
Commercial voice over
A voice that has to sell in thirty seconds: cast, directed and recorded to broadcast spec for TV, radio and online, in 100+ languages.
Professional commercial voice over services
Thirty seconds is not much time to earn attention, deliver a message and make it stick. Everything in a commercial works against the clock, and the voice carries more of that weight than any other element. Viewers forgive average visuals far more readily than they forgive a read that sounds like an ad trying too hard.
A professional Commercial Voice Over is what makes those seconds count. At GoLocalise, we cast and record voices for TV, radio, online video and social campaigns, matching the read to your brand, your audience and the media plan behind the spot.
- Voices cast for the audience you are buying media against, not just for how good the demo sounds
- Reads timed to the frame, whether the cut is six seconds for social or sixty for cinema
- Usage rights scoped and cleared for your exact channels, territories and campaign duration
- Translation and localisation in-house for campaigns running in more than one market

How our commercial voice over services work
Tight deadlines are the natural habitat of advertising, so our process is built to move quickly without skipping steps. Every spot follows the same structured workflow, coordinated by a dedicated project manager:
Brief review
Translation
Voice casting
Studio recording
Audio editing
Quality assurance
Feedback & revisions
Ready to air
One team, one project manager, one set of references — which is what makes a multi-market advertising delivery land on the air date rather than near it.
Why choose a professional commercial voice over?
Advertising is one of the few formats where the audience did not ask to hear you. A commercial interrupts something the viewer actually wanted, which means the voice has about two seconds to justify staying. Professional commercial talent earns that permission with craft: where to lean in, where to pull back, how to sell without sounding like selling.
Media spend raises the stakes well beyond the recording itself. When a campaign carries serious budget behind it, the voice over is a rounding error in the production cost but a major factor in whether the spot performs. Saving money on the read is economising on the one element every single impression contains.
Commercial work is also legally fussier than most voice over. Broadcast clearance, talent usage terms, renewal windows and territory restrictions all need managing, and getting them wrong can pull a campaign off air. We handle that layer as standard, so your media plan never collides with your talent contract.
And campaigns evolve. The thirty-second hero spot becomes a fifteen, a six, a radio cut and a year-two refresh with new offers. Booking through GoLocalise keeps the same voice available and consistent across every version, so the campaign sounds like one idea rather than a series of compromises.
Commercial formats & delivery
Everything cut to time and cleared for use — across TV, radio, online and social.
- Durations
- 6″, 15″, 30″ and 60″ cutdowns from one session.
- Audio formats
- Broadcast WAV or MP3 to your platform's spec.
- Usage & licensing
- Priced by media, territory and term — and cleared for use.
- Versions
- TV, radio, online and social versions kept voice-consistent.
- Turnaround
- Most commercials delivered within 24–48 hours.
- Languages
- Native reads for every market, 100+ languages.
How to choose the right commercial voice over
Start from the media plan, not the voice. A spot built for TV prime time, a pre-roll skippable after five seconds and a radio ad live in drive time each reward different reads, and a voice brilliant in one can disappear in another.
Then be precise about the read. Urgency, warmth and dry understatement are three separate crafts and few actors are equally good at all of them — which a showreel will never tell you, because a showreel is edited to hide it. Put your own script in front of the shortlist and the gaps appear within a line or two.
Finally, settle the usage conversation before recording, not after. Channels, territories and campaign duration shape both the price and the contract, and renegotiating them mid-campaign always costs more than scoping them properly at the start.
When we cast commercial work at GoLocalise, these are the four areas we recommend resolving first
Read style: hard sell, conversational or storytelling
Fit with your target audience
Experience across TV, radio and digital formats
Usage rights and campaign scope
Commercial voice over pricing & project options
Commercial voice over pricing has its own logic: the recording session is only part of the cost, and usage usually matters more. A spot airing nationally on TV for a year is priced differently from the same script running two weeks on social, even when the studio time is identical. That is why we quote per campaign rather than per package. The tiers below are reference points showing how commercial projects of different scopes typically come together:

Bronze
For a single-market spot with a final script, recorded by the right professional voice. Includes:
- Professional commercial voice over recording
- Audio editing and clean-up
- Delivery in the format your channel requires

Silver
For campaigns entering a new market, with the script adapted before recording. Includes:
- Script translation and localisation by native linguists
- Professional commercial voice over recording
- Audio editing and clean-up
- Delivery reviewed against your target market

Gold
For campaigns publishing across platforms with accessibility covered. Includes:
- Script translation and localisation
- Professional commercial voice over recording
- Audio editing and clean-up
- Subtitles supplied in SRT format
Custom projects
Eight markets going live on different dates, a hero film that becomes four cutdowns, end-tags that change every quarter, and a usage licence someone in legal has to sign off. That is what a commercial brief actually looks like, and it is why a rate card is useless here. Send us the plan and we will price the whole shape of it.
Get a tailored quote for your projectCommercial voice over for multilingual and global campaigns
A global campaign lives or dies on a strange balancing act: the big idea must stay recognisable everywhere while sounding native everywhere. Ship the original voice with subtitles and you lose impact; recast carelessly market by market and you lose the campaign.
GoLocalise manages that balance from the centre. One brief and one project manager cover every market version, with casting, direction and delivery held to the same standard from the lead market to the smallest buy.
Carefully selected voice talent for each market
Persuasion does not travel well. A joke that works in one market falls flat in the next, and the level of enthusiasm that reads as warm in the United States can read as pushy in northern Europe.
For each language in the campaign, we shortlist native commercial talent who match the brief and the local audience, and you sign off every voice before the sessions begin.
The result is a campaign that feels locally made in every market it runs.

One campaign sound across languages
No viewer ever compares the German cut with the Brazilian one. The brand team does, in a review session, and that is where inconsistency gets discovered — usually too late to fix cheaply.
Each market is directed against the approved lead film rather than against the script alone, so attitude and energy carry across.
Line up all the versions afterwards and they sound like one campaign. That is the test, and it is the one we produce for.

Centralised production and quality control
Multi-market campaigns multiply deadlines, file specs and approval rounds. Spread across local suppliers, they multiply risks too. We keep the whole programme inside one workflow instead.
Every version passes linguistic and technical QA, including timing against the picture, before it is delivered.
You receive air-ready files for every market, cleared, consistent and on the agreed schedule.

Trusted to deliver by the world's top brands
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What our happy customers say
Plan your commercial voice over
Useful guides and tools for pricing, scripting and licensing your commercial.
Voice over rates & usage
How commercial voice over is priced — session fees versus usage licensing.
View ratesUsage fees & buyouts explained
What broadcast, online and cinema usage actually costs, and how buyouts work.
Read the guideCommercial script samples
Real ad scripts across sectors to shape and time your own spot.
See examplesUsage-fee calculator
Estimate broadcast and media usage for your campaign and territories.
Estimate usageLanguages
Commercial voice over in your language
Take your ad global with native voices your audience trusts. A few of our most-requested languages are below — we record in 100+.
- Afrikaans
- Albanian
- Amharic
- Arabic
- Armenian
- Assamese
- Awadhi
- Azerbaijani (Azeri)
- Basque
- Belarusian
- Bengali
- Bhojpuri
- Bosnian
- Bulgarian
- Burmese
- Catalan
- Cebuano
- Chinese Cantonese
- Chinese Mandarin
- Chinese Mandarin Taiwan
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dari Persian
- Dutch
- Dzongkha (Bhutanese)
- English Africa
- English Australia
- English Ireland
- English New Zealand
- English South Africa
- English UK
- English US
- Estonian
- Filipino
- Finnish
- Flemish
- French
- French African
- French Belgium
- French Canadian
- French Swiss
- Gaelic Scottish
- Galician
- Georgian
- German
- German Austria
- German Swiss
- Greek
- Greek Cyprus
- Gujarati
- Haitian Creole
- Hausa
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hmong
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Igbo
- Indonesian
- Irish (Gaeilge)
- Italian
- Jamaican Patois
- Japanese
- Kannada
- Kazakh
- Khmer
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lingala
- Lithuanian
- Luganda
- Macedonian
- Malagasy
- Malay
- Malayalam
- Maltese
- Marathi
- Nepali
- Norwegian
- Odia (Oriya)
- Pashto
- Persian (Farsi)
- Polish
- Portuguese Brazilian
- Portuguese European
- Punjabi
- Romanian
- Russian
- Samoan
- Serbian
- Sesotho
- Setswana
- Sinhala
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Somali
- Spanish European
- Spanish Latin American
- Swahili
- Swedish
- Tamil
- Telugu
- Tetun Dili
- Thai
- Turkish
- Turkmen
- Ukrainian
- Urdu
- Uzbek
- Vietnamese
- Welsh
- Xhosa
- Yoruba
- Zulu
We record in over 100 languages
Can't see the one you need? We almost certainly cover it.
FAQs
What is a commercial voice over?
It is the recorded voice in an advertisement, from TV and radio spots to online video and social ads. The job combines performance with precision: selling the message convincingly inside an exact number of seconds.
How much does a commercial voice over cost?
Usage drives the price as much as the recording: channels, territories and campaign duration all count. A national TV buy and a two-week social run are priced very differently. Send us the media plan and script and we will quote precisely.
What read style works best for a commercial?
It depends on the creative and the channel. Hard sell still works for retail and radio, while digital audiences tend to respond to conversational, less polished reads. We help you match style to strategy during casting.
Can you record commercial voice overs in multiple languages?
Yes. Multilingual campaigns are a core part of our work, with native commercial talent for each market, in-house localisation and central management keeping every version on brand.
How do I get started with a commercial voice over?
Send the script, the cut if you have one, and the media plan basics: channels, markets and flight dates. We come back with casting options and a quote. Most spots are recorded within days of sign-off.
What's included in a commercial voice over from GoLocalise?
Your commercial voice over includes voice casting, native-speaking direction, recording in our own Central-London studios, editing and clean-up, and delivery in the formats you need — all managed by a dedicated project manager from brief to final file.
What can I use a commercial voice over for?
We produce commercial voice over for TV and radio commercials, online and social ads, cinema and in-store spots — all delivered to broadcast quality and ready to publish.
Why choose GoLocalise for commercial voice over?
GoLocalise has been a trusted voice over and localisation agency since 2008, with more than 1,000 professional voice actors across 100+ languages, native-speaking directors, our own Central-London studios and a Price Match Promise — so you get broadcast-quality results, on time and on budget.
Can I see samples before I commit to a commercial voice over?
Yes. Ask us for relevant samples and, for any commercial voice over, we will walk you through our approach and share examples so you know exactly what to expect before you book.
What file formats do you deliver a commercial voice over in?
We deliver your commercial voice over in whatever format you need — WAV, MP3, AIFF and more — at broadcast specifications, as separate files or a single mix, ready to use.
How do usage and buyout fees work for a commercial?
A commercial voice over is priced in two parts: the session fee for the recording, and a usage licence for where and how long the ad runs — TV, radio, online, cinema, by territory and term. A buyout can cover defined rights in a single payment where that suits the campaign. We quote both lines separately and itemised, so you only pay for the reach you actually use, and our usage-fee calculator lets you model it before you brief us.
Can you keep the same voice consistent across a whole campaign?
Yes. For multi-execution campaigns we hold your chosen voice and match tone, pace and energy across every spot and any later additions, so the brand sounds continuous. We keep talent availability and session notes on file so pickups weeks or months later still match the original read.
How quickly can you turn around a broadcast commercial?
Most single-language commercials are recorded and delivered within 24 to 48 hours of sign-off, and we can fast-track urgent broadcast deadlines when a slot is booked. Tell us your air date and we will build the schedule around it, including any usage clearance you need in place first.
Do you handle the music and final mix, or just the voice?
Either. We can deliver a clean, broadcast-spec voice track for your editor, or take care of the full mix — voice, music and sound design — so the spot arrives finished and ready to air. Tell us what you need and we will scope it into the quote.
The complete solution to localise your content
Voice over
- State-of-the-art studios
- Neumann microphones
- On-hand sound engineers
- 1,000+ voice actors
Translation
- 100+ languages covered
- Tailored to your needs
- Stringent quality control
- Dedicated project managers
Subtitling
- Experienced subtitlers
- Industry-standard software
- Burn-in and graphic editing
- Open and closed captions
Transcription
- Improve accessibility
- Reach a wider audience
- Boost SEO and video views
- Maximise video engagement
What it costs
What moves a commercial voice over quote
There's no honest one-size figure — a quote is built from a few things. Here's what moves it.
Usage licence
Media, territory and term — the licence that lets you run the ad, and the biggest factor in the fee.
Voice & edits
The voice you cast, plus cutdowns and alternate lines for the campaign.
Versions & edits
Cutdowns, radio and TV versions and alternate lines from the same session.














