When you cast from someone else’s pool, half your commission is theirs
Entertainment Partners charges supporting artists cast from its Casting Community 10% of their earnings plus VAT, on top of your commission. Book the same artists on RosterDeck at the same total deduction and that 10% is yours. Every EP figure on this page is quoted from ep.com and dated.
First, when this does not apply to you
EP’s 10% admin fee is charged only on artists cast from their own Casting Community. In their words: “If you are individually registered with and successfully placed in work by one of the other agencies using EP’s casting technology, you will only pay commission to the agency. Entertainment Partners will not charge an admin fee.”
So if you book only your own roster, there is no 10% to reclaim and the commission argument below is not for you. What EP charges an agency directly is not published anywhere, so we make no claim about it and offer no comparison on that line. The rest of this page, on payment timing, branding and cost, still applies.
What the split costs you
EP publishes the agency commission range on its Casting Community as “5% and 15% of your earnings”. Below is what each of those rates earns you on a £200 chit, against booking the same artist yourself at a 20% commission. Figures are shown before VAT, which is passed to HMRC either way and so does not change the comparison.
Your artist gives up 15% today: your 5% plus EP’s 10% admin fee. Move, and they pay exactly the same.
Your artist gives up 20% today: your 10% plus EP’s 10% admin fee. Move, and they pay exactly the same.
Your artist gives up 25% today: your 15% plus EP’s 10% admin fee. Move, and they keep 5% more while you still earn more.
You earn today, per artist
You earn at 20% on RosterDeck
Extra on a 100 artist job (£2,000 becomes £4,000)
Holding the artist’s deduction at 20% is an assumption about your own pricing, not a claim about EP. At 15% the artist keeps more than they do today and you still earn more, because the 10% that went to EP is no longer in the chain.
And what that job costs you to run
Same job: 100 artists, one shoot day. Whatever you charge, this is the software bill, and none of it is taken from the artist. Credits cost £1 each however many you buy, so this is the figure whether it is your first job or your hundredth.
The whole bill for that job, nothing left out
Not just the bookings. Every artist signs a release form, because on a real job production requires signed terms before call time.
| Bookings: 100 artists on 1 shoot day | 100 credits | £100 |
| Release form signed by each artist | 100 credits | £100 |
| Total for the job | 200 credits | £200 |
If the job needs digi-fits, add 100 credits (£100), charged only when an artist actually submits their photos.
SMS reminders are optional — if you turn them on to nudge artists who have not replied to an availability check, that is 5 credits per 100 SMS (£5 per 100). Off by default.
Branding is a flat 15 credits a month (£15) for white label plus your own sending domain, however many jobs you run. Turn it off any time.
The AI assistant is metered on usage and lands in fractions of a credit per job. Everything else, production approval, call sheets, timesheets, chits, invoicing and the accounting sync, is included at no extra cost.
Booking credits are charged per artist per job date, so a job that shoots three days costs roughly three times the bookings line. Even at that, the extra £2,000 costs you £200 to collect on day one.
Your artists wait eight weeks. They do not have to.
“We aim to complete the payment process within four weeks but as several factors are outside our control (like the time it takes production to resolve queries or pay invoices), we ask artists to allow eight weeks for payments to arrive.”Entertainment Partners, UK Casting Community FAQs, ep.com
That is not a criticism of how EP is run. It is what happens structurally when a platform receives the production’s money, holds it, and releases it in batches. The wait is the model.
RosterDeck never touches the money. The production pays your bank against your own numbered invoice. The moment it lands, RosterDeck tells you who is owed what and you pay them from your own account, the same day if you want to. Nothing is queued behind anybody else’s batch run.
| Where the money goes | RosterDeck | EP Casting Portal |
|---|---|---|
| Who the production pays | Your bank, against your own numbered invoice | EP |
| Who holds the money | You do. RosterDeck never receives a penny | EP, until they release it |
| Who pays the artists | You, in one click via Xero, or a payment file for any UK bank | EP, in batches |
| When artists get paid | As soon as the invoice is settled. Same day if you want | Allow eight weeks, per EP’s own guidance |
| Your commission | Never leaves your account | Comes back to you with the batch |
| If you leave | Invoices, artists and payments are already in your bank and your accounts | Your receivables are mid cycle with them |
Things you get that you are not getting now
Beyond the money, these are the parts agents notice in the first week.
Your brand, not ours
Everything a production or an artist opens carries your agency, not the name of your software supplier. To a production weighing you up against a bigger agency, it reads as your own booking system.
- Approval, booking and timesheet pages on your own subdomain
- Emails sent from your own domain, not a shared one
- Your logo and colours on every chit, call sheet and email
Your own subdomain and sending domain, switched on in settings for 15 credits a month (£15) and off again whenever you like. The month is refunded if you have not used it.
An AI assistant your production clients can use too
Ask it in plain English to find cast, send an availability check or fill in a timesheet. The part nobody else does: it also sits on the pages you send out, so production and cast can ask it questions without an account and without installing anything.
- Search your roster and build a shortlist by describing who you need
- Production approves cast or sets call times by asking it, on their own link
- Cast sign in, add a supplement or query a chit by asking it
Switch between the latest frontier models in your settings, with the running cost of each shown before you pick. If one is unavailable the other takes over automatically.
Two things you can promise production when you pitch
Most of this page is about your margin. These two are about winning the job in the first place: they are things the production company gets from working with you, and you can put them in the pitch.
Production approval
Your client signs off cast without a single email attachment.
Send a shortlist as a secure link. Production reviews headshots, showreels and measurements, then approves or declines each artist with one click and leaves feedback against anyone they are unsure about.
- Feedback lands back in your portal instantly, per artist
- They can export the cast list to PDF and Excel for their own records
- Nobody needs an account, and the link expires when you say it does
Digi-fits
Costume sees the whole crowd dressed before anyone travels.
Booked cast upload full-length wardrobe photos from their phone for a specific shoot date. Costume reviews the gallery and picks an option per artist, and the agreed fitting fee lands on that artist’s timesheet automatically.
- Multi-artist contact sheets, or a single-artist PDF pack for on-set markup
- Full-length layouts that keep footwear and headwear in frame
- Secure galleries shared straight with the costume department
What moves onto you
This is the real trade. EP runs the money side for you. On RosterDeck the money is yours from the moment production pays, which means the buttons are yours to press. Here is honestly what that involves.
| Step | On RosterDeck |
|---|---|
| Raising the invoice | Drafted in Xero or QuickBooks from the approved chits |
| Sending it to production | From your accounting software, like any other invoice |
| Knowing it is unpaid | Shown in your accounting software, where the invoice lives |
| Chasing production | With your accounting software’s own reminders |
| Reconciling the payment | In Xero or QuickBooks. RosterDeck reads it back |
| Paying the artists | One click in Xero, or a file for your bank |
| Quarterly HMRC return | Rows built from your timesheets. You file it |
That’s under an hour of work across a whole job, most of it is pressing a button rather than doing a task. On the 100 artist job above, it is an hour that is worth £2,000.
Watch it in action
Short, walkthroughs of core RosterDeck workflows, from first casting check to artists paid.
One job end to end: casting, call sheets and a signed-off timesheet
Follow one booking from casting and availability checks through client approval, call sheet dispatch, and signed-off timesheets in one workspace.
The AI assistant: casting, call times and timesheets by asking
See the assistant check clashing roles, find artists with matching wardrobe and clearance, draft call times, and calculate day costs from plain English prompts.
Invoicing and payments: from a finished timesheet to artists paid
How an approved timesheet turns into a numbered production invoice, creates bills in Xero or QuickBooks, and reconciles artist payouts with your commission deducted.
Run one job end to end before you spend anything
New agencies start with 100 free credits, and the demo account runs every feature without touching them. Cast a job, send an availability check, get it approved, issue the call sheet and collect a timesheet, then decide.
- No subscription. Purchased credits never expire
- £1 per artist, per shoot day
- Nothing ever taken from an artist
Sources. Entertainment Partners figures are quoted from the UK Casting Community rates and FAQs pages on ep.com, checked 6 September 2026. The admin fee quoted is “Entertainment Partners’ admin fee for supporting artists cast from the Casting Community is 10% of your earnings plus VAT.” The agency range quoted is “can generally range between 5% and 15% of your earnings (plus VAT for agents who are VAT registered)”. EP does not publish pricing for casting agencies, so no comparison is offered on that line.
RosterDeck credit pricing on this page is read live from our current price catalogue and feature rates, where one booking credit covers one cast member on one job date and costs the same however many you buy. The job total shown is the bill for that job, including a signed release form for every artist, not the bookings alone. Commission figures are worked examples on a £200 chit and are shown before VAT. What you charge your artists is your own commercial decision and nothing here is a projection of your earnings.
Entertainment Partners and EP are trademarks of their owner, and are named here for the purpose of factual comparison. This page is published by RosterDeck and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in association with Entertainment Partners.