Freelance Writing and Why Rate Isn’t Everything

Here’s a freelance fact that may be somewhat unpopular (though no less true):

[bctt tweet=”Your #freelance career outcomes are more than your hourly rate.” username=”LoriWidmer”]

That’s right. I’m saying that while what you charge matters, it matters equal to what you’re getting out of that client relationship.

Confused yet? Let me explain myself.

Suppose your lowest-paying client funnels monthly projects to you. Let’s say they’re in the agriculture industry. That client pays you, say, $800 for one article, regardless of length, per month. If you’re the type of freelancer I am, you’ve already done the math — 800 times 12 equals $9,600 (and if you’re like me, you pulled up your calculator app to figure that out, but I digress).

Decent change, isn’t it? Not earth-shattering, but decent.

Conventional freelance wisdom, however, has told us for quite a while that we should be looking to replace our lowest-paying client. So if you were following that advice, you’d have replaced that client with one who maybe hired you for four projects a year and maybe paid you $1K per article.  That math is pretty easy. And it’s also telling. By taking the higher-paying stuff that’s less frequent, you’ve lost money.

More importantly, you’ve lost quite a bit more. You’ve lost the expertise of working in one specific area — agriculture — and the ability to sell that upstream to another agriculture client. Plus, you’ve lost some referral juice. And you lose any other special projects that your lowest-paying client may have coming along.

That hypothetical job I mentioned? It’s very similar to one client I have. The client pays me a fair, but admittedly lower per-article rate. The work isn’t tough, so I do it happily. But then there’s the bonus – there are special projects throughout the year. They’re more of the hit-and-miss variety, but they pay more. Because I’ve built a good level of trust with this client, I get the call for these projects when they appear. Last year, I earned $14K from the work this client gave me.

But wait — there’s more.

While working with this client for the last decade+, I’ve landed four referrals that wouldn’t have happened had I focused on the pay alone. That’s led to a long-term relationship with yet another client, and some well-paid gigs that repeat throughout the years.

There are even more side benefits of this one client:

• My name appears in a national magazine every month, seen by the very segment of the population that I market to.
• People know me by name, which makes it that much easier to connect in person at trade shows.
• Those clips are used to secure other client work.
• I’ve received inquiries about my services based on those articles.
• I receive press releases from people who mention they read the latest article. That gives me additional sources and even article pitch ideas.

That’s what you get when you’re working with a stable, albeit lower-paying client. That’s why I think figuring out the time you put into each project isn’t giving you the entire scope of what that job — and that relationship — are doing for your freelance writing career.

However, there are cases where looking at the pay makes sense. If I were offered a gig right now to write for say 35 cents a word, I don’t think I’d even bother responding to the offer. Lower pay has to make financial sense on some level.

There are times when ditching that lowest-paying client makes absolute sense. Here are a few:

• When it’s a content mill or any place that pays on some skewed system that requires a calculator and a calculus degree
• When the pay is half or lower than what you normally charge (and only when you’re charging competitively, not just chucking a number out there)
• When the work isn’t regular enough to justify hanging on to that client at that rate
• When the client does not respect you (no matter how much they pay you)
• When the only thing you’re getting out of the relationship is a check that doesn’t reflect the time you’ve put into the job

Ideally, we set our own rates and clients pay those rates. In practice, we negotiate because clients have budgets. We accept them based on a few things, which include: whether the client is good at communicating (you know that in the first call); whether the work is easy enough/enjoyable enough to warrant your time; whether we think the work will enhance our skills or background in some way that will benefit our careers later.

Sometimes that all comes in the form of your lowest-paying client. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to boost your career.

Writers, what benefits do you get from your lowest-paying client?
When does it make sense for you to stick with that client?
When should freelancers cut ties with low-paying clients?