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i see some indie devs looking for composers so let's talk about how much music really costs! before you decide how many songs your game needs, you should find out how much music costs. it's not $50 per song. not even $50/minute of music. for that, you sacrifice quality
you're also finding someone who doesn't know their worth, bc that track they got paid $50-$150 for has the potential to make you money for years to come. it took them hours of work over days, potentially weeks to make. yet they can barely buy groceries from all that work
the virtual instruments songs are made of - we might be lucky and find some goodies for free or under $100. they're usually hundreds of dollars per instrument tho, and songs require a multitude of instruments unless it's an acoustic track. not even accounting for soft/hardware
music is an expensive ass job to even do. then there's our years of experience and potentially our education as well. all of that, on top of yearly taxes which are doubly expensive for self-employed workers, factors into price. plus the processing fees paypal takes out. lol
taking all of that into consideration, that's why entry level fees for pro musicians are $300/minute of music. if you're a musician and you've been thinking about raising your rates, here's your sign from the universe to do it. you have a valuable skill and bills to pay
my rates are flexible. i charge way more for big companies than i do for indie companies & sole proprietors. if i get royalties, that's another discount. if you don't want a full buyout, just an exclusive license, that's cheaper as well. still not $50/minute of music tho!
for friends or people with skills i need, i do trades as well. i traded a full game soundtrack for a full game script. writers are also severely underpaid in indie game spaces. with an adjusted word count our work came out to be the same price, an equal value trade! woohoo!
so before you decide your game needs a 30 song soundtrack, ask yourself if you can afford it. if you can find someone inexperienced or unconfident charging dust for a solid year of work, ask yourself if they deserve that. & realize you probably need to cut that soundtrack down.
just realized i forgot to mention mixing and mastering, which a composer may also do themselves. that alone is a reason to not undercharge. everytime i get to the mixing stage i'm dead inside, i know lots of people love it but i'm not a fan 
