This Covoco review explores aspects you care about like job availability, ease of use, selling points, the downsides, and, most importantly, whether or not the company is legit and worth your time.
Voice acting is a skill hard to find. Likewise, voiceover opportunities are rare and specific in nature. It’s not a walk in the park for voice actors to find actual clients and creators, let alone ones that need what they (the voice actors) have to offer.
For most voice actors, the obvious way out has been to send resumes to job boards and join freelance platforms in the hope that someone will notice them and give them a shot. It’s worked for some, but for most, not so much!
I decided to do the dirty work for you and review one of the most talked-about voiceover job platforms on the internet, Covoco.
What is Covoco?
Covoco is a platform that connects voice actors the world over with clients and creators looking to enhance their creations with voice.
It helps voiceover artists create profiles that actually show what they can do rather than just who they are and display them to hundreds of clients free of charge.
If you are wondering where all these voice overs go, well, the platform doesn’t discriminate or focus on specific industries. Your voice can be used in video games, announcements, on-hold messages, etc., and it is highly likely that you will know where and how your voice will be used before picking up a project.
Covoco was founded in 2017 by Alok Bhat, who sought to enable clients find, hire, and work with voice talents with the utmost ease. Now, the company prides itself in having connected thousands of one-time and repeat clients with some of the world’s best voiceover artists.
Is Covoco Legit?
Covoco is a legitimate company that allows voice artists to sell their voices online. It has a trust score of 3.8 out of 5 on TrustPilot and 80 percent on ScamAdviser, a trusted site credibility checker.
Covoco has been in operation since 2017, and the owner of the company has claimed the domain name all through this period.
Of course, the best way to know if a website is a scam is to use it yourself and appraise the experience. But if you don’t have all the time and energy, there is always enough user feedback on the internet to base your decision on.
For Covoco, reviews have mostly been positive. Most of the negative feedback I found was not consistent or echoed elsewhere and seemed much like frustration from over-expecting voice actors and clients.
Like any other platform, Covoco has its flaws (which we’ll discuss later), but it follows through on most of the things it claims to do, which makes it legitimate.
Can You Really Find Voiceover Work Using Covoco?
Covoco may not have as many jobs as generic platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr, but when it comes to voiceovers, you may have a better chance of landing a job here.
Covoco uses artificial intelligence, or so they claim, to match job seekers and clients. This means your ability to find work on the platform is partly dictated by how well your profile is set up.
Most other platforms let users browse an unsorted pool of assignments, which may make them seem as though they offer more jobs or have more clients. Covoco gives you options that are most relevant to your abilities hence reducing the amount of work you have to do to find a task.
For good measure, I pored over the internet to see if I can find feedback from people who have actually found work on Covoco, and my assumptions were proven right.
Danny from the UK, who despite not liking Covoco’s pay rates, found the website a nice place to find jobs and build a portfolio.
To make sure Danny wasn’t some paid reviewer leading unsuspecting freelancers into a scam, I dug into his profile and learned that he was a verified TrustPilot user.
Neethi Bhat, another verified TrustPilot user, kills two birds with one stone by not only acknowledging that Covoco gave her voice acting work but also shedding much-needed light on the company’s customer support.
What Does Covoco Offer? And How Does It Work?
Covoco offers a platform for job-seeking voice actors to meet paying voiceover clients. Jobs that the site deems suited for your abilities are sent directly to your email. You can accept or decline them only on the website, where the project details are displayed.
It’s a time-saving assignment allocation technique, at least compared to bidding, and one that actually increases your chances of picking up projects if you are keen on monitoring your email notifications.
Note that job alerts will be sent to more than one voice artist, so you will still face competition after the filter-down. Also, projects can still be viewed and accessed on the general pool even after email alerts have been sent out.
Basically, you will not be getting any preferential treatment just because your profile matches a particular task. Other people can still apply for auditions and get the job.
I’d say the notifications come in handier when you have an ongoing project rather than when you’re trying to get one. You will receive automated alerts about approaching deadlines, approval or declination of budget proposals, direct requests, etc.
For mid-project chatting and file sharing, you will have to use the site’s collaboration features. Covoco isn’t as limiting as other freelance sites when it comes to client-contractor communication, and I feel this greatly streamlines projects.
How to Sign Up for Covoco
The Covoco registration process is simple and straightforward, albeit multi-staged.
The initial step involves setting your identification details, i.e. your email address and account password. I chose to “continue with email” because my password didn’t meet the complexity requirements.
I could have sworn I included a special character, a number, and a letter, like I was required to. I even went out of my way to mix letter cases and make the thing eight characters long, but it still got rejected. You might want to use Gmail or Facebook if you face the same problem.
For the rest of the registration process you will be asked to do the following:
- Choose a username (Most of the popular names are taken. You might want to be creative)
- State your gender
- State your voice age group
- Select the languages you speak
- Verify your voice
- Upload a maximum of five voice tracks
- Write a bio
The profile verification process is initiated by the user and completed by the Covoco team. Your part is to create a voice sample in your natural language and submit it for appraisal.
I hadn’t uploaded a sample at the time of writing this article, so I really don’t know how long the whole verification process takes.
Once you are done with registration, you will be taken to the projects page, which lists the auditions you are currently working on. My profile, as shown below was on a verification waiting list.
You can only start auditioning for projects after your profile is reviewed and verified.
What are Covoco’s Pay Rates?
The earnings button, captured in the screengrab above, takes you to this page:
This is the In Escrow page, where you get to see how much money you will get once you are done with the projects you are currently handling. Covoco gets clients to pay beforehand so you can always be sure to receive payment for all approved work.
The Completed button brings you here:
It will certainly look different if you have some money in there, as will the All Payments page shown below:
Covoco doesn’t have fixed pay rates. Clients are charged differently for various assignments, and voice actors are paid depending on a particular task’s pricing.
The platform will determine a project’s cost even if the client sends work to a specific voiceover artist. This move aims to protect contractors from exploitation but may double as an obstacle to higher pay.
Covoco Reviews and Complaints
On Trustpilot, Covoco has an average rating of 3.8 stars from 105 reviews. This means most of its users – clients and voice actors alike – are happy to use it.
From the reviews, the company’s support and simple interface seem to be its main selling points. These two reviews highlight that:
There are also rare sightings like this one praising the company’s pay rate:
There is also a good number of complaints, and the most consistent grumble from negative reviewers is pay-related. Apparently, Covoco takes a part of what it claims a project will pay, leaving voice actors receiving significantly less.
Deborah here has a very legitimate complaint, but this is actually what happens on most job platforms. The difference is that Covoco probably displays the amount it charges the client rather than what it intends to pay the contractor after taking its share.
It is basically leaving voice actors to learn the hard way that a $100 project doesn’t really earn you that much.
The deficit is further amplified by the fact that Covoco doesn’t have any special arrangement with PayPal, meaning transaction fees are imposed on recipients (voice actors) as they are considered “sellers.”
This mildly satisfied reviewer highlights that:
Many other users have complained of unclear communication channels and delayed response times, which contradicts the highlight of most positive reviews.
As someone who’s spent the better part of their adulthood on freelance platforms, I can only think of a rather contemptible explanation for this. The company has an inadequate support team that only has time to serve and respond to approved profiles or users with ongoing projects
So some users are not receiving responses because the company, for lack of a better term, doesn’t prioritize them.
What I Like About Covoco
- Clients are asked to pay an advance fee for project verification. Chances are low that you will find someone who’s there just to waste your time.
- An easy user interface. Even beginners can use the platform
- Easy communication between voice actors and clients
- The presence of a payment escrow service. This protects contractors from exploitation and ensures their peace of mind when handling huge projects.
- Email alerts. With email alerts about project availability, revision requests, deadlines and delivery queries, etc., you just need your phone in your pocket to monitor relevant goings-on on Covoco.
What I Don’t Like About Covoco
- Support discrimination. The support team seems to be really nice to some users and incredibly terrible to some.
- Email spamming. Covoco’s algorithm may not be that effective at matching profiles and available opportunities, and for this reason, most of the emails sent to users are not necessarily relevant.
- The website is feature-limited. The company offers no voiceover creation and editing features whatsoever, meaning users have to rely on third-party software to create voice overs. That’s an added expense that beginner voice actors may not afford.
- Difficulty deleting your profile. Not only are you unable to change your email address, but you are also not able to delete your profile unless you contact the support team. All this while, you will be receiving notifications about new gigs.
- Unclear payment communication. Failure to inform voice actors of the actual amount they will earn from a task prompts most to pick up projects they would have otherwise passed up. For example, a $100 project may end up paying a voice actor $90 or $85 – an amount below what they reckon their effort warrants.
- It has one payment option. You can only receive payment through PayPal, which may not be an option for you.
Is Covoco Worth It For Voice Actors?
Covoco is definitely worth trying out. I would recommend it to someone who wishes to explore their skill sets and build a portfolio. If you’re good, you will stand out, and better-paying jobs will come your way.
By now you should have developed your own opinion from this Covoco review, but I will give you mine anyway.
Well, obviously whether or not the website is good for you is down to your willingness to take the bad with the good of using it.
For instance, are you willing to pay for a separate service to create voiceovers?
And are you willing to be in a working relationship where you have no direct say on how much you can earn from a project?
Is PayPal an option for you? And does it sit well with you that you will be paying the PayPal transaction fees and not the platform?
It’s a whole series of questions that you can only answer by evaluating what you would get elsewhere. So what does Covoco offer relative to what alternatives have in store for you?
From experience, most freelance platforms determine the cost of a project either manually or via an automated system. Not many of them allow contractors to discuss payment matters with clients directly. Those that do are most likely subscription-based and don’t offer payment escrow services.
Regarding payment options, PayPal is the world’s number one payment processing company. It should not be a primary consideration when choosing platforms because Covoco alternatives probably use it too.
If it’s that important, though, I did a post about online jobs that don’t require PayPal that you might want to check out.
Conclusion
Every platform has its appeals and turn-offs. Covoco is no exception. I hope I got to discuss the fronts that matter the most to you, and you’re now able to make an informed decision.
If there is something you would want added to this Covoco review, please let me know in the comments.
