to-apples comparison hard, which is why brand procurement asks for the comparison in the first place.

What's behind the $7/min vs $75/min spread?

Five variables. Turnaround: 3Play's pricing tiers prove this directly ($7.25 standard, $9.25 2-day, $11.25 1-day — a 55% rush surcharge). Voice talent grade: SAG-AFTRA union session plus broadcast use fees can 5–10× the VO line versus non-union talent on a buyout. Deliverable depth: a script-only deliverable runs at the low end of any vendor's range; a full mixed master with broadcast-spec QC runs at the high end.

Broadcast spec: loudness compliance (−24 LKFS per ATSC A/85), SCC sidecar caption alignment, station-deliverable mix, and channel-layout requirements (XR's stereo+AD on channels 3–4) all add production cost that a web-only AD pipeline does not have. Language coverage: AD in additional languages multiplies the work proportionally; some vendors charge a percentage premium, others a per-language session fee.

Extended AD (paused-video describer track for video where the natural dialogue gaps are too short) adds approximately $3.00/min at 3Play. Extended AD is rarely needed on brand spots; it shows up more on educational and training content where the visual density is higher.

Does Rev.com do audio description?

No. Rev acquired cielo24 (which did AD) but Rev's current service catalog is transcription and captions only. Their pricing page does not list an AD service. Legacy cielo24 customers are instructed to contact Rev for transition support, but Rev is not currently a vendor option for audio description on a new project.

This matters because Rev is the default flat-rate captioning option many brand teams compare against, and brands looking at a one-stop captions-plus-AD vendor often assume Rev covers both. They don't. The brands needing both captions and AD from one vendor have a smaller list: 3Play, Verbit, Wistia (if hosted there), and the quote-only broadcast specialists. Add Post Slate to that list for single-spot or batch agency work.

What does the SAG-AFTRA voice rate add?

SAG-AFTRA's 2025 Audio Commercials Contract (in force through March 2026, with Year 2 rates current as of May 2026) sets an off-camera principal session fee around $618.30 for a recording session, before any use fees.

Use fees compound: 4-week national cable use $1,125; 13-week national $3,075; 52-week national $10,125. Pension and health load ~20% on top. None of these are a per-minute rate — they are a per-session-plus-per-use rate that amortizes per spot length. On a 30-second spot, that math frequently exceeds $300/min just for VO.

Why most non-broadcast AD is non-union. The math only works at union rates when the spot is running on union-required pipelines (network broadcast, certain SAG-AFTRA covered streaming). For corporate video, training, internal, and most CTV, non-union AD voice talent is the standard — either through agency talent pools or through online voice-talent marketplaces (Voices.com, Voice123, Bodalgo).

Where does AI-generated AD work, and where does it fail?

Works: web video, e-learning, internal communications, training video, social-first creative where the audience is large but the production budget per asset is small. AI-generated AD on platforms like Voquent ($16/min), Speechify, ElevenLabs voice-clone, and Wistia's $1/min AI tier produces a serviceable AD track in minutes. The script writing is the part that still benefits from human review — AI voice on a human-reviewed script is the workable pattern.

Fails: broadcast handoff that requires SAG-AFTRA voice. Premium streaming masters where Netflix-style QC will reject AI voice. Brand work where the AD voice is part of the brand identity (a hero brand film's AD shouldn't be in a different voice than the spot's VO). And any project where ACB / DCMP audio-description-guidelines-driven QA is part of the procurement — current ACB guidance prefers human writers and human VO.

AI AD is the right tool for the high-volume back catalog. Human AD is still the right tool for the hero spot. — The Slate, reading vendor and ACB guidance

Three things to do before requesting AD quotes

1. Decide what deliverable you actually need. Script-only? Mixed master? Broadcast-spec with SCC alignment? The spec drives the price more than the vendor does. A brand asking for "full broadcast deliverables" from a script-only vendor will pay 3× what the vendor's published rate suggested; a brand asking for "a script" from a broadcast specialist will pay for a stack of capability they aren't using.
2. Get two quotes and confirm what is included. Vendor proposals frequently bundle script, narration, mix, and QC into a single per-minute figure; comparing two quotes requires line-item parity. Ask each vendor to itemize. The per-minute figure on the proposal cover is rarely the same comparable across vendors.
3. If broadcast is in the deliverable, confirm loudness and channel layout. XR (Extreme Reach) carries AD on channels 3–4 of the master with the stereo+AD layout; the mix has to hit −24 LKFS per ATSC A/85; the SCC has to align with the right timecode origin. Vendors quote against their default delivery spec; cross-check against the destination spec before signing the SOW.

Editor's note. Prepared by The Slate, Editorial. Published 11 May 2026. Pricing reflects vendor published rates or third-party documented rates current at time of writing. Vicaps, DVW, and Bridge Multimedia do not publish rates; ranges and "not publicly listed" entries are accurate as of writing. SAG-AFTRA rates from the 2025 Audio Commercials Contract Year 2 rate sheet. Not legal advice. Not a paid endorsement of any vendor.