How much does an album cost to make?

Answer 1

As much as the artist/producer can convince his label or financial backers to give him for a budget. Studio recording time runs between $30 for lower quality studios anywhere up to a couple thousand an hour for really high end places. After it is recorded and mixed to the artist/producer's liking it is sent to a mastering lab to be mastered, which runs between $100 bucks and $3000 depending on how good a mastering job you want done. Artists/producers spend anywhere from a few hundred bucks on recording young start up bands to hundreds of thousands for big name artists.

As far as the actual, physical album sitting on a store shelf you can spend anywhere from a couple bucks per unit for nice packaging if you only have a couple hundred made all the way down less than 50 cents a piece if you order thousands of them at once. I would assume that major labels get a discount even greater than the standard bulk discount because of the amount of business they give to the pressing companies.