How Do Freelancers Charge For Writing?

“What are your rates” is often one of the first questions that prospects ask me in a typical sales process.

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I get asked so often, in fact, that I have put together a ballpark estimates page to save prospects time and avoid conversations where expectations are misaligned.

Although I find setting an initial yardstick helpful, ultimately the definitive answer to: “how much will X cost” is usually (and unfortunately for clients in a rush) some version of “it depends upon the job."

Or more accurately: “please send me a brief and I will send you back a quote.” 

In other words, pricing by quotation or ‘on spec’ (short for ‘on specification’ and not to be confused with writing ‘on spec’ — which means something very different!)

Although it’s the standard response for much of the industry (content and SEO mills excepted), there’s a good reason why this is so.

You may feel that my go-to response, or those of some other service providers you may have received, are really veiled code for “it depends how much I can get out of you. Let me have a think about that and ask around.” But really, it isn't. So, in the interest of being transparent about this important aspect of business, let me explain the rationale behind this — and many freelance writers' — pricing methodologies.

Hourly Pricing Wrapped Into A Fixed Rate (Usually) Satisfies Both Sides

I wrote a Medium piece a few months ago entitled ‘Freelance Writing Pricing: Per Word, Per Hour, or Per Project? And How Much of Each?’

Its intended readership is freelance writers. But — unlike most of my bylined writing — I link to it from within my portfolio. I do this because I feel it might be instructive to clients who wonder how writers come up with a figure for their services (hint: they’re not pulled out of thin air).

There are three main strategies to charge for writing work: per hour, per word, and per project. I discuss the pros and cons of each in detail in the blog and the pros and cons are summarized in the chart I put together below:

My preferred model is quoting project rates based off of an hourly fee — and that hourly is a rate that, in turn, I have figured out according to a fairly precise methodology.

Personally, I think that pricing hourly is the fairest model for both sides.

Experienced writers have to forgo the ability to bill well for work they can turn around quickly. But clients are protected from feeling that they might be getting taken advantage of. Writers, in turn, are protected from scope creep (once the scope and terms and conditions are defined, that is). And clients get a fixed line item to slot into their marketing budget. It’s as close to a win-win as I’m able to come up with at the moment.

The only catch about the rolling-an-hourly-into-a-project-rate methodology is this:

Predicting Time Expenditure Requires Knowing Some Variables

Unfortunately for those that need instantaneous responses, for many writers (including this one) predicting how long it’s going to take to write, say, a 1,000 word blog isn’t necessarily that straightforward. At least not off the bat for a new account.

But by finding out the answers to a few variables I can do a pretty good job at the estimating process and get you back a quote that is going to allow me to deliver work according to my service level agreement (SLA) (I’ll cover that in another post).

Some of these variables are:

What’s The Subject Matter?

Although my focus is on B2B technology, there are some niches that I am more well-versed in than others.

Those include, among others:

• Backup and disaster recovery
• Cloud computing
• Linux and open source
• IoT

I’m always open to developing exciting new niches within technology — it’s part of what allows me to keep growing. But, if you’re company is operating within a niche within a niche within a niche (and it’s a complicated one too), then it’s going to take me a little bit more time to do the necessary background reading in order to get up to speed about you and your industry.

To do a thorough job at communicating your unique value proposition (USP) I, and most thought leadership writers, need to understand quite a few things about your business:

• What is unique about your product or service?
• Who are your competitors?
• What are they talking about?
• What are the general conversations that are shaping your industry right now?

It's also helpful to know a little bit more about you and your communication objectives:

• What’s the messaging that you need to hit on in this piece?
• Is there controlled industry terminology that you need to avoid or would like to include?
• Are there SEO keywords that need to be included?
• What’s the take home message of this piece?
• What’s your brand voice? What’s yours?
• Have you read something impressive that you’d like to emulate — and better?

How Much Detail Can You Provide?

A well fleshed-out brief is the foundation of a good writing project — whether it’s delivered in person, through a form (if you need inspiration – see my form here) or over a Zoom call.

Agencies — who are the undisputed experts in the business of juggling multiple clients and contractors — tend to have sending writers’ briefs down to a finely honed art form.

However, if this is your first time hiring a writer then you might need to lean on the writer’s prior experience a bit more during the information transmission process. The final quote just might cost a little bit more as a result.

How Is The Scope Controlled?

I offer a standard two rounds of revision SLA for each writing project that I undertake. This allows me to keep the extent of the time expenditure which I can include in a quote within reason. Some clients find this restrictive; and other writers offer unlimited rewrites and hope that clients keep their requests within reason.

If it’s a piece of thought leadership that you're confident is going to need to work its way through two or three rungs of the organizational chart, I’m happy to put together a quote that includes three or four rounds of revisions. But again, this will influence the quote offered.

Other ‘extras’ that need to be accounted for in a thorough quoting job include:

• Status and review calls, if required;
• Subject matter expert (SME) interviews, if required;
• Tim spend viewing and analyzing background material sent, such as conference panel recordings or the thought leader’s prior media appearances

A Sample Quote

Let’s consider the following scenario. I offer it partially to demonstrate how I would quote a real job and partially — for posterity — to explain why asking writers to write blog posts for $100 is, in the vast majority of circumstances, completely untenable from their end.

A new client needs a 1,000 word blog post about how to secure serverless architecture in the ?? cloud ?? (forgive me — I discovered emojis belatedly).

To produce this piece, on a complicated and cutting-edge topic, they want the writer to watch an hour long panel from a cybersecurity conference involving their Chief Cloud Architect and another cloud professional. The client has a rigorous internal workflow that they insist on the writing adhering to.

If my target hourly rate here were $60/hour and the client insisted that they would require two rounds of revisions the internal quote template I might follow could go something like this:

In Conclusion

Quoting based on the requirements of the job is necessary for many writers to figure out how long it’s going to take to work on a given project — and to quote a figure that will include all the stages and milestones along the way from initiation through to completion.

If you received a quote for a blog post that was for more than $500 — and you were baffled at how a piece of writing could cost "that much" — then I hope the above has gone at least a little way towards demonstrating that, in many circumstances, writers simply need to charge that in order to make the process of producing well-researched writing viable for them.

For any writers reading this: I have found that employing the above methodology leads to robust and consistent quoting that can be templated and scripted. And clients, when writers know that they’re being fairly compensated for their time, they can do their best possible work for you.

Insufficient budgets, on the other hand, often lead to predictably poor outcomes — and writers who are forced to cut corners in attempt to preserve a viable hourly that makes their business work. That kind of situation usually benefits neither party.

Interested in learning more about how thought leadership can help your organization? Book a time for an introductory 15 minute meeting.