Work From Home is the new hot trend in the COVID era. After my 20+ years in freelancing over the Internet, you’re all finally catching up to me. Good (at least I think so)! For freelancer content writers who are just starting out, the #1 most common question I see asked is about how to set rates.
I’m going to try to tell you in the clearest possible way how to set your rates as a freelance writer.
How Much To Charge For Freelance Content Writing? (short answer)
The short answer to how much to charge is a simple formula:
- a: Your rate per word
- b: How many words you can write per hour (reasonably)
If A x B = a decent hourly wage for where you live, that’s a reasonable rate to charge. As a basic rule of thumb.
There’s a lot of fudge factors that affect this number, however. The content you will be writing may be faster or slower going due to the need for extensive research. The amount of non-writing effort you have to put into the project (spreadsheets, managing WordPress, communicating with the client’s team, etc.) may take up some time worth billing for too.
If I’m just raw typing on a subject I already know pretty well, I can easily do 500 words per hour. Nitpicky research, needing to format things in HTML, having to provide images, those slow me down to an average of about ~200 wph. By that point, I tend to bill by the hour instead.
There’s one case where all this goes out the window:
What To Charge If You’re New?
God bless you, little grasshopper, for honoring my humble field with your presence! The ideal rate to charge for your first job is “Anything you can get.”
You should still try to get money to live on and not let yourself get totally burned, but yeah, for a complete newb, you have little to recommend yourself over competitors – so you might as well broadcast that you’re fresh meat on the market.
NOTE to content writers: Get a portfolio online! Go to any free content-hosting platform of your choice, and run up some pieces of the kind of topics you want to cover, or that the market demands. Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, anyplace that will let you post a ~800-word blog post and link it for clients to see.
A free service to serve as a temporary portfolio is all you need when you’re starting out. Now you have something to recommend you.
Me, I have this nice cozy domain you’re reading on now. Host Gator, $13/month, it does what I need it to do. I get my own email address on my own domain, and the site runs by my own rules so I’m not beholden to the whims of idiot platform developers. Later on, getting your own domain feels like moving out of your parents’ basement and getting your own pad. Ah, let me just turn up the stereo. Fresh espresso #2 coming up.
True, you won’t find my little blog popping up very high in search ranking. But all I ask is that my site be my electronic business card. If I get one client referral per year off it, then it pays for itself right there.
You can get your own site later in the career though. For newbies, “free” = “best” for a starting writer when it comes to hosting content.
Once you have examples of your writing posted online, and you can verify that it is your writing (spambots steal portfolios all the time on the web), you can at least point your first client to something to show that you’re not a complete time-waster. Beyond that, let them know that you’re just starting out, so they get you for cheap. Assure them that you’re intent on fame and fortune later, so these rates won’t last.
My Example Which Works For Just Me
I’m a resident of the fine Hawkeye State of Iowa, USA. Here, no joke, you can enjoy a middle-class, suburban lifestyle renting 2+ bedrooms in a quiet picket-fence neighborhood for around $700./month. I mean a house, with an enclosed garage and a yard to mow. Compare that to where you live.
I was born and raised in the smoggy, concrete jungles of southern California, so I know that $700/month won’t get you a port-a-john out there. If it is more expensive to live where you are, you have to adjust that to your pseudo-hourly rate. Me, I’m doing fine at (five cents) $0.05/word, which at 500 wph (words per hour) averages $25/hour.
There is no Lambo in my driveway, but for the quiet lives we lead in our household, $25/hour gets you quite far where I am.
As I reiterate continuously here, I also sometimes charge a flat hourly rate regardless of word count, because I do more than just write. That can run $25-$50/hour, and I have gotten range with no sweat. I can dive into WordPress and maintain the PHP if I just gotta, and then there’s my podcast and video work too.
HOWEVER: My rate is always subject to fudge factors!
The rate of $0.05/word is dismissed by some people online as the rock-bottom newbie price. That is sort of true. I am proud to say that I am a hack writer. I’m not in it for the art. I’m in it for the bucks. Cheap, easy, fast work is my staple.
There are three cases where you can get away with a higher rate per word:
- You’re writing in an industry topic that is staggeringly in demand (travel writers light cigars with $100 bills)
- You’re writing something highly technical that takes expertise or research (brain surgeon, rocket scientist, cryptocurrency expert, programming language instructor, etc.)
- You’re writing to a higher quality standard (most content writing = any monkey can write this blog post)
So there are times when I have charged as high as $0.20/ word, and the client was damn glad to have it. However, there’s no way I’m churning out 500/words per hour for Tiffany polished writing. I’m running drafts and editing, polishing it up. This is getting beyond content writing and into creative writing.
Most content writing is for a marketing purpose – eCommerce. Either the client has a website where they’re selling products, or they make money with affiliate links and ads. The content is there to attract Google searchers and whomever clicks through on Facebook. You don’t need to be Shakespeare here. What you do need is a solid work ethic and the sense to view content writing as a blue-collar job. Have the self-discipline to be at your keyboard at 8AM with your coffee ready to go.
And now for the big, complicated section:
Fudge Factors in Setting a Freelance Content Writer Rate
This list could be infinite, but I’ll try to focus on the most salient points.
The following can be just cause for you to adjust your writing rates lower:
- STEADY WORK FLOW – This is the big one. 500/wph doesn’t mean beans if you’re lucky to see that once a day. You want volume, preferably as fast as you can work. It is WELL worth providing a discount for high volume (dropping to ~$0.04/w.).
- Quality level – As I mentioned above, lots of content writing is just sloppy Google fodder. For the most part, if you use decent grammar and can sound coherent, you’re good to go.
- Repeat business – Like steady workflow, repeat business is worth a lot. Repeat clients are clients you didn’t have to hunt the ends of the Earth for. Reward your regulars!
- Editorial flexibility – Basically, how much scrutiny will be applied to this work, how many edits will it need, how complicated are the requirements? Usually raises the rate due to work quality or topic, but an “anything goes” environment calls for a discount.
- Topic – I always have concurrent, multiple clients, and reserve one client slot for a favorite pet topic. I will practically review horror movies for chicken feed, but you’re getting my premium hourly rate for writing about tax law.
- Exposure. Do NOT work only for exposure, unless maybe a couple times when you are starting out your career. But after you’re already making money, exposure on top of that is gold. By exposure, you build your own marketing. When you get a new client referred by your profile on content you wrote previously, that’s gold in the pan right there.
- Job security – Tied to work flow and repeat business. Generally, you want at least a few clients with an established business model where you see they have a profit coming in.
- Experience – Breaking into a new market is an important career move. When the cannabis legalization wave started, I knocked a penny off my base rates just to get my foot in the door on this growing multi-billion-dollar industry.
- Perks – One time my movie review got quoted on an indie film poster. That was fun! Some clients generously send me books for research or products to review. It’s rare, but sometimes a gig is extra-sweet. Happy gigs let you work longer without burning out.
Here’s a few reasons why I might charge a higher rate:
- deadlines – rushing a project to me and needing it done in 48 hours? That’s going to cost you!
- short projects – I need long-term clients to live. My longest-standing clients run to five or more years. If you have a one-shot project, it better have a juicy reward before I’m going to be interested.
- specialized jobs – because where else are you going to find an expert in this field who can also write and understands SEO?
- ghostwriting – I’ve done it as cheap as $0.10/word, and that was a special favor. I’m an Internet attention whore who wants to brag about my brilliant copy, OK? So I hate writing under a “house brand,” but a fat check does help to offset my disfavor.
Sometimes all the above factors come into play. My cannabis writing gig has turned into much more than content writing. I’m staff editor there. It’s a top website commanding a huge chunk of Google search within the cannabis industry topic. I’m quoted by top-billed news sources and recognized as an industry expert. I get headhunters in my email trying to poach me sometimes, but I also know as long as legal cannabis products are available in America, I have a job in an industry valued at $26 billion and growing every year.
At the bottom line, if I can get infinite work flow from a client, that knocks a penny per word off the price to $0.04/word right there. If I get my famous name in lights on a big marquee, or I’m writing about a top passion, that may knock it down too. Sometimes a plus and a minus balance out.
Caveat: These days I mostly charge by the hour, or by the project. That is because I have branched out far beyond a content writer! Currently I offer:
- Website management
- Editing
- Virtual assistant
- Team leadership
- Social media promotion
- SEO consultancy
- Light multimedia content support
- Light coding / developer skills
In offering from the above services, word-count means less. In that case, I still keep my rates close to $25-$50/hour and charge or bill or invoice whatever likewise. My actual advertised rate on places like UpWork is $30/hour, which I may then deduct from based on how sweet the gig is, or amend higher if that’s called for.
But again, livin’ cheap does give me a small advantage, which I don’t mind exploiting. The median household income in the USA is $68K as of 2019. $25/hour at 40 hours per week gets you ~$52K per year right there, and I’m honestly not limiting myself to 40 hours per week. I tend to pull 50 per week and reserve one day per week off.
SO: Some of the above may apply to you. But most likely, beginning content writers are probably at a market value of $0.03/word. You might need $0.08/word to afford to do this full-time, or be in a niche where you don’t get out of bed for less than $0.15/word. I have heard of the lordly sum of one whole dollar, $1.00/w., probably travel writing or branching offline into print media.
But bear in mind, this is a “work from home” economy! If the freelance content writing lifestyle seems a bit Bohemian, this career is also a low demand on resources. You’re not spending a tank of gas on your work commute, you save money eating at home instead of buying bags of McHeartAttack burgers every day for lunch, you don’t need a suit and tie pressed fresh every Monday, you don’t need degrees you have to pay off in student loan debt, etc.
EDIT 09/05/2021: Another POV.
You’re not going to believe this, but the present post was long-published before I stumbled upon this excellent Reddit take: “I know we never recommend freelance writing rates, I’m going to do it anyway (warning: mathematics, dead ahead!)”
Freelance Content Writing is a Business Like Any Other
I’d like to close with a word about professionalism. You are in business for yourself, so treat yourself like a business! It is perfectly fine to deflect a low offer by saying “I can’t afford to work at that rate.”
There are thousands of despicable spamlords out there who try to exploit the freelance world like their own personal sweatshop. Weeding out bad clients is an important skill honed over years of experience. You have no union, government, or corporate infrastructure looking out for you; it’s you and your six-shooter against the Wild West.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate! This is one of those skills that people underestimate when they break into freelancing. In the work-a-day world, you get a wage or salary and that’s usually it. But you are in a profession. You don’t have bosses, you have clients! Set the corporate policy for “You, Inc.,” hold a one-person meeting to discuss profits if you have to.
Start with an estimate; if the client accepts it without blinking, raise your estimate rates for the next client. If they balk, offer to shave the price down based on work factors: can they assure continued work? Glowing reviews? Top billing? Perhaps they will accept a lower volume for the same wage, so you can free up hours for more lucrative clients?
Being in business for yourself takes a rare breed, something people don’t account for when they look at the plain duties of their task. Think of it like a business, and set your rates so that you can stay in business!
