The Confident Copywriter

Posts Tagged ‘freelance writing. freelance writing rates’

When talking about freelance writing rates, knowing what you’re worth is important.

How can you determine your worth?

There are many factors. For this discussion, ‘worth’ relates to setting freelance writing rates, not what you might be worth in the corporate sector. Additionally, ‘worth’ can be subjective.

Factors that might affect worth include experience, expertise, skill, subject knowledge, and education (to a degree, and only for some projects). Additionally, a basic (or advanced) understanding of keyword usage, Internet marketing, organic search, the structure of various types of content (i.e., website copy vs. articles) is worth more overall to the customer. Customers, especially higher quality customers, want a writer who ‘gets it’. Additional skills bring value.

Value increases worth. Your rates go up. Simple, right?

Herein lies the rub. A freelance writer with an MBA, or even an English degree, might be ‘worth’ more in terms of education, expertise, etc. Depending on the customer’s needs, this person may be able to charge more. Of course, we know an MBA alone doesn’t make a great copywriter…but perception is reality for some customers.

Most of us don’t have MBAs. Most of us turned to freelance writing for myriad reasons, learning the craft over the years. So…that brings us back to the original question.

Fortunately, the typical customer doesn’t care about degrees. They want results. As Dan Kennedy once said, “It’s all about results. Not opinions. The only votes that count are accompanied by money.”

A common way to set rates is to research other copywriters’ rates and figure an average. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s a starting point.

I can tell you, for example, that the typical freelance writer gets paid $8 to $15 for a 500 word article. (Refer to previous post for reasons why.)

Ask yourself how badly you need or want the work. $8 an article is not great. But if you’re fairly new and need the experience, a new client, and some samples for your portfolio, it’s not a bad gig. If you can write an article in 30 minutes, (you better learn how very quickly) you’re making $16 an hour…from home.

To improve your rates over time, you’ll need experience and expertise. This means you can’t give up! Additionally, you may want to specialize in one area. You’ll also want to educate yourself. The more you know about how to write in such a way that the client gets results, the more you’ll be worth.