Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Recording Studio Revenue Benchmark

A recording studio provides acoustically treated rooms, equipment and engineering for recording, mixing and mastering music, voice-over, podcasts and audio for film and advertising, charging by the hour, the day or the project. Rooms, gear, engineers and a reputation among artists and producers are the business, and demand has shifted as home recording has become cheaper.

NAICS 512240, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Recording Studio Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every sound recording studio with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of studios gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$748,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

2,107

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $1.6 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $1.6 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 2,107 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $748,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Sound Recording Studios, NAICS 512240. The category covers sound recording studios that provide facilities and engineering for audio recording. Record labels and music publishers are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5122: 512230 Music Publishers; 512250 Record Production and Distribution; 512290 Other Sound Recording Industries. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Smaller cohort

Sound Recording Industries, NAICS 5122, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

46.3%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 74.2 percent at 1 year, 59.1 percent at 2 years, 53.7 percent at 3 years, 52.0 percent at 4 years, 46.3 percent at 5 years. 298 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 43.4 to 52.7 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 74.2 percent of the starting count2 years: 59.1 percent of the starting count3 years: 53.7 percent of the starting count4 years: 52.0 percent of the starting count5 years: 46.3 percent of the starting count74.259.153.752.046.3Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years298 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 46 establishments aged five for every 100 that first reported paid employment in 2018. Census compares counts by age rather than following the same businesses, so read it as a broad continuation indicator for the industry group, not as a tracked survival rate.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 43.4 to 52.7 percent. This benchmark covers Sound Recording Industries, NAICS 5122, as a whole, and this category accounts for 2,107 of the 4,323 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

MeasureValue
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈32%

Payroll share of receipts, Sound Recording Studios, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 32.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a substantial share covering engineers, assistants and studio managers in a business whose product is skilled time in a well-equipped room.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes equipment, acoustic construction, software and the rent on rooms that must be quiet and isolated, which together weigh heavily on a studio.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

MeasureValue
Paid employees per employer establishment3.5
Employer establishments per firm1.02

Scale and ownership, Sound Recording Studios, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 3.5 people, and the industry counted 1.0 employer establishments per firm. A studio of that size is a small crew of engineers and a manager, often with the owner engineering as well, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade of independent single-location studios.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Recording Studio: what a room-and-gear business looks like behind an average revenue figure.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • How many bookable hours does the room actually sell? A studio's capacity is its rooms multiplied by the hours it can book, and empty days cost as much as full ones. Utilization decides whether the investment in acoustics and equipment pays, and no annual total reveals it.
  • Music, voice-over or postproduction? Album sessions, commercial voice-over, podcast production and audio post for film bring different clients, rates and schedules, and a studio built around one of them has a different year from a generalist. The census counts them together.
  • Who owns the equipment? Consoles, microphones, outboard gear and monitoring represent a large investment that ages and must be maintained, and some studios rent specialized gear per session. Capital per room is a defining cost that revenue alone cannot show.
  • Are the engineers staff or freelancers? Many studios rent rooms to freelance engineers and producers who bring their own clients, keeping the studio's payroll small while filling the calendar. The balance between house engineers and outside bookings shapes both revenue and payroll.
  • How has home recording changed the market? Affordable recording software lets much tracking and demo work happen in home setups, leaving studios to compete on live rooms, acoustics, expertise and mixing. A studio's position in that market shapes its revenue more than its equipment list does.
  • Does the studio earn from anything else? Production credits, mastering, equipment rental, education and content rights can add revenue beyond room hire, and some studios run record labels or publishing on the side. What sits in a studio's receipts varies with its ambitions.

Sources and Methodology

Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.

The Census counts employer establishments, meaning each studio with paid staff. A producer recording alone in a home studio is not counted, and record labels and music publishers are counted in separate categories.