Practical Guide

Music Preparation Billing Guide

AFM Local 802 General Price List | Plain-Language Summary

If you’re new to music preparation work, the union scale documents can be intimidating. This guide distills the AFM Local 802 General Price List (GPL) into the working knowledge you actually need to send a fair invoice: how each service is measured, what “a page” actually means, when hourly rates apply, and how fringes (pension and health) factor in. When in doubt, the union document is the source of truth — this is a working summary, not a substitute for it.

What the GPL covers

The General Price List is the AFM Local 802 minimum wage agreement for music preparation services on live, non-symphonic engagements that aren’t covered by another trade agreement. Think industrials, off-Broadway, cabarets, club dates, concert halls, revues, dance units — basically any live performance category that doesn’t fall under a Broadway League contract, a national agreement (sound recording, film/TV), or the symphonic price list.

Two things are important up front. First, the rates published in the GPL are minimums, not ceilings. You can charge more, and on higher-budget productions you should. Second, the GPL is a wage scale: the obligations include not just per-page or hourly rates but also fringe contributions (pension and health), work dues, overtime, minimum calls, and supervisor premiums. A “rate” without fringes is incomplete.

Service categories

The GPL applies to six classifications, each with its own rate structure:

• Arrangers — the creative reharmonization, paraphrasing, and developmental work that turns source material into a performable piece. Charged at no less than the orchestration rate for the same scope.
• Orchestrators — assigning the parts of an already-complete composition to specific instruments and voices. Paid per score page.
• Copyists — producing performance-ready parts from a finished score. Paid per part page, with rates that vary by part type.
• Librarians — managing the physical (or digital) parts library. Paid hourly.
• Proofreaders — reviewing parts against the score for accuracy. Paid hourly.
• Electronic Programmers — designing and programming synth, MIDI, and sequencer setups. Paid as a design fee plus hourly.

The categories are sequential and can stack. If a single person both orchestrates a chart and copies the parts, they bill under both rates. If they construct a piano-conductor score by reduction, they bill the construction rate. The work product is what determines the rate, not the title.

Copying rates by part type

A “page” for copying purposes is a standard 10-stave page with up to four bars per staff. The first page of any part is paid in full; subsequent pages can be billed in half-page increments. Title material on the first page counts as half a page if you dedicate two staves to it.

Rates differ depending on the part type. Below are the GPL minimums (effective 1/1/2009 and unchanged in the current document). The same part on Broadway scale is paid significantly higher — consult the active Broadway agreement for those numbers.

Orchestration rates

Orchestration is paid per score page, where a score page is four measures wide and is tiered by line count. Lyrics count as additional lines; piano parts and harp parts have specific line counts depending on how they’re notated. Pickups count as full measures, and the last page is computed as a half page.

The GPL has a non-theatrical floor (five-line minimum per page) and a theatrical floor (ten-line minimum). The non-theatrical floor applies to cabarets, nightclubs, club dates, jazz clubs, and concert halls. The theatrical floor applies to live theatrical productions covered under the GPL (i.e. not Broadway, which has its own scale).

When hourly rates apply

Hourly rates only apply to work that genuinely can’t be measured by page: corrections, cutting and pasting, marking, bar-numbering, production-line tasks, proofreading, library duties, rehearsal attendance, and similar. If a job can be paid by page, page rates prevail. Time work is computed in half-hour increments.

Under the GPL, the copyist hourly rates are tiered by time of day:

• 9 AM – 6 PM weekdays: $34.50/hr
• 6 PM – midnight weekdays, and Saturdays 9 AM – 6 PM: $51.75/hr (1.5x)
• Midnight onward weekdays, Saturday after 6 PM, all-day Sundays and listed holidays: $69.00/hr (2x)

For orchestrators and arrangers under non-theatrical engagements, the hourly base is $66.47/hr with the same tiered structure.

Overtime & minimum call

A few rules every invoice should respect:

• Minimum call: four hours at the applicable hourly rate, guaranteed.
• Daily overtime: 1.5x after eight hours in a single day.
• Weekly overtime: 1.5x after forty straight-time hours in a work week.
• Late-night/weekend/holiday: 2x as detailed above.
• Travel time required for receiving or delivering work, attending rehearsals, etc., is paid at the applicable hourly rate.
• Nine-hour rest: overtime continues until dismissal and/or until nine hours have elapsed before a return call.

Supervisor premium

Every engagement under the GPL must have a Supervisor Copyist, and any engagement that requires administrative orchestrating duties has a Supervisor Orchestrator. The supervisor receives at least 25% over and above the total wages for all work falling under their supervision — including their own pages or hours. This is the line item most often forgotten on small-team jobs. If you’re running the prep, you’re supervising, and the 25% applies on top.

Program credit is required for the Supervisor Copyist whenever a Production Staff is listed, and for the Supervisor Orchestrator and all additional orchestrators.

Pension & Health benefits

Fringes are not optional — they’re part of the wage scale, paid by the employer in addition to the wages, and remitted to the AFM&EPF (pension) and Local 802 HBP (health) funds. Under the GPL:

• Pension (AFM&EPF): 11.99% of scale wages, paid by the employer.
• Health (Local 802 HBP): the greater of $27.50/day or 7.5% of scale wages, plus an additional $19.00 per day for any music prep musician working after 6 PM.

Broadway has its own fringe structure (different daily and percentage figures, plus a Broadway facilities fee). The Music Preparation Rate Calculator applies the correct fringe set automatically based on the active scale — toggle the Advanced Features section to add pension and health to your quote.

Out-of-town work

Work performed outside greater New York is billed at the prevailing rate plus 25%, with additional protections:

• Two-day minimum guarantee on out-of-town engagements.
• Twelve-hour notice required to terminate the call. If the dismissal period ends after 9 AM, that day’s minimum guarantee and per diem must still be paid.
• Round-trip transportation provided by the employer (economy air, first-class rail, or rental car at cost; mileage reimbursement around $0.40/mile if using a personal car).
• Per diem of $176.00/day for personal expenses, with reimbursement for actual room and board if it exceeds that.
• Copyists guaranteed at least $258.75/day for six hours of stand-by.
• Orchestrators guaranteed two-times the page rate per calendar day plus 25% out-of-town premium.

Invoicing & work dues

Practical rules for sending the bill:

• Submit a copy of every invoice to the Local 802 Music Preparation Department within two weeks of completing the work.
• Within two weeks of receiving payment, remit 3.5% work dues on minimum scale wages to Local 802. Failure to do so is a bylaw violation.
• Bills are due on delivery; payment must arrive within two weeks. After that, late penalties begin to accrue (2% in the next ten days, plus an additional 1% in the twenty days after that, then +1% per additional thirty days).
• Itemize the work. The invoice should make the page counts, line counts, hours, and any premiums obvious.

Negotiating off scale

The GPL is a floor, not a ceiling, but in practice some smaller productions can’t carry full scale. When that’s the case, the negotiation usually happens as a discount off GPL — commonly 95%, 90%, or 85% of GPL rates, sometimes lower for very small industrials or workshop reads. The Music Preparation Rate Calculator includes those tiers as preset scales so you can quote at the negotiated number without doing the multiplication by hand.

Two cautions when working off scale: fringes still apply at the published percentages (pension and health are computed off whatever wages you actually charge, not off full scale), and supervisor premiums still apply. A 90% deal on rates is not a 90% deal on the full package — it’s a 90% deal on wages with fringes layered on top.

Quick billing checklist

Rates and rules above are summarized from the AFM Local 802 General Price List (Music Preparation Services — Non-Symphonic) effective 3/15/23 for orchestration and 1/1/2009 for copying. This is a working summary for educational purposes; consult the current union document and your supervisor for any specific engagement, and confirm rates against the active agreement before invoicing. Broadway rates are governed by a separate trade agreement.