Aaron Marcus, an actor and commercial model, breaks down pay rates: NYC commercial models earn up to $250 per hour, while union TV commercial sessions start around $600. National spots can pay six figures, but most actors supplement with other income.
Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, America's premier acting and commercial modeling career coach, the founder of HowToModel.com, the author of How to Become a Successful Commercial Model, now in its 5th edition, and I've been making my living as an actor and a commercial model for over 26 years. Quite often people have asked me, how much can you really make as an actor or a commercial model? And it's always a very difficult answer to give. It's kind of like if someone asked me, well, if I want to open up a garage and become a mechanic, well, how much money can I make? Well, there are a lot of factors involved and people make various amounts of money depending on a whole lot of different things. So let me at least try to break some things down for you to give you a general idea of what kind of money you could earn. But just as an overall statement, One of the things that I also always mention to people in my workshops is that don't be looking into venturing into the acting or commercial modeling industry based on money. There are many other ways that you can earn a living, and quite often a much easier way than in the acting and modeling industry. But if this is something you really love to do, you want to look into it further, then absolutely. Absolutely. Check it out. And so let me give you some of the numbers. So if you are interested in commercial modeling, which is modeling for sometimes beautiful but also regular-looking people, it will depend on where you live as far as how much you can actually earn. In New York City, and that's where commercial models will get paid more than in any other city in the world, you can earn up to $250 an hour. Now, the standard going rate is $250 an hour. It doesn't mean that you are always going to get that for every job that you are booked for. I can tell you there are times where the agent will contact me and say, look, the client can only pay $175 an hour. They can only pay $200 an hour. Look, they want to pay you a flat fee of $900 for the day. Everything is negotiable. There is no union involved with commercial modeling. So it is There's no way of knowing how much you're going to get, but I can tell you the going rate is $250 an hour. Now, in other markets, it will vary. You might be getting paid $50 an hour. It could be $75. In some of the larger but still secondary markets, you can be looking at anywhere between $100 and $150 an hour as a commercial model. And also, don't forget— and this is something that I discuss in both my book, How to Become a Successful Commercial Model, and also in my workshops— there's something called a high exposure format. Those are commercial modeling jobs that end up on billboards, posters, on the side of a bus, on the internet, on a package. Typically you're going to get a bonus. You're going to get a separate fee on top of your hourly or day rate. So you can earn more money when you are in a high exposure format. Now in the acting world, it, it changes quite a bit as well. It will depend partially on, are you a member of a union? Are you a member of SAG-AFTRA, which is a— it's the actors union. There's also Equity, that's strictly for theater. So I'm just going to stick with SAG-AFTRA, which every union member you will find will earn more money per job as a union member as opposed to non-union. Every feature film you see, all those principal actors are union members. Television shows, for the most part, aside from reality shows, these are all going to be union members. Now, the majority of the work for actors, unfortunately for me as a union member, is non-union. In most cities, you'll find just a tremendous amount of non-union work. For doing non-union work, you really have no idea how much you're going to earn because you could do a television commercial and they could offer you $50, or they They might say it's a national TV commercial and they might pay you $1,000 or $1,500 for the commercial. Everything— it's up to the agent to negotiate, and you never know how much you're going to get until the client talks with the agent and they work things out. Now, the same thing holds true if you're doing extra work and you are a non-union actor. You can be paid anywhere from $50 for the day, maybe $75 for the day. I mean, I have heard I've heard of non-union actors getting paid more than that. It does happen. It's not the norm, but certainly it will happen, especially if you have very long hours. Now, if you are a member of SAG-AFTRA, you will at least know a minimum of how much you're going to be getting paid. So if you do a TV commercial, it's almost $600 for just the session fee, and then you get paid more money depending on where the TV commercial is airing. Is it airing in New York, LA, or Chicago? Chicago, which are the 3 largest markets in the US, or is it running in smaller markets? And you will get paid more money. They do it per unit, and every city has a certain amount of units attached to it. So the larger the city, the more money you're going to earn. You never know with TV commercials. I know people who've made a quarter of a million dollars from one television spot. They were very fortunate. They're also very talented. But those are commercials that were national spots. They've also run for very, very long time periods. But you never know. If it's a local TV commercial, maybe you'll make $900, $800, $1,000, something like that. If you're doing a film, you're looking in the $800 range for the day, or a television series if you're working on it for one day. But once again, you really have no idea how much you're really going to be able to earn as an actor or a model. So I guess the key thing to keep in mind is, and I said this earlier, most people that I know who do this work don't do it like I do. They have other sources of income. They aren't working full-time as an actor or model. They might have another job. They might be a full-time student. And they periodically will take time off, rearrange their schedule, change a shift, you know, with somebody else and be able to do the job. So, you know, the fact of the matter is there is no way of knowing how much you're going to earn. Part of it depends on how hard you have worked at being very skilled, how much time you've put into learning how to market yourself, how well you have done your research and found a really great agent to help promote you and submit you for jobs. So a lot of the money that you earn really is going to be based on you and how hard you are willing and want to work in the industry. But— and I will say this probably, you know, 20,000 more times— I would not recommend going into the acting or modeling industry if money is the only factor. You've got to be passionate about it. You've got to love what you're doing. And not to say that you might not have days that are like with any other business, there are rough days. But just do everything you can to help prepare yourself. Be as skilled as you possibly can. And that will give you your best chance of getting paid work. So I hope this was helpful to you. My name is Aaron Marcus. If you have any questions at all, always feel free to email me at aaron@howtomodel.com. And please join my Facebook group. It's facebook.com/howtomodel. It's a great page of many, many industry professionals sharing information. If you have any questions, you can always ask them there, and I and/or other people will answer them for you. Anyhow, look forward to talking with you soon. I'm Aaron Marcus.
