How Much Should Freelance Writers Charge?
October 3, 2007 by Anne Wayman
Filed under Jobs
Setting rates is always a challenge. wordpreneur.com has an interesting approach. Blogger Eldon Sarte calls it a Profit Goal approach. To make his forumula work, you’ve got to know some things:
- Your net goal for the year
- The numbers of hours you’ll work for the year
- Your weekly overhead
It’s simple to go from this information to an hourly rate, as you’ll see.
How do you determine your hourly rate? Tell us about it.
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>>How Much Should Freelance Writers Charge?
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I charge what I think is a perfectly reasonable rate based on the amount of time it will take me to get the work done. I apply for a few jobs on Craigslist and it’s when it comes to discussing rates that the emails grind to a halt. I’m not about to start writing articles for $5 as Id like to live above the poverty line.
There’s still a great disparity between what hard working writers deserve and what some clients are prepared to pay, so I’m just going to continue looking for the sensible clients and leave the junk market alone.
Yeah, Matt – lots of potential clients haven’t a clue… and it only makes sense to move on.
The sad thing is many writers will work for $5 an article. It’s the reason many people have an unrealistic understanding of how much a good writer costs.
Shari, I simply refuse to worry about what other people charge… it’s interesting, but it isn’t relevant to the way I bill.
Fascinating issue. My professional development group will be having a panel discussion on pricing in November. It’s critical to know what a competitive rate is, and I mean competitive with other successful writers who are earning a good living. One thing I’m finding is that as I gain experience (more than 23 years so far), my hourly rate has to go up in order to keep pace with flat rates. For instance, if a corporate news release costs at least $500, but I can complete it in one hour, you can see what my hourly rate should be. But sometimes you land a contract in which it’s easiest to turn the meter on and do all the writing you’re asked to. If it’s a good client with lots of steady work, I am happy to give the benefit of my skill without squeezing out every last hundred dollars. In the Greater Toronto Area, hourly rates go from as low as $13 to $150. You have to decide which end of the scale you want to work in. I once had a corporate client tell me that at $75, my rate was way too low for them. Instead of paying me more, they didn’t even take me on. They thought I didn’t have the credibility to do the work, if I wasn’t charging enough. Writers everywhere: raise your rates!
Gloria, I really don’t believe in competition… not in the sense that if you get the job I’ve lost… there is plenty of work out there for all of us… rates accepted seem to me to be more a function of how the writer views herself than any average… the organization that said you weren’t charging enough is exactly the sort of thing I mean.
Gloria, I want you to tell the rest of the freelancing world about your experience of charging too little!
Honestly, I charge what I think the market will bear, and more importantly what I can afford to do it for. I’m $100/hr. and I’ve long-ago stopped apologizing for it. I don’t see any competition at all, as we are all in it together in some respects.
Freelance Switch has what looks like a pretty good toll for figuring rates at http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/. Anybody tried it to see how it matches up with your actual rates?
Hourly rates are funny. What one person can do in 2 hours may take another 10. If you pay the first person $100/hr and the second $35/hr, well you see what I mean.
Jim, one reason I tend to like flat fees is I don’t get penalized (paid less) for the easy parts… of course, I can lose on the difficult parts, but flat fees seem to work best for me.