Pricing guide
What metal mixing costs
MixPit lists 89 engineers, and the median mixing price across them is $200 per song. The middle half of the market sits between $100 and $300.
- Median mix
- $200/song
- Middle half
- $100to$300
- Cheapest
- $50
- Median master
- $50
The numbers
85 of the 89 engineers listed show a public per-song mixing price. The median is $200, the cheapest is $50 and the most expensive is $700.
A quarter of them charge less than $100 and a quarter charge more than $300.
Listings come from engineers' public SoundBetter profiles and the pages they've claimed on MixPit. Prices are as of October 2026, and nothing here is a quote.
By price band
Mastering
61 engineers list a mastering price. The median is $50 and the most common is $50, and a lot of engineers charge $50 to master a song they also mixed.
Mastering is priced separately from the mix, so check whether the number you're looking at already includes it.
By region
The North America median is $250 across 28 engineers. Europe's is $200 across 47.
Most of this work happens over file transfer, so a band can hire from either side of the Atlantic. Time zones only change how quickly revisions go back and forth.
By subgenre
The table shows the cheapest starting price and the median price for each subgenre in the directory. Find the one closest to your record.
| Subgenre | Engineers | From | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Metal | 12 | $50 | $100 |
| Death Metal | 15 | $50 | $150 |
| Deathcore | 14 | $50 | $125 |
| Djent / Prog | 16 | $75 | $200 |
| Doom / Sludge | 6 | $50 | $250 |
| Extreme Metal | 8 | $75 | $150 |
| Hardcore | 11 | $50 | $200 |
| Heavy / Power | 10 | $75 | $200 |
| Metal (general) | 56 | $50 | $200 |
| Metalcore | 19 | $50 | $200 |
| Symphonic | 5 | $75 | $200 |
| Thrash | 8 | $75 | $175 |
Turnaround
Only 18 engineers state a turnaround on their public profile, and most of those say within a week.
For everyone else, ask when you reach out, and ask what their queue looks like that week.
What per song means
Per song means one mix of one song. How many rounds of revisions that includes varies, so ask before you pay.
Engineers generally expect stems and session files from the band, meaning the individual tracks from your recording, exported clean and labeled.
What pushes the price up
Track count comes first, because more tracks means more hours. Live drums that need editing add hours too.
Tuning work, reamping (sending a clean guitar or bass track back through a real amp) and a tight deadline can each add to the price, and so can mastering bundled in with the mix.
Cheap vs. expensive
A $75 mix isn't automatically worse than a $400 one. Some engineers price low because they're newer or still filling their calendar, and some price high because they're booked solid.
Listen to the samples, ideally ones in your subgenre. Check that the kick and bass stay separate, that the guitars are wide without going fizzy up top, that the cymbals don't sting, and that the mix stays clear when the double kick is running.
How to ask for a quote
Send reference tracks, a couple of released songs whose sound you're after. Send a rough mix too, so the engineer can hear what you've already got.
Then say how many songs there are and when you need them back, since both change the price.
Find an engineer
The directory has 89 engineers, and every profile has a quote form that goes to the engineer by email with you copied in.