I’ve been doing freestyle designs for friends and for fundraisers for a while. I’m now asked more frequently for them and asked how much I charge. Looking at the web, I’m seeing that lower levels freestyles run about $600. What prices are you familiar with? Thx!
$500 - 600 sounds about right for someone new to the field, includes choreography and music editing.
A top music editor would charge about $3000 (and way more than that, if you want custom musical arrangements compositions).
I know a very well-respected woman who charges in the $500-750 range. I imagine it is a bit more for FEI. According to her she doesn’t want to increase her prices to the point that people feel stuck with the same freestyle indefinitely because it is such a large investment .
People like Karen Robinson, Cynthia Collins, etc are in the $500 - 800 price range. If you are not very familiar with them, you might want to go to one of their clinics and see how your expertise compares before considering charging that kind of price yourself.
With these pros, you aren’t just paying for the technical editing. They have many thousands of tunes at their finger tips that they know and have notes about, and have an excellent eye for which will enhance a certain horses gaits, can talk to a rider about what genre and feel they want with their music, and then give several choices within that, etc.
They also have better knowledge/judgement than many judges I know about how to put a freestyle together to best enhance your horses strengths, can watch a horse at any level and make comments about the horses strengths and weaknesses, where to best place certain movements, etc.
Even though these people have been doing this for years, they consider it a full time job and spend hours each week listening to new music, cataloging it into their repertoire, keeping current on what the pros are using and what is popular vs over used etc.
I don't know whether you are in that league or not. However, if you are not, I think there is still a market for someone who knows the rules, can do a good job of editing, has a decent eye and above average knowledge of a few common musical genres -- for a lesser price (probably about half of the above rates).People like Karen Robinson, Cynthia Collins, etc are in the $500 - 800 price range.
With these pros, you aren’t just paying for the technical editing. They have many thousands of tunes at their finger tips that they know and have notes about, and have an excellent eye for which will enhance a certain horses gaits, can talk to a rider about what genre and feel they want with their music, and then give several choices within that, etc.
They also have better knowledge/judgement than many judges about the technical aspects of dressage. They can watch a horse at any level and make comments about the horse’s strengths and weaknesses, where to best place certain movements to enhance those strengths, etc.
Even though these people have been doing this for years, they consider it a full time job and spend hours each week listening to new music, cataloging it into their repertoire, keeping current on the show scene, what is popular vs over used etc.
I don't know whether you are in that league or not. However, if you are not, I think there is still a market for someone who knows the rules, can do a good job of editing, has a decent eye and above average knowledge of a few common musical genres -- for a lesser price (probably about half of the above rates).I find average freestyle designers (meaning not the well known professional designers with $5,000 software) charge between $100-300.
As others have implied above, it is difficult to suggest pricing without a more clear definition of “doing freestyle design”.
If you are viewing the horse & rider’s submitted video and playing it against various pieces of music and helping select pieces for the gaits, and if you are doing all the editing (and it’s seamless) and also choreographing the whole thing, with good working knowledge of all the requirements at each level, as well as the things that are not allowed and the things that are additionally allowed, AND if you are doing all this, as well as have an eye toward how best to show off their strengths and put less emphasis on the weaknesses, then I think the prices you suggest are right in line. For lower levels, as you say.
If however you are putting some musical pieces/choices together using a lot of input from the rider and if the rider is very involved in the selection of the music? And if the rider is doing the choreography, and you are mainly a technician and doing a good job of the edits? Then I would think a few hundred less than that would be appropriate.
And I also think there is a market for that kind of assistance, myself included. One reason some people are reluctant to pay the bigger bucks for the pro choreographers is because they want to pick their own music, and not be dictated to by the pro, or to be limited to an existing library of beats.
So it depends how well done they are, and what your service encompasses.
I do quite a bit and the prices quoted above (along with the experience level) are spot on. That being said, I try very hard to work with people (especially lower level AA’s and youth) to encourage them to do as Silverbridge mentioned: choose their music, and help with choreography/design. At the lower levels, this is easier. What is most economical for my riders is for them to then determine how much time they need at each gait with each track and provide me the information, ans most of the time even the specific tracks. This way I can keep the prices less than $150 ( and quite often less than $100). I have one client that has this process down so well, each MFS is $50. We have lots of new MFS each year at our shows . . . .
