Top 3 Pricing Mistakes Freelance Writers Must Avoid
Pricing is one of the biggest issues I see freelance writers struggle with, but it doesn't have to be that way! We're going over the three most common pricing mistakes freelance writers make when trying to quote projects, work with clients, get paid what the work is worth, and make a good income in their business. If you haven't gotten my free pricing guide, snag it below!
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So let's see if this works. Okay. We're trying again, we're see if this is going to work and go live and checking to make sure that it's actually working.
So let's see if it's actually working on this side. I know it was working yesterday. I see a live signal. Okay, cool. Okay.
Okay. It seems like it's working. Yay. Okay. So everybody should be able to see this now, hopefully there's a little bit of a delay. I got a little bit of tech issue, but we did it. Okay. So now you guys know one of my major flaws, one of maybe two clauses. Sometimes I get stopped up by technology, but hopefully now it's working and we can, you know, get along with her thing here. So I'm Andy Ellis. I'm here today to do a live stream with you guys to talk about the top three pricing mistakes that freelance writers typically make. And they're a little bit counterintuitive. So, u,know that a lot of times freelance writers try to think about their pricing in certain ways, and they try to guess what other people are doing, but I'm going to walk you through three of my top mistakes that freelance writers are making and Oh, and I've got some, some people, so I've got Casey, hopefully you guys can see the comments.
So I've got Casey and I've got Amber. So thank you guys for showing up that you guys are coming on live. So that's pretty cool. So I'm going to just wait a little bit for people to hop on, but I'm going to walk you guys through a little bit of what I'm thinking here. So I'm going to drop you know, basically some knowledge bombs on you guys. So these live streams that'll be every week. I'm going to give you guys kind of just quick bite tips. So it'll be little things that you can do in feelings, writing that can build your business, help your mindset, help your mental health help your marketing, and then just help you basically as a writer in this industry. So that's kind of the feeling, and then I'm hoping that we can do Q and a. So if you guys have questions or if you guys have things that pop up while I'm talking, you guys can put them in the chat and then I can answer them.
Or if something pops up, you know, I'll, I'll go back through the chat after I kind of give you guys the quick tip and, you know, answer your questions. Oh. And Amber says, my setup looks awesome. Yay. I did some edits. I did some edits to the setup. So it looks a little bit different, but yeah, I was hoping it'd be a little more personality. So I'm just going to hop on and give you guys the three tips. So the three tips are number three, we're going to start at number three. So the, the thing that I've noticed a lot of freelance writers do is that they don't actually get feedback on their pricing. They end up doing this pricing in the dark thing. They don't ask other freelance writers what they think they don't run the project by them. They're not asking other people who may be more seasoned than them.
What they think about that project price. There can be just shooting in the dark, right there. Just kind of stabbing in the dark, hoping that it works. They're kind of hoping that that ends up being a thing that like, they're like, Oh, well I hope the prospect says yes. And I think that's a really big mistake. One of the things that has really helped me in my freelance writing career has just been to ask other freelance writers, like what they think, what do you think about this project? Do you think it's a fit for me? What do you think about the pricing? Do you think it's, you know, and give them the project scope project scope is like the white paper is this many pages or this many words, I have to find images. I have to do SEO, or I have to do interviews or, you know, you have to give them the whole piece.
And then you get that feedback when you're starting out or you're kind of going at it alone. You don't really try to get that feedback. And it's just ending up in undercharging for your work, not understanding how to get better, not understanding really a lot of different pieces that go into pricing your work. So number two, or this kind of leads me to number two, you don't have a price floor. This is something I'm trying to teach more freelance writers because I feel like there's a lot of times I get on coaching calls with people and they're like, Oh yeah, they negotiated me down. Hundreds of dollars. No, no, that should not happen. First of all, like I don't negotiate on the phone because that will happen to me. Like that will happen to me. And it has, so I don't negotiate on the phone anymore.
And then when you're, when you don't have price floor, you basically have no idea where your elevator is. So if you say I want $400 for this article and they say, they'll give you 200. Well, then you end up yeah. Lowering your price by $200. Cause you didn't stick to your price for a 400 bucks when you have a price for you're like, I'm not going below this price because I know my work is worth this amount. I know I actually need to my bills. I actually need to do something that, you know, make some money for my family. And it also gives you a sense of pride and confidence. I've noticed that when you have a price for that confidence really shows through and you're like, no, I'm sorry that doesn't work for me. And building confidence is really important as a freelance writer because that's kind of how you make more money.
If you're not confident, if you're kind of waffling around, if you kind of take whatever comes your way, then you end up building a business that you hate, which I did too. And you don't really actually get the clients and the project that's projects that you really want. You have to have that price floor so that you know that you, you have that price floor so that you know that you're not going to go below it. You know, that that's how much you need to make to basically pay your bills and pay for kibbles. And it's allowing you to kind of give you that peace to say, like, I'm only working with clients who see value in my work at this price. It doesn't mean that you're overcharging clients. It doesn't mean that sometimes when you get a really juicy client, you don't go, you know, try to figure out how you can work at if they're really close to your price floor.
So sometimes you know, a client that you really want to work with. Like, you're just like, man, that's like my bottom barrel price. Dang. And you just are like, okay, well, do I want to take a cut on price? Or do I want to stick to my price for sometimes that's a thing you have to decide, but I always like the price floor because it's, it's, it's giving you a barrier. It's giving you basically a barrier to entry for quality clients who actually want to work with you at the fees that you charge and that confidence piece, man, that makes a huge difference. That's like what you charge, what your work is worth, what value you're giving the client. That makes a huge difference. And so that leads me to number one. So I hope this has been helpful so far. If you feel like it's been helpful so far before I roll into number one, mlick the like button below or make sure you hit subscribe.
So number one, number one is that you didn't ask about the scope of the project and therefore you undercharge. I get a ton of people like even seasoned people where I'm like, what's the word count? When is it due? Are you doing SEO terms? Are you finding images? Is it what's the project type? How long is it? Like how long is the project? Is it one month, three months, six months. Is it one white paper? Is it a collection? Is it ongoing work? I mean, there's a lot of questions that people just don't answer and guess what, what they had that leads them to undercharge that leads them to undercharge is a big, big mistake. If I know everything, every little detail of that project, I know exactly how much it costs like right. I, hi Charlotte. Um, now exactly that's my foot.
I know exactly like what that project is. I know the word count if I know exactly like who that audience is, how much value is providing the client. If I know the scope like that gives me so much information to price. If I'm rolling in saying like, Oh yeah, they said they want some blog posts, those blog posts, or I don't know, I'm guessing there are 500 to a thousand words. And I don't know if I have to find SEO and well, I don't know if I have to do images or linking or do like 800 revisions. Like you have to know that stuff upfront. You guys end up. Sorry, not you guys. So I've seen a lot of freelance writers that I coach and that I talk to and I work with on the freelance writers den, who just come in and they end up just not knowing the scope of the project.
Literally your best option is to ask all your questions upfront, get on the call with them, ask them everything. It's not just about getting the work it's about fit. And it's about learning the scope of the project, having that entire scope, like where they're going, what they're thinking. And you know what, sometimes we have to do the heavy lifting. Sometimes we end up getting on those client calls and they're like, Oh yeah, we have no content brief. We have no plan. Like, I don't know. Maybe it's due next week. Those are red flags already. So we'll talk about that in another live stream. But if you start hearing these red flags and they can't really give you a scope that affects your pricing and then that caused you to undercharge. So asking these questions is, is kind of a twofold thing. And not only helps you charge what the work is worth, but it helps you figure out if that client's actually a fit and has her together.
Right. So if they don't have their together and then you try to work with them, then you're like, why isn't this project working? Like, maybe I'm not a fit. Maybe this isn't really a thing that's going to work out for me. And it's like, no, it's the client. It's the client. So get on the phone, ask them about scope. What's the word count? Well, the first question I want you guys to ask is tell me about your project and your plan. Very first question. Tell me about your project in your plan. What are the deadlines? Is it bylined or ghostwritten uwhat are you thinking in terms of each post or each white paper or whatever they've said in their project and plan? What's the word count? What are you thinking in terms of images, SEO,uwhat are you thinking in terms of extras?
Is there anything that comes across that you think might be a bonus or might be something where you know, they, you could add extra value for them and then you want to ask them like, well, what do you plan to do with this content? Will it live on your website? Will it be something you send to subscribers? Will it be something that people pay for that adds to the value of it? Right? That's something that we need to factor into our pricing. But if I didn't ask that question, then I definitely wouldn't have known that I could actually charge more for the value. If I hadn't asked them what their plan is for the content. If I hadn't asked them like, Oh yeah, we're, we're going to charge $500 for this giant report. It's going to be something that's this. Or if it's like, yeah, it's a freebie to grow our email list.
Well, there's a lot of value in that. And that means that when you create it, it's not just like a blog post, right? It's a meaty piece of content. It's got research. Maybe it has interviews, maybe has extras. Like you got to ask these questions so that you make sure that you price your projects. Right. It's just something that we don't want to undercharge for our work. A lot of times, you know, I've noticed that freelance writers just get nervous. They're just like, yeah, please give me the work. I just want the work like, ah, you know, and they, they just jumped so far ahead that they don't end up pricing properly. So let's go over them just one more time. So we haven't, so there's three things. Number one, or number three is that you didn't get feedback and your pricing in the dark, you didn't ask other freelance writers.
You didn't kind of communicate on the project scope saying like, Hey guys, help me out with this pricing. Like, what would you charge? What do you think? Number two, you don't have a price floor. You have no idea how low you're actually willing to go and how much money you actually need to make to pay your bills. That price floor really dictates your income. It really dictates like, I'm sorry, I'm not going below $400. Sorry. I'm not going below $2,000 for a project. It dictates a lot of where you're going with your freelance writing stuff. And then,unumber one is that you didn't ask about project scope. You have no idea what they're thinking. If you're doing interviews, what the project is, besides the idea that it might be like a case study, or it might be a tutorial, or it might be a webinar.
Like you just have no idea. And that leads to you undercharging, which is a huge deal. So I hope that piece was helpful. Those are kind of my three tips so far. And I have a little bit of a surprise for you guys just before we transitioned into Q and a, I thought you guys might like this. So I have a little update. I set up a little pup date cam for y'all. So you guys should be able to see my dogs, the caramel one, the caramel and white one is Bo. And he's going to be 14. We have to take him to the dog ophthalmology soon. So, mhere's that? Cause he's a rough and tumble dog. And then the other one, the little black bean over there. Uh at's Charlotte, Charlotte is almost eight. Um,e's a wild hamster. She likes to go outside and jump around.
If you guys follow us on Instagram at snorkel peanut, there's a video on there of like, why it's called snorkel PETA. It's a whole thing. But I hope you guys enjoy the puck day and we can go back and see the pup date later on. So I'm hoping that that was helpful. And then I'm going to go through the chat right now and make sure that I answered your question. So I hope that was helpful so far. I'm going to go back through and see if there's any questions. Thank you so much for the likes so far. I super appreciate that. So I see that you guys are saying the setup looks great. So thank you guys so much. I really appreciate you guys being here too. Like, this is my very first live. I'm kind of talking fast cause I'm a little nervous.
But I just wanted to kind of like hop on and, you know, give you guys some help. So I see the Amber said that she made that mistake. Amber, let me know what mistake you made and then maybe I can, I can go over that a little bit. I know we're both freelance writers, so let me know. Okay. Oh, it looks like Carla made, it looks like Amber Tommy made it. Of course Tommy made it. Casey made it. Cool. Cool, cool. Oh, they love the puppy cam. That's cool. So if you guys have any questions, you can pop them in the chat. I'm going to go over a few of the questions that I typically get while you guys are thinking of questions, I'm going to take a little time
Thirsty. So
The questions that I get most often are on pricing is like, what do you charge for X? Right? That's the question we see all the time. Like what do I charge for X? Okay, cool. So what does that even mean? Well, what am I charged for X kind of goes back to the pricing guide, right? It's linked below. If you haven't gotten it yet, sign up below, but what we're doing is getting a range here. So what do you charge for X could be very different if you're a new freelance writer versus kind of a mid tier freelance writer versus someone who is really experienced. So in my pricing guide, I have it. So that it's a range. It's a range because I don't want to limit you guys based on a number. So I've had a little bit of feedback from people who said, Hey, it would be great.
If you could give us new freelance writer, mid freelance writer and expert freelance writer rates within the pricing guide. And I've waffled on that. So if you feel like that might help you put in the chat, why you feel like that might help you because I don't really want to limit you guys. If you guys feel like your work is worth more than the newbie rate, I think you should charge more than that. If you're someone who might be a freelance writer, a first-time freelance writer, but you have 15 years of marketing experience or you were the head of content marketing, or you have a lot of stuff just because you're a new freelance writer doesn't mean that you should be charging new freelance writer rates. It means that your your work should speak for itself. Number one, but number two, you also have experienced that dictates your rate.
So maybe your rates are a mid tier freelance writer. Maybe your rates are expert in, in the newbie, mid tier and feelings or expert ones are kind of guidelines. I don't want to limit you guys on price because when I was, when I was starting out, I just felt like I had to stick to certain rates because someone told me this or some other person said that, and I never wanted to just kind of limit y'all on that. I wanted to give you guys freedom to choose. So when you look in the pricing guide and you see, what should I charge? I really want you to think about what your, what your expertise is, what kind of value you bring your experience as a writer and then price within that range. A second piece on that is that when you see those ranges in the pricing guide, those are basically also changing on project scope.
So if you're writing blog posts that are basically like magazine articles, they just happen to live on a blog. Those need to be more if it's just a blog post, like you're just writing, you know, not a ton of research, no studies, no interviews, you're not finding images, whatever. Those, those are way less than something where you're interviewing there's research. Like it's a long form, like 2000 word posts that again, shifts the range. So you would never, even if I gave you newbie mid tier and expert freelance or rates in there that also doesn't change the fact that that project is worth more, right. That project is worth a ton more to your client as research and interviews in there. So those ranges remember when, when you add to scope, right? Anytime you add to scope, it should be higher on the range. So what should you charge for X?
Go kind of goes back to to what my number one thing was that you didn't ask what the scope was. You got to have scope and then you got to go on. So those are kind of things that,uI've seen with that major question I get all the time. So I'm going to check in the chat and see if anyone has anything to ask. So hold on one second. I'll give you guys an update while I look through there. It's just Bo it's just Bo hanging out right now. So let's see. Okay. Amber says,
Amber says Any tips on being brave enough to say no to trust that you'll get better work. If you turn down the stuff that doesn't meet your price, or this is a great question. And I struggled with this for a long, long time. So thank you for asking Amber. So I'm going to give you a quick tip here. So if you are basically when I'll give you a little story. So back in 2018, I worked from April until the end of August with two days off. So I only had two days off the whole period of time. Right? And then I took off time in September and that was basically my rest time. But two days off between April and August, I just burned out. It was way too much. So when that happened to me, I was sitting on my floor. You guys may have heard this story before, but I was sitting on my floor in my bathroom and I was crying and saying to Tommy that I was just like, if it's going to be like this, I don't want to do it.
Like, I don't want to do this anymore. And he was like, what are you going to do? And I was like, I don't know. I'll just work at dairy queen. Like, I don't know why I said dairy queen, but I was so devastated. I was so exhausted. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't remember things like I was so tired and worn out. I had this cough all the time and it was horrible. And to me, that taught me to say no, that, that whole experience, like I had said yes, from April to August, I had no time to myself. I was traveling. I was doing press trips at that time, plus working on other stuff, it was, it was a lot of stuff at once. And that taught me to say no, because it's like, no, you know, it, it doesn't matter. Like, no is, is is a full sentence.
Right? So that's something I learned from real estate agents. No is a complete sentence too. It's none of your business why I'm saying no. So the brave part, I think for the note is just that it's none of their business. Why you're saying no, you can say no to anything. Anytime it doesn't matter. And the other piece is like, no, if I need a break, I'm taking it. No, I, you know, I want to spend time with my family. No, I need to sleep. No, I need to exercise. There's a lot of things that you can just say no to where that, for me, the brave part only came because I was literally so exhausted and wanted to quit that I was like, no, like I can't, I can't say yes anymore. So I'm hoping that you don't have to go through that, that kind of experience to start saying no, but what I am hoping that you'll take from is that like I went through that experience and now my business is better than ever.
Like, I love it. I'm doing a ton of things. I really like, and it also made room for all the projects. I really love when you say no to something, you can say yes to something else. A lot of people often like to say, well, you know, like when you say yes, like what you say yes to means, you're saying no to all the stuff. So for me, I kind of switch it. Cause like for me saying yes is really easy. So I say like, when I say no, that means I get to say yes to all the good stuff. There is always more work. Like I know that a lot of people are really worried about the pandemic. They've been really scared as freelance writers. Like, what am I going to do? And I know that like some of my other writers are having their best year ever.
Like they have so much work. They're making crazy money. This is my best year ever, too. Like, this is the best year I've ever had in freelancing and it's a pandemic year. So there will always be more work. I think there's a little bit of a leap there. So part of it is kind of learning that if you take the leap and you kind of keep marketing, keep figuring out who your ideal client is, and then you like kind of make that switch into taking the leap of like kind of waiting, not waiting, but taking action towards the right client. Then you'll find someone who values your work, who is above your price for. So I know that it's a lot of uncertainty and that's something that I've dealt with a lot where it's just been really tough for me to deal with that uncertainty, but there is a ton of work out there.
A lot of it is refining your marketing to like those higher tier clients. Something we talked about in the den and through bootcamps I've done is that you want to stick to that 5 million to 50 million range right now for revenue in your clients and that'll help to, to get better work. But I hope that answered your question, Amber that it's like kind of a mix of like the no is you can say no to anything, but when you say no, it gives you a yes to something else. And then also when you're, you know, trusting that you're going to get that better work down the road basically just means like, you're going to Mark it to a different tier of clients. You're going to pay attention to who's coming in your inbound. You're going to think about the types of projects that you want to do and, and what you can say yes to, of course, there'll always be times when you might need to take work for money. I've done that of many times, but there's always an opportunity to kind of keep marketing people, looking for those clients who will pay you better rates and see the value in your work. So I'm going to look through the chat, see if there's anything else I'll give you guys a quick update. Charlotte decided to move. You can see her little clam foot right here.
I'm going to wiggle it.
You can see her little foot in there, their little paw. So she's, she's all grumpy over there. So let's see if there's any more questions we have a few more minutes. So Linda says I'm gonna put pop Linda up here. So Linda says hearing the challenges of more experienced freelancers also lets me know whether or not I'm on target and seeing the same issues. So yeah, like I think that helps too is when you that's, that's kind of going back to the three number three feedback feedback from more experienced writers, seeing if they have the same issues, seeing if they're getting the same pricing, stuff like that really helps you get, get honed in, like on your pricing and get it right. Oh, Carl has a question. Let's pop Carla up here. So Carlos says any mindset tips probably drop this guy just a little.
Okay. She says any mindset tips on how to charge, what your worth. I know you've never want to be the person with the cheapest rates. Right. That's totally true. Carla. So that's totally true. So mindset tips for me, kind of go back to my story about burnout. So for me it was kind of that basically you can say no to whatever you want and it's none of anybody else's business. So that confidence of setting the price for helps you say no. So that, that gives you kind of a piece there. And then the, no that you can say no to anything you want and it's none of anybody's business, why you're saying no. And that allows you to do to say yes to the things you really want. And then I think it's also letting go of that fear a little bit. So there's a couple of things here with fear, fear of uncertainty that there won't be any more work like there will be.
I promise you, I, I used to worry about this all the time, but there will be more work, a fear that you're not good enough or that you're charging too much. And that's why people are rejecting you, which if you go through those three steps, I mentioned like, you'll know that you're in the proper range for charging what the work is worth generally in the marketplace. And then also fear and anxiety kind of like that your not providing value to your clients. So something that I like to think about is like, how can I actually help them? How can I give like over deliver for them? And if I spend some time thinking about how I can over-deliver for my client and I make those ideas ahead of time, that kind of puts me in the mindset of like, I'm delivering value. I'm helping you succeed.
I'm giving you things that get you what you want. Right? You want subscribers, you want sales. Yeah. But I mean like more money, right? They want subscribers, they want sales. They want people reading their blog. They want to be seen as thought leaders so that they can get into Ford's or they can get into some sort of, I don't know, high level mastermind situation or whatever, or they want to get on LinkedIn, live, whatever. But I think there's a lot of pieces in there where you, you kind of have to like work on that fear. And for me, like that really helped with therapy. I went to therapy I have anxiety and I take medication for that. So that helps too. And then it's also like doing right. So when I got in a mindset of like, action matters, more action matters more than my fear action actually taking action matters more than the fears that probably won't come true.
That really helped me move forward a ton. So I hope that was helpful. Let's see. Let's see if there's any more questions in here and got like one more minute. Oh yeah. AB five. So AB five has been a whole thing and hopefully it's dying now, so hopefully that'll go away. anything else? Anything else? Cool. Okay, cool. So we're just at time now. I'll give you guys like one last pup date since Charlotte still has her little clock here. She's still right here. She's still there. And then we'll pop back here. Okay. Cool. Well, I really appreciate you guys hopping on. If you felt like this was helpful, give it a thumbs up, subscribe below. If you want to hear more videos like this, I super appreciate you guys have been on for my very first live. All my friends that showed up that you guys and, talk soon.
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Hi there! I’ve got you covered for all things freelance writing every Friday at 12 pm CT (10 am PT/1 pm ET). We’ll go over a quick bite tip to help you move forward in your business, then I’ll answer any and all of your questions; including those on marketing, money, mindset, mental health, and of course, business.
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