Gabriella, that is a glitch, for sure.

Why $85? I’d inch it up further — $95. It’s closer to what you need to be making, and you’re still a bargain, if you ask me. You concentrate in the legal field, right? Hell, you’re an attorney from what I recall. You should be commanding at least $150 an hour.

It’s never easy to raise rates, particularly with current clients. I’d say if it worries you, switch to per-project rates. A little more work on your end, but a set rate for a client is usually easier on their blood pressure anyway.

Thanks, Lori. That’s a solid plan, but with one glitch particular to my business. I have lots of long-term clients. It’s rare that I add a new client. And when I do, it’s like this: I’m consulting managing editor for a trade magazine for litigators, and say my contact is Sue. Sue manages another magazine at the trade association, this time for estate planning lawyers, and asks me to take it on, too. So I’m getting new business, but not really new clients. Given that, I fear it’ll take forever to up my rates again without just biting the bullet and upping them some amount. I think I just have to bounce to $85 in January and see the pushback I get…. On the other hand, if I’m doing that, maybe I go for broke and go to $100, expecting to be negotiated down to $85 or $90. This is hard!

Hi Gabriella! Great to have you back!

Here’s what I’d do — I ‘d keep the current clients at $75 for now. New clients are charged $100 per hour. Also, I’d start quoting per project and not per hour. People see that hourly rate and suddenly, you’re on the clock.

Once you get more clients paying you at $100/hr., you can raise the rates on the established clients. If you lose them, it won’t hurt so badly as you’ve replaced the income already.

And I doubt your former client realizes her mistake. The people focused on the money will always focus on the money.

Been crazy busy, and I haven’t been able to check into your blog lately. But I got your email with the summary of recent topics and am checking back in. Love the new look!

On this rate thing, man, I wish I could get up to $100 or $150 an hour. I finally–finally!–got all my clients up to $75 an hour. The last remaining holdout, who was paying $50 an hour, I simply told, “Look, I love working with you, but you’re way below every other client’s rate. I need $75. I understand if you can’t do it, but if not, I’ve got to move on. No hard feelings.” The next day, it was approved.

Now, my next task is upping that. Do you recommend I do an incremental increase, like starting in January, I charge $85 an hour, doing that for a year and then moving to $100 the next January? Or do you recommend this January, I jump to $100 without fanfare?

And by the way, I used to have a client who was paying me $55 an hour. I pushed and pushed for an increased rate, and the manager there just kept complaining about budget. The last time I brought it up, she said, “We can raise you to $57.50 per hour.” I took it for that current project we were working on and haven’t accepted a project with her since. Wonder if she realizes she shot herself in the foot by nickel-and-diming me?

Amen, Yuwanda! That problem disappeared when the rate went up.

You’re right — we have to be the first ones to value our own time, or it’s pointless.

I don’t tolerate much from any client — high-paying or low-paying, but I have to say, a problem I don’t see with higher paying clients nearly as much as I see with lower-paying ones is “scope creep.” This will make me drop a client like a hot potato!

You soon learn that if you don’t value your time, no one else will. 🙂

Keep preaching, Jake. It’s a message all freelancers — writers and otherwise — need to tattoo into their being. This line in particular is a memorable one: “….prices aren’t just about what they get paid, but about signalling their value to the market.”

That stinks about the early-eject project!

It was Leon. Man, I miss him.

I agree with you, Paula. That’s a different beast from a blog post, and it requires a good bit more skill and possibly keyword integration. I guess it’s easy for clients to assume it’s the same thing, but I would take far more time on a landing page — where your clients are going to get a first impression of your business — than I would on a blog post on a particular topic.