MandyReviews 610

I have been a member for 4 years and once every 3 months there's a suitable film crew job, so I pay for a months membership, so I can apply along with another 100+ applicants. Once I did get a job! Mandy need to reduce their prices it feels like such a scam preying on people that are searching for work. There used to be 30% off codes on the net if you searched around that just about made it acceptable if there was a job along with 2 almost suitable jobs you could apply for that month, but they don't seem to exist any more.

I started using Mandy at the beginning of 2019, recommended by a few actors I know. I use it alongside StarNow and Backstage, but to be honest I get more of what I want (speaking roles) from StarNow, which also happens to be the cheapest one to subscribe to (£29 for six months).

Mandy is grossly overpriced at £170 a year, particularly since you can only apply for paid work in your chosen category, e.g. actor, supporting artist, photographer, director, etc. StarNow and Backstage don't prevent you from applying for or putting out a casting call in various different roles, which is how it should be because most of us aren't "just an actor" or "just a producer".

I've paid for a year's subscription, but I'll see how it is at the end of the year in terms of the site's usefulness. But as it is, having kept statistics on the three websites I use, StarNow comes top, followed by Backstage (which currently offers UK people free membership for six months), and lastly Mandy.

Mandy really has to lower its price to something more reasonable, especially since actors are usually earning peanuts to sustain their passion. In fact, why don't they allow actors free or very cheap access, and then just carry on charging the casting directors the full whack?

I have absolutely no problem getting work anywhere else (15 years experience, 10 years in cinema - you can Google my name) so it's not because I'm not cutting the mustard as an applicant. Besides, if Mandy was designed well, it would show a 'reply rate' for people/ orgs posting jobs so you can see which ones actually reply to applicants. It creates a culture of potentially fake ads (created by Mandy's own staff, to make the website look like it's full of well paid exciting gigs which you can only apply for when you subscribe) and I get responses of any kind to about 2% of my applications. I can't believe it's taken me almost 3 years to cancel my membership; I think I just kept thinking it was me not making strong enough applications, but then continuing to get loads of work elsewhere.
Avoid like bubonic plague.
PS. I've raised these concerns with Mandy.com and after 3 years of paid membership, they can't be bothered to even reply to any email I send.
Not even sure if they're legal.

I am yet to truly test this site but am looking forward to the opportunities provided. If what i think is true i am only going to be able to apply for jobs if i join and pay for membership which is deceiving. Lets hope it pays off.!

Back in the day, Mandy used to be an OK free casting site with a few jobs on. Nothing special, but free. Then it bought out Actors Pro and Voices Pro and charged subscribers in the same way as APro and VPro always had done.

It advertises itself as the No1 casting website for UK Actors. It isn't. Spotlight is.

People say it must be a scam. It isn't. It's a simple P2P (pay to play) website. You pay to get access to castings just like you do (and your agent does) on Spotlight and Casting Networks.

It used to feature jobs that paid Equity rates. Now it rarely does. Pay rates are now likely to be closer to those of extras and supporting artistes.

Very occasionally you get some high budget commercial castings on there. They don't reveal who the casting director is, and often omit exact casting dates and filming dates, but you can always find these same jobs already featured on Spotlight or Casting Networks with more information. Such jobs are often for ethnic minorities, specific language skills, or specific physical skills that possibly are harder to find on Spotlight.

I don't think any high paying commercial casting job that I've ever applied for on Mandy or Actors Pro has resulted in my audition even being opened which leads me to suppose that Mandy is kind of just-in-case fallback option, an if-all-else-fails type thing.

In the main, the jobs are low pay ones either posted by students, low budget film producers or cost cutting media companies. They are genuine jobs but mostly serve only to drive performers' rates of pay down and down.

They used to have a really useful feature where they showed you when your audition had been viewed and even at what time of day (so you could even tell if the employer had looked again the same day). The time of day was then removed, but you could still tell if your profile had been viewed AND if your reel had been viewed by that employer. Then it became harder to see if your audition clip/demo had been watched or not. Finally they gave us all the chance to see how many non human bots had viewed our profile in a given time period, as if that was some kind useful tool!

It's not very expensive, and you get a discount if you're already a basic Actors Guild member, but to be frank, it really is pretty much a waste of time becoming a Premium member unless you just want to up your credits or pay some bills, or work for low rates, in which case, fine, but don't expect to hit the big time there.