The Confident Copywriter

One of the most angst-ridden issues in freelance copywriting surrounds pricing; specifically, “How much should I charge?”, “Should I bill hourly or by flat fee?” and, of course, “What’s everyone else charging?”

Many ebooks and reports have been written on the topic. Some are flat out ridiculous, stating project fees we only wish we could get. That’s not to say some copywriters aren’t pulling down these figures. They are the rare ones, though, and that is not going to help the rest of us who are looking for honest, realistic pricing that suits the typical, average client. Other pricing guides list fees by category; mostly by project type: so much for an 8 page sales letter, so much for a 5 page website, etc. This can be confusing when you’ve got a project with multiple parts that doesn’t fit into one of those categories.

Truthfully…I don’t think you really care what your nearest competitor is making, or what some big guru says he’s making, aside from the sheer gossip value of this information. We each live in our own worlds, and what we do in our businesses, in our own geographic locations, using the resources at our disposal, is all that really matters.

Therefore, the most important question of all pricing questions has to be, “What should I charge?” And the answers will be as varied as snowflakes.

Unfortunately, peering thru rose-colored glasses to uncover the pricing strategies of others doesn’t work very well. There are just too many variables to make consulting a chart worthwhile.(Except that maybe the chart can wake you up to the fact that your pricing is way too low. If that happens, it was worth looking at.)

What’s a confused freelancer to do? Consult the magical FreelanceSwitch calculator.

This truly cool tool combines a variety of common financial information, such as your business costs, your personal costs and your billable hours and, in seconds, spits out a guesstimate on how much you need to make hourly to support yourself, or just break even, in the copywriting business.

To begin, you must have a basic idea of your costs, or be able to estimate closely, so that the final result will be as accurate as possible.

Read each question carefully…for example, if it asks for a percentage, don’t type in a whole number. (Watch Step 3- typing in a whole number can completely skew your results).

Step 4 asks you to determine the profits you’d like to achieve. Now there’s a question you don’t hear too much in the copywriting world! Most of us are so busy trying to collect payment for work completed, find new work, and squeeze in some marketing, we’re just happy to get paid, let alone make a profit. Of course, without profits, there is no business.
If you’re working as a copywriter now, or thinking about jumping out the 10th floor office window the next time your boss calls you ‘hon’, this tool can tell you right away if you can match or exceed what you need to live and profit. How great is that?

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