Costs and licenses for renting a building for a studio.

L

libertad

New member
I'm not quite at the point where I'm ready to rent/buy my own stand alone studio building. (Only doing the home studio thing at this point.)

But for the sake of daydreaming, what do you guys think the average monthly cost to rent and operate a small building would be with the intent on building a studio?

This is one of my dreams for the future. Of course it would mostly be a labor of love, but I would like to operate the studio as a business and money-making opportunity, if for nothing else than to pay the bills and keep it self-sufficient.

So, considering that the studio would have a regular flow of customers coming in to record, what kind of licenses and insurance would also be necessary to legally operate a stand-alone studio? (in other words, not a home studio.)

And for extra credit, considering the renting costs, licenses, insurance, equipment costs, etc... what would be a reasonable studio rate to help reach a financial break-even point?

This is all for speculation and I don't expect to do this very soon. But a person must dream, eh?
 
The last fairly "basic" place I worked ("basic" as in "you could get 90% of the gear from Guitar Center" with very little "really nice" stuff) cost around $200,000 in construction and permits and I think the rent was around $3k/month. Full compliment of gear was probably around $75k.

That said - It was a helluva nice place for a place built on such a budget... I've been in home studios that cost 3x that just for the construction.

Business licenses, liability insurance -- Too widely variable based on location to even hazard a guess.
 
Why not just have a professional studio at home? That way your not paying 2 rents/mortgages on buildings, you can write off a good portion of your home on taxes.

I'm in the planning stages of building my studio up, and I've weighed the budgets and idea of having a separate business building as pro level studio at home. And the convenience and money saved, just beats out having a freestanding studio every time.

At $3k/month like massive said, why not just have it at home? I could rent out a 5-6 bedroom home for that kind of money. Of course it matters where you live and what the average prices for a house are around you, but here in S. Carolina, 3k/month is enough for a mansion sized house on the coast.

You first have to determine your personal and business budget before you can figure out your pricing that would break you even. Call insurance agencies and get free quotes, you can look up what licenses you need online as well as tax information for your state (federal, state, and sometimes city). Equipment costs also have variables. If you can obtain a bunch of your equipment used, you can save a lot.

I know you said to consider you would have customers, but from what I've learned starting out though, you need to have multiple areas of income, especially starting out. It'd be nice to record bands all day, but it's likely not going to happen starting out, hasn't for me, and I knew that when I jumped into this. But I can make A LOT of money running sound for weddings or providing a system for doing karaoke at a bar for an evening, doing voice overs, and selling sound effects, renting out a room as a practice room. Those are just some examples. For most of us you need a multi faceted studio in order to succeed and offer something that your competition doesn't.
 
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