How much should you pay a musician?

[Mimic Fox]

I've decided I want to commission someone to help write music for my VN, but I'm not sure how much would be a good amount. I only have limited funds but at the same time, I'm an artist who knows how it feels to not get paid a reasonable amount for your work.

Most of the music I want is just calm ambient music with simple loops.

would $25 per 2-minute track be too little?

[puppetbomb]

I did a bit of Googling and searching r/gamedev on Reddit and $25 doesn't seem to buy you even one minute :/

It looks like rates start at $50 per minute, but I also know people on Lemmasoft tend to undersell themselves by quite a bit compared to industry standard pay.

[Elsa Kisiel]

It depends a lot of who you are hiring. There are country where the cost of living is less high than others, and some amateurs/hobbyists/semi-pros tends to really underprice themselves, so it might be possible to found someone who would work for so little.

However, to be honest, I would probably buy an already existing track if I only had $25/track. Or look after free-to-use tracks. There's a lot of good free ressources that can be used even for commercial work.

[Mutive]

However, to be honest, I would probably buy an already existing track if I only had $25/track. Or look after free-to-use tracks. There's a lot of good free ressources that can be used even for commercial work.

Agreed. I've had fairly good luck sourcing free music and sound effects.

(Of course, if you have something exceptionally specific in mind, you may need to commission.)