Why My Writing Agency Increased Our Prices By 137% This Year (& Succeeded)

Back in 2011, I founded a writing agency that had a core fundamental:

Delivering quality content.

Good writing; the type of content any business would be proud to publish and call their own.

This was the mission and passion behind creation; and through the first rocky year, I stuck to this mission no matter what—even if it meant hiring and firing literally hundreds in the first months to find my high quality writers. 

(My writing passion came from a young age. I started writing books when I was 12, and taught myself freelance writing while 19 years old in medical school to get out of the “rat race” I found myself in. I founded Express Writers with $100 in one hand and a how-to-code-your-website-for-dummies book in the other. Today, I am getting ready to publish my first book in a few months on Amazon, running a company I absolutely love, training my team and perfecting our systems. (If you feel like reading my whole background story, head on over to my post at Medium.) )

So, that said...

What Kind of Content Garners A Raise? 

You know how 10x content is the phrase going around the web today to describe quality content, the kind that brands should strive to publish?

This is the kind of content that describes being 10x better than the rest: and this is the only kind of content you should be publishing, if you want to see real results. If this content is what you’re delivering on, you can certainly ask for a raise. 

And this is the type of content I’ve worked hard to produce at Express Writers. My team and I go through hundreds to possibly over a thousand writer applications in these four years of business of hiring writers, perfecting their trade, and marketing a team that delivers on good content. We have social media strategists. Content strategists. Brand slogan creators. And more. And we’ve never stopped learning and growing together.

Our Pricing Increase Story: 137% Success

For this narrative, I’m going to focus on our product called Industry Writing, also known as expert copywriting. This is what we call the writing that takes an industry-familiar copywriter, not just any writer. Someone who knows your industry and is a talented writer. Double whammy there.

At the beginning of this year, 2015, I launched our brand-new, just built e-commerce Content Shop.

So, if you’re a legal firm specializing in family law, we’ll find or direct a matching legal writer in our team to create your copy per your specs. (Technical copy has really been the nemesis. Talk about hours of management. We’ve managed to procure awesome tech writers, but they have been really, really hard to keep. Geniuses who don’t want to be boxed—that’s the impression I’ve gotten of tech writers.)

So, focusing on our industry writing, our prices were sitting around $40/page of expert, or industry writing. 

Along with lots of other content products and prices, I realized that this product needed to be priced a lot higher, so we could pay a lot better—and in turn, service our clients on a higher standard of quality that matched today’s era of good content.

We were balancing too much work, and paying our writers too low. It just didn't equate.

It felt a little like this:

Or this:

It just had to happen. I just had to pay my writers better. That was my motivation—and my reason of going cold turkey on over a hundred percent increase and not looking back.

June 2015. Our prices went up 137.5% when we re-launched with a new White Label program and a $95 cover rate per page of expert industry copywriting. 

What happened?

Immediately—pushback. A week or two where it burned. Staff got paid maybe a little more than I did. To date, client loss: about 5 clients worth under $300 a month. One client was worth $40 a month. (That’s probably not even worth the time our salaried staff was putting in, so I did myself a favor there.) Client gain: since June, nearly a hundred brand new clients on our new pricing structure.

So, it worked: we’re survivors.

In a few weeks—make that a month’s—time: we were successful. Getting enough traction and landing new client accounts. (And we actually kept a few hesitant clients who paid the doubled rates along the way.)

Did I have second thoughts this year on my price raise? I won’t pretend to be a fearless ninja: there were many times I almost didn’t hit that publish button on our new site and price increases. In the hard few weeks after during the pushback, I was tempted to undo the changes. But I didn’t, and I had great support from my team along the way—and very soon, we turned a 180 and found clients who valued and loved our work and didn’t think the price was too much for the value we were providing. 

And, finally, I launched a writer pay increase, team-wide—my favorite part of this whole pricing increase change. 

Five Big Reasons Copywriting Prices Need to Increase (And Not Just Mine)

1. It takes a LOT of work now to write content that matches up to the 10x content standard.

A good writer knows what I’m talking about when I say that. Hours to days to weeks—it might take that to fulfill on a few blog orders for an industry order. Real blogs, the type that rank in Google.

I’m talking 2,500 words; the audience was researched on and written for; tools like BuzzSumo, SEMrush are brought in; keyword researched & optimized (but not too heavily); and written by the perfect writer-fit for that client. This is stuff you can’t churn out. Which leads me to my second point. 

2. We are no longer in the “article days” and content should never be churned out. 

Remember the old Ezine article craze? Bleh. Back in 2011, when I started this gig of online content writing, I had clients ordering 10-50 articles for Ezine. (I still have stuff that sits on Ezine today. I like to look back and read it to inspire myself to keep growing.)

Well, I can tell you not a single client out of our hundreds are ordering an Ezine article today.

Raise your prices, writers, and spend more time on your creation; your client will see the benefit when his content starts ranking and bringing in real engagement. Stop churning, start thinking and creating. And charge for it. This leads me to:

3. Don’t settle for less. 

You need the money now.

We’ve all been at that point, as self-startups, marketers, or copywriters; haven’t we? At some point, the coming rent check is due and you need money fast if you don’t have it on hand. Go to a friend, or stay at your mom’s: just don’t, don’t settle for a lesser writing paycheck that day or week in order to get fast money. You’ll bring down a reputation you were starting to build and let clients know you can take “cheap gigs.” No matter how tempting: don’t settle for the cheap client. Find a way to learn, grow, and never charge under for your time and worth.

4. It’s harder than ever to find good writers. 

I have a full time salaried staff member, Alecs, who helps with our hiring now. I used to do it, and it stopped me from building my company, so I had to delegate properly. Alecs tells me it takes her double the time this year to go through writing applications (which we most commonly get on Indeed). She’ll sift through dozens to find one person for just one hiring need. We have a lengthy testing process that each candidate undergoes, so even if their application matches the job need, they might not pass or even take the trouble to pass the test. It’s pretty hard to find good writers. (I still build our tests and refine all our training processes.)

So don’t think you’re in too much competition to charge what you’re worth. This leads me to my last point. 

5. In the world of online content marketing, quality is in demand—and that trumps price. 

I can’t tell you how surprised I was when things started turning around after our price increase. “It’s not your prices I’m concerned about” was something we consistently heard from new leads—and I was honestly shocked. I know, call me na?ve; you’ve probably already known this for a while. Really, people are looking for quality in their content and online marketing overall; and content marketers need not fear to charge for their time, worth, and effort. 

So, In Conclusion…

My price increase is just one of what will probably be more to come, as we continue to hire better, pay better, service better, and grow. 

I can’t convey how frustrated I get seeing so many writers who are still settling for the lesser, fast paycheck online.

They don’t know what’s within their reach if they work hard to fine tune, perfect, add some tools to their database, and sell their services like the “10x content writers” they are. 

So, here’s to inspiration…and being worth our salt and charging for it as online copywriters in 2015 and beyond.