That title alone probably causes more than a little agita for freelance writers. It still does for me.
In fact, I’d say most freelancers struggle on occasion with what to charge a client. That’s normal.
What isn’t normal is what I’ve seen online when writers ask each other the “What should I charge?” question.
Some of the more interesting responses I’ve seen include:
- Charge what the market will bear
- Charge THIS and nothing less
- Charge low to get the job
- Charge high to prove you’re a professional
Yea, there’s something wrong with each of these. In fact, I saw an exchange online last week that was head-shaking at best, but mostly it was infuriating.
A veteran writer was telling a writer who asked the question this: You charge what you need and if it’s even slightly less, you fire that client.
Huh?
So if I charge $150 an hour but the client can afford just $130 an hour, I should fire them? Couple of things wrong with that.
It’s called negotiation, not a hostile takeover.
The ongoing work and the relationship of trust that’s built out of that negotiation could well be more fruitful than a one-off job at the maximum rate.
Writers, if you’ve been sold this idea that clients must conform to your rate, you’re following the wrong advice, in my opinion.
Those other responses? They’re just as bad.
Charging what “the market will bear” never works. Why? Because it’s not the market that determines what you need to make. There’s a price point for every client. Your job is to appeal to those who match your rate. I know a writer who makes well over $100K annually because her clients pay her rate. I know another writer who makes closer to $30K a year because, you guessed it, her clients pay her rate. And neither one is right or wrong because they’ve chosen what’s right for them.
That’s why the “Charge THIS and nothing else” doesn’t work for everyone. Nor should anyone be telling another business owner how to charge. Think of it this way — McDonald’s sells coffee for 99 cents. Starbucks sells coffee too, but at $3.13 for an Americano.
People buy both.
And charging low to get the job — what have you gotten exactly? You’ve just introduced yourself to people — and a pool of potential clients — as someone who works cheaply. Good luck finding someone who will pay what you really want to be charging.
The same goes for that “charge high to prove you’re a professional” stuff. Yes, you should be charging at your ideal rate and if that’s high, so be it. But charging high just to prove something to yourself or someone else is kind of stupid. Do it because that’s what you want to make.
So how do you get to your ideal rate?
Jenn Mattern published this Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator years ago, and it’s still the best. But be warned — she asks you to state how much you want your annual salary to be.
And a lot of writers don’t know what to put in.
So do the math yourself, then fill out her form. Here’s how I do it:
- Add up the bills from the previous year, then add about 2 percent to it (inflation and rate hikes)
- Factor in the healthcare expenses
- Decide how much in gas/car repairs you may need each month/year
- Remember to include self-employment taxes
- Jot down how much you pay in loan/credit card debt
- Figure in your retirement contributions
- Total it up
- Divide by 12 — that’s your monthly expense
Now that you know what you need to cover, you can now decide exactly how much you need to pay out each month. That’s how much you need to make.
Now you have a bit of an idea what amount will work for you at minimum. But you want more, right? You want to buy some nice things, go on a vacation, have spending money, increase your savings….
How much would you like to have in your pocket each month after all the bills are paid? Got that number?
Good. Head over to Jenn’s calculator and do the rest and calculate your hourly rate.
There. Now you’ve found a rate that fits you and your needs, not fits into someone else’s idea of what you need to be charging.
Writers, how do you handle the hourly rate question?
When rates are discussed online, how do you approach either giving advice or vetting it?
What’s your process for determining what to charge?
I try to give individualized quotes, based on the type of work and my estimation of thinking time, research time, writing time. I don’t like doing hourly — I do it as little as possible, because there’s always pushback. I prefer per project rates. When I’m forced to quote an hourly rate, if I get pusback, by that point, I already know I probably don’t want to work with that client, so it becomes moot.
Again, because locally the automatic response to a quote is “we don’t pay writers anyway, that’s too high” more often than not my response is, “then I’m not the right writer for the project.” The attitude here is that writing isn’t “work” and it should all be done for free. Now, if I was doing web development — they’ll pay up the ying yang for that. But writing? Graphics? Nope. They want it for free, or have their neighbor’s high school kid do it as a project for credit. Here, one is supposed to do writing because it’s a “hobby.” It’s not respected as a profession, unless you’re a NYT best-selling author who has a summer house here.
The remote jobs I do, with companies based in other areas, handle it much more like a business arrangement. Some of them want hourly, or at least an hourly breakdown of what I do in the project, but most companies are comfortable and realize that the per-project rate works better for everyone.
As far as expenses? This year, food has already gone up 35%. My rent just went up 9.5%. Everything else is going up. the 2% increase isn’t going to work next year. I’ll be adjusting my rates and adjusting a bunch of other things to reflect my reality.
Plus, I have some major expenses coming up next year that need to be addressed, and my work life has to be able to cover it.
Devon, you’ve always impressed me with how you budget.
That attitude is so pervasive in areas where the wealth is what I call transient. My son lives in a similar area — rich come in for the weekend and the locals are holding service jobs. You never get a fair wage in that situation.
Where I used to live, getting $30K annually would have been considered pretty decent wages. Here, that wouldn’t pay the taxes for the year. I couldn’t have marketed to the locals in my hometown, but here, the locals aren’t flinching. That cost of living makes such a difference.
Where you are, you shouldn’t have that trouble. Those people aren’t poor. They’re just cheap.
I’m pretty sure I saw the very same exchange, and had a similar reaction. In my opinion – coming from a position of having far more years of freelancing experience than the pontificating “pro” – not only did the start from a misguided one-size-fits-all approach, it was delivered in what came across as a condescending way. Not cool. Not helpful. (I say it came across as condescending, but fully understand that she might not have intended it to sound that way.)
What she was advising has clearly worked for her, but that doesn’t mean they’re universal truths. Each situation is unique.
Yep, you have to mean the same person. I read the same thing — someone who was condescending and trying way too hard to impress everyone with how much she knew. It fell pretty flat.
That’s the thing — what works for you may not for me and vice versa. We have to find our own formula. We can use the same steps to figure it out, but that answer is going to be different with each person.
Long ago, this particular person I’m thinking of, commented in a LinkedIn writer’s group stating she would NEVER work for under 50-cents per word. (Just look at her list of credits and then review their payment terms and you’ll see that in at least one case that’s not true.) I illustrated the stupidity of her statement by giving examples of two of my clients: One I think paid 30-cents a word, but it was fun, quick work. Another paid over $1/word but was a micromanaging nightmare. When I divided the fees by how much time I spent on each one, my hourly rate was much higher with the “lower paying” client. Not. Rocket. Science.
Exactly, Paula. Each job, each client is different. You can’t make blanket statements about what to accept. It’s going to vary based on negotiation, simplicity/complexity of the job, and your will to do it.