It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? However, it bears true so often that I’ve come to trust the logic. Higher-end clients<\/em> (meaning those with deeper pockets) will do business more readily with contractors who charge professional rates.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve told this story before, so forgive the repetition.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine once worked for a global corporation. They needed a writer for a one-time project. My friend contacted me and I sent over my rate — $90 an hour. I was so pleased with myself for going higher than the $80 an hour I was charging. That pleasure lasted until she called about ten minutes later.<\/p>\n

“About your rate — you meant to charge $125 an hour, didn’t you?” she said.<\/p>\n

“Huh?”<\/p>\n

“I’m pointing out that you\u00a0meant to charge $125 an hour<\/strong><\/em>, right?”<\/p>\n

“Uh, right?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She told me later that her company was getting all sorts of bids regularly from contractors and they routinely tossed out those bids that were too low. Keep that in mind when you raise your rates.<\/p>\n

And you should raise them. Without knowing what you charge now, I’d bet it’s less than what you should be charging.<\/p>\n

But what\u00a0should<\/strong><\/em> you be charging? That’s the eternal question, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

While what you charge is going to based on all sorts of criteria, let’s\u00a0try to narrow it down for you.<\/p>\n

Your rate should consider the following things:<\/p>\n

\n
• Your time in freelancing<\/strong>: I tend to think this doesn’t weigh as heavily as the expertise you bring to the gig, but it does stand to reason that a new freelancer won’t be charging a $200\/hour consulting fee. Then again, there are exceptions, such as a scientist-turned-writer whose expertise is going to demand that kind of rate.<\/li>\n
• Your expertise<\/strong>: Specialists and generalists alike build expert skills in topic areas, but more importantly, they build business acumen and marketing savvy. Those are soft skills that are worth quite a lot to a client who needs marketing writing, but who doesn’t want to put something out there that’s going to embarrass or ruin the company’s reputation. Those skills are valuable.<\/li>\n
• How long you’ve been at the current rate<\/strong>: This is a big one. If you’re sitting at the same rate for more than a year, you’re undercharging. Guaranteed.<\/li>\n
• Your salary expectations<\/strong>: Honey, this counts a\u00a0lot<\/strong><\/em>. Imagine you as an employee — you wouldn’t work for someone who wasn’t paying what you’d like to be paid, right? You would go for the job paying $80K a year over the one paying $50K a year. Why should freelance writing be any different? What do you want to make annually? That’s the basis for setting your rate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  If you’ve been online\u00a0anywhere\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>you’ve seen writers struggling after four years, seven years, ten years. Why? Because they’re not moving beyond their comfortable rut, most likely. It’s easier to camp out on job sites like Fiverr instead of building a more active marketing approach.<\/p>\n

  But writers need other things, too. They need to build value.<\/p>\n

  That’s our next post. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

  Writer, when was the last time you raised your rate?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>
  \nDo you feel you’re charging the right price? On what criteria are you basing that assertion?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It’s 2023, writer: Do you know where your rate is? If it’s still at the same level it was a few days ago in 2022, you’re cheating yourself. I mentioned this several times over the last year: I spent 2021 undercharging (and overworking) and lost a shit-ton of money as a result. In fact, had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[416],"tags":[434,619],"class_list":["post-8526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-payment-rates","tag-raising-rates","tag-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8526"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8894,"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions\/8894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsonpageblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}