Day Rates, Hourly Rates, or Project Rates for Freelance Copywriters; Which Rate is Right?
Wondering how to handle your copywriting rates and why there are so many different types of pricing structures around? Day rates, hourly rates, and project rates for freelance copywriters vary widely and depend on the writer, client, type of work, and several other factors.
This week’s livestream is going over differences among day rates, hourly rates, and project rates, how to figure out which one makes sense for you, why copywriters have different pay structure and money mindsets, and how to move forward with your freelance copywriting work.
________
Day Rates, Hourly Rates, or Project Rates for Freelance Copywriters; Which Rate is Right?
There are so many different kinds of copywriting rates, whether it's daily or hourly, or by the project. So we're gonna go through all of those different types of rates today and how that actually impacts your business. What you're gonna do to find the thing that makes sense for you, uh, and how I charge for certain types of copywriting projects.
So we're just gonna roll into it. 'cause I think it's kind of like this really depends sometimes on the client, on the project, on what you're doing, how you're gonna figure out, um, your business moving forward, how you're going to, um, really charge for value versus time. So we're just gonna roll right into it because I think it's.
The first thing is what we're covering most of it anyways. So, uh, our first one is, so let's talk about the differences. Hey Vicki, I always love the wave. I wish I had emojis on my thing on my end 'cause I do it through a program and I never have emojis. So like, I can't just do it back. But, um, let's talk about this.
So we're first gonna start with hourly, right? You're charging by the hour, right? And I like a kind of a minimum of $50 an hour, most of the time, a hundred dollars an hour and up. So if you're doing copywriting, the whole point between copywriting and content writing or content marketing, writing, right? So there's copywriting, which is for conversions or sales, right?
So copywriting can be for landing pages, or it can be for sales pages, or it could be for email drip campaigns or a whole bunch of different things. But the point of copywriting is to convert someone. It's more persuasive writing that's converting someone into doing something. Hey, flower power, happy Friday.
It's having them take a very specific action versus content writing and content marketing, writing, right? Content marketing, writing and content writing are the same thing. So I usually just say content marketing, writing content marketing. Writing can be informational. It could be a blog post, it could be thought leadership where someone's trying to become a thought leader in their industry.
Um, it could be something like a case study or a white paper. Sometimes case studies in white papers can be considered copywriting because of the. Sometimes persuasive nature of them. Um, but I usually think of them as content marketing, writing because of the way that they're typically used. Um, but it can be both.
This is why a lot of times freelance writers end up getting confused between all the terms, right? They're trying to figure out what does that mean? So a lot of times when we're doing copywriting, it's persuasive stuff. It's sales pages or landing pages or email drip campaigns, um, or. Types of ads or things that are gonna get people to buy something or add their email or download something, some, you know, something that makes them take a very specific action.
So when we're kind of working through those things with copywriting, hourly, like I said, I like at least like $50 an hour, if not a hundred dollars an hour an up and usually hourly's not my favorite, like I. Try to do non hourly for everything. Every once in a while there's a project I'll take because I really like the client or it's a project I really wanna work on.
Um, or it's something that I really want the clip or something like that where I will do hourly. But hourly is not my favorite because it translates into that idea of trading time. They're, they're like, how many hours is it gonna take you? Or like, there's this, um, Phantom invoice. They don't know how much the invoice will be, but you know, you're gonna charge by the hour.
Right. Hey, hey, Getty. Uh, glad you're here. It's good to see you. It's been a while. So, um, when you're kind of thinking about these things, like I, I like the idea of value. I don't like the idea of someone. Saying like, let's do hourly. Like if you have a budget, this is the crazy thing. A lot of times they're like, let's do hourly, but you only get 10 hours.
It's like, then why don't I just do a project and not have to track my hours? That would be crazy. Right? Because the opposite of that is them saying, well, if it, what? If it takes you less? I don't wanna pay for more. Right. Which is crazy. They're not paying for time. They're paying for the value of that thing, right?
The copywriting conversions, or they're paying for the idea that someone's going to see that thing and want whatever it is, whether they're downloading a white paper or they're signing up for an email list, or getting a free guide or, uh, buying something right through a sales page. So I always think hourly is kind of, it's just like, to me it feels very backwards because there's always a limit, right?
They're like, don't go over X amount of hours. It's like, okay, why don't we just set a project rate that works for your budget? Pick a budget and we'll do that, right? The project rate is just your flat fee. Hey, we're gonna write this sales page. It's gonna be, you know, X amount of pages or this many words, or, here's the, the, the template or structure I usually like to use.
This is how long it's gonna be. I normally charge a minimum of $2,000 for a sales page. And sales pages can vary quite a lot. So it could be $2,000 or $5,000 or even more depending on how long it is and how much stuff is in there. Um, so it's really like, for me, I just feel like that helps me relax into the work because I don't have to remember to click a little button to track my hours.
I don't have to worry about how many hours it takes me. The budget's already set, so if it takes me more hours than I thought to make it good. Oh, well, like I, I think the goal there with the project is we're making something good. We are trying to create a sales page or create a drip campaign with emails or do email marketing, right?
Or do create a landing page that actually works. The whole point of these things is that they actually work, right? Uh, it's not just to create it in the shortest amount of time that would, that's nut town. So when we're kind of thinking about that, I always like project rates. For these types of things. I just think it makes more sense.
And then the other thing that I get asked about too is what's a day rate? So a lot of times I'll get a question with someone saying like, Hey, um, you know, like, what, what would you charge for a day Rate? Your day rate is just eight hours times your hourly rate. That's all it is. So your day rate is like someone's, sorry, someone's buying a day's worth of your time, right?
Eight hours one day. So if that's a hundred bucks an hour, that's 800 bucks, right? If it's 200 bucks an hour, it's 1600 bucks, right? So I always feel like the day rate thing is I get where people are going with that, and I do feel like that's applicable for certain projects. There are certain projects where a day rate makes sense.
Uh, there's certain types of things where either, um, they're trying to get something done in a short amount of time, or they are. Looking to get a bunch of different things started, and then they're trying to like see how, how much extra time that takes. So there are times when day rates make the most sense.
There are copywriters who only do day rates. Like they'll do a sales page in two days and they, they'll charge two day rates for that, right? It's just eight times your hourly rate. So if it was two days at at a hundred bucks, right? That's 1600 bucks. Vicky says, time trackers leave you unpaid for thinking work while washing dishes.
Yeah, I think it's always, I, I just feel like a lot of times just the idea of hours or that someone's like gonna buy a day. That's in, that's not congruent with what they want, right? They want to reach certain goals. And those goals are KPIs, key performance indicators, or metrics, right? That's all it is.
They're trying to reach some goals and KPIs and metrics are just the, they're just synonyms of that, and that just means like the goal is, you know, we would like to increase web traffic by this amount. We would like to add this many subscribers. Those are KPIs and metrics. Same thing as goals. So a lot of times the time tracking or buying a day or uh, working by the hour, I just feel like is contradictory to the goal.
Right? The goal is that you're actually going to make the thing work, right. That it's written in a way that works. That makes sense, right? And I feel like that's the part that should be focused on, right. The time that it takes. I think that's the right, like there's these two things that happen sometimes when we're thinking about this.
Like, sometimes what happens is your client is like, um, you know, this isn't very good. And you're like, well, I didn't have enough time. Right? Or the other part of that is like a, you know, I've had this happen to me many times where you're like, man, I spent all this time on it and my client doesn't like it.
Right. So the other part is like, you're like, well, I spent a lot of time, and the client's like, I don't care. It's wrong. Right? So you end up getting in these weird things. Where you're worried about the amount of time you spent equaling the right thing or the time that you spent equaling quality. And it does, it doesn't make sense because if you did it wrong, it doesn't matter if you spent one hour or a hundred hours, you did it wrong.
Right. That that's the, the client's focus. Right. You did it wrong. It's not, you know, it's not right. Uh, the other part of that is like the client saying you did it wrong, and you saying like, I had to do it in this many hours. I need more hours. Right. That's crazy to me. The thing is, it should be done right.
Whatever that takes, it should be done. Right. And it should be what the client's looking for, and it should do the thing that the client's asking for, right? That's the whole point. So for me, I always like project rates. Yes. Like I said, there are times I will work hourly. I don't know if I've ever, I've been asked about day rates.
I don't know if I've ever done an official day rate. I can't quite remember. I might have done it once, but I don't think so. But I've been asked about day rates before, but I just feel like. The day rate part is like they're scheduling like specific days on your schedule. And for me, that doesn't really work.
Like I have a bunch of other stuff that I'm usually slotting in or changing or I have coaching calls, or I'm running runway. Next week is runway live. Um, there's a whole bunch of things where it just really, I just feel like it, it's. For me, the day rate thing doesn't work. Like I don't wanna just devote a whole day, like all these eight hours to this.
I have, you know, I just like to slot things in where they fit. Uh, and I like to have deadlines for certain things. So for me, I feel like project makes the most sense. So when you're thinking about these things, sometimes day rates make sense. There are certain projects where you might talk to a client and you're like, oh, you know what?
A day rate would make sense like, Let's hash it out. Let's have some meetings, let's get the project together, and you have a day rate and maybe you do a project rate for the rest of the project, or you do a day rate because you've done these things a ton of time, right? So you're like, I know I can get a really great, awesome sales page done in two days.
So I'll do a day rate for that, uh, hourly. Like I said, you're just kind of, you know, usually what ends up happening is there's a max number of hours, which is just. Why wouldn't we just have a budget for that? Just like, you know, it's that to me that's just crazy. Uh, but in any case, so there's a max number of hours or you have an hourly rate for that, uh, project that you're working on, or you have the project, the total project costs, where you're just like, it costs this to do this work.
And they're like, okay, and they pay it and we don't have to track our time or do crazy stuff. So those are kind of what our differences are. So that's number one. Let's talk about number two. So number two. When we're going through these things, I think what we should focus on is the quality of the work, right?
That's what I said. I feel like the pay structure and the money part is how you work. So for me, project based based works, um, There's, so, there's lots of, um, Albert, there's lots of programs that will track your time, like Toggle, T O G G L, like it's just a little thing. You just turn it on and it tracks your time as you work and you turn it off.
Dodo has a time tracker. Uh, harvest has a time tracker. Lots of programs have time trackers. Hello. Um, and uh, it's just a way to make it so that your hours are tracked. So, I feel like for some writers hourly works because of their, the way they work, and a lot of times people are like, why don't you just raise your hourly, hourly rate?
Right? This is why this is like the psychology of people buying stuff, right. You could charge $200 an hour. And if you tell that to a client, they're like, whoa, that's really expensive. But if you tell that client the sales page is $2,000, they're like, oh, okay, that's fine. That fits in our budget, right? So if it's $200 at 10 hours and they're like, whoa, $200 an hour, that's two much.
But if you give them $2,000, they're like, oh, that fits within our budget. Right? It's this crazy thing that happens. So a lot of times people will raise their rate hourly and then it ends up becoming this. I don't know. I just feel like it's more palatable and more budget friendly and easier on the invoices, right.
To do the project hourly. Sometimes you need to go over or it's this like rush to make sure it fits within the hours or, um, I feel like the day rate thing is specific to the writer. 'cause I'm not fast. I'm not fast, but I'm, one of my things is I'm really diligent and I'm really good at making the thing do what it's supposed to.
That's. Just, I, I'm not, I'm, I think I used to be really, um, I used to really beat myself up. I used to really beat myself up that I wasn't fast and that I couldn't do things as fast as others. But then I realized that a lot of the work I like is very nerdy or in depth, or it has a lot of elements. It has multiple interviews.
It has a lot of research, or it takes a long time to put it together. Like it takes multiple days to put a case study together, right? Uh, at least for me, So I focused more on saying like, well, my work is intricate and it, and it works. It does the thing it's supposed to do. So for me, I feel like project is what makes the most sense for the way that I work.
Some people like hourly because they like to know. The cap. Like they're, they, they're kind of, um, there's this quote that I always kind of think to myself, which is the work expands to the time available. So some people work hourly best because if they don't, their work just expands to all the time available rather than keeping it on a tight deadline, right?
So even if they have a whole week to get it done. They'll just spend a lot of time on it because they have a whole week if they have an hourly rate or if they have a day rate that forces them to get it done, right. So there's also these things that come into it. Where are you a procrastinator? Are you someone who needs like a lot of that kind of structure?
Do you like charging hourly? Um, I feel like a lot of times too with copywriting projects, if you're working with an agency, a lot of times they ask you to work hourly. And that can be for content marketing projects too. But hourly is a favorite of agencies or places that are farming work out to you. So I feel like it depends on what the client is doing as well, whether that's an agency or whether the client is asking about a copywriting project.
And, uh, they are, you know, hoping to do hourly for that because of the way that they structure, you know, their internal pay stuff. Right. So like there was a time where I've, I've actually had a couple clients where they're like, we can only do hourly. 'cause that's how our internal thing works. Like we can't do any projects anytime we work with outside, outside contractors.
It has to be hourly. So that's another way that sometimes your work ends up being this pay structure that is dictated by the client. And if you wanna work with that client, you have to do hourly, you have to do what they're asking you to do. Vicki says, I'm not operating at the same speed every day. So an hourly rate sounds ridiculous.
Uh, people who have to do presenteeism at day jobs feel the same. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's the same for most humans, right? Humans don't operate the same amount of efficiency or the same amount of energy. Or the same amount of mental capacity every single day. Plus things go on, right? It's not just your job, you have other stuff, right?
Like your pet passes away or you have a family member pass away, right? Or you have difficult stuff behind the scenes that you don't feel like sharing or you have, um, a, a health issue, right? Mental health, physical health, emotional health. You're having some kind of health issue or you know, you're moving, or there's all these things that kind of come into it that.
I feel like affect your daily output, right? Like they affect how you are doing the job and that's normal. It's you, you're not a robot, right? You can't operate at a hundred percent every single day. Right. And I, I feel like for me, that's gives me the freedom to work right when I work by the project versus hourly.
So when you're picking these, I still think the best way to position yourself for value is to do by the project. Hourly ends up being this thing where like they're buying your time and that that's the focus. They're not buying the expertise. That's the thing that I think is. Kind of dicey and I, I know this is a controversial type of thing for me, it's always the conversation every time it's hourly or or day rate or something like that, it evolves down to time, time, time, time, time, time, time, right.
It's not about, well, you're bringing value, we get it. Like this should be this. It's not that. They're like, our budget is this. You have to meet these hours. And it's like, well, why don't we just do by the project and ignore the hours? And then they're like, well, we don't wanna pay for time, not used. And then you're like, what are we doing here?
We're not, it's not time. So I always feel like the project rate is enforcing the, the. Mindset of value. The idea that you are paying for the value that I'm bringing to the table, you're paying for the quality of this work versus the time it takes, right? So if we all went back, I always think about this in terms of art too.
If we go back to the famous artist, any, any famous artist, you could even do modern art, right? But if we go back and we're like, gee, Michelangelo, how long did it take you to do the Sistine Chapel? Right? As he's painting on his back. Right? On his little, his, uh, like wooden, uh, uh, his, you know, that thing, uh, scaffolding or whatever that he was laying on, right?
If you go back and you're like, Hey, how long did it take you to paint the Sistine Chapel? That's the dumbest question ever. Right? Everybody goes there. It's a huge tourist attraction. It's gorgeous and beautiful and amazing, right? So we go there and we marvel at the quality and the, and the, the beauty of his work.
We're not like, geez, you know, it took him so long to do this. Right? And even if we talk about time, even if we talk about time, we're like, wow, can you believe he spent all these hours putting in all these in intricate details, right? So when we talk about time and famous art, we're talking about like, this person spent time making it better, right?
That's not the conversation we often have with hourly clients or day rate clients. Right. So for me, I, I always think about changing the conversation to that is like, I wanna get it right. I wanna make Sistine Chapel, right? I wanna make something. I mean, like, obviously, you know what I mean? Like, I. That's like a once in a lifetime thing, but you know what I mean?
I wanna strive for something that is really great quality, that is beautiful and does all this stuff, right? We don't sit around and think about like the amount of hours. No one looks back and say like, can you believe that thing was, you know, only done in eight hours. They look back at it and they're like, wow, we got 57 new leads and 50% of those people bought our product or.
We increased our subscribers by 5,000, or we ended up getting, um, you know, 2,700 downloads of our white paper, right? They look at the metrics, they don't look at the time. That's why I would think it's so crazy. We're driving for value and goals, right? Metrics, KPIs, key performance in indicators, KPIs, that's the same word as goals, right?
So when we're kind of thinking about this, I really love the idea of. Value and quality being the, the conversation. How do we achieve that? How do we reach those types of goals versus the conversation being time-based? And I feel like time-based is just, um, it's missing the point. It's just missing the point.
Um, Albert says he always did a flat fee for any project, for the one copywriting project he did, and he said he never did an hourly rate. It's too much like a regular job. Unless you're making $200 an hour or more, it's not worth it. That's the thing though. A lot of people, the, the argument sometimes is that like, well, why don't you just raise the hourly rate?
Right. That's the same thing that I think it's this weird psychology thing. Like if you tell someone that you charge 200 bucks an hour versus you tell them and it takes 10 hours, right? That blows their mind more than saying the sales page costs $2,000. I think it's so crazy. Or you could even make it higher, right?
You say $300 an hour for 10 hours that, or $3,000 for the sales page. Knowing the flat fee of that thing is a lot more palatable and a lot more easier to invoice. For a client then hourly, where they're like, whoa, $300 an hour. Like, that's a lot, right? It's this, it's the same thing. It's just like the, the presentation of it.
So a lot of times there's these things where it's like, well, if you wanna make more money up your hourly rate, and then. You know, even if you work faster, you get paid more. And it's like, why does that, why would we do that? Right. Because there comes a point, right? There comes a point where you're doing a a big thing, content strategy, brand messaging, messaging and positioning.
Or you're doing like a big copywriting project. And if you're charging by the hour and working quickly, even if you're charging a ton per hour, it's still not really meeting the same value. Right. And you're also, I just feel like that just. Is I, I, I just personally feel like it cheapens my work when it's, when it, when it's like that.
I just don't, um, I like the idea of quality and I like the idea of it doing what it's supposed to do. So for me, whenever I think about it, it's, yeah, you can raise your hourly rate. Of course you can, right? But what ends up happening is that there's eventually a break, right, where you're losing money. Like there's eventually, even if you charge 500 bucks an hour and you're doing all these things and you're charging for a $10,000 project, right?
You have all these deliverables and it's a 10,000 or 20,000 or $30,000 project. Like these are, you know, strategy projects or they are big copywriting projects. $500 an hour just sound. That just sounds like not as, as reasonable as telling someone, yes, you get all of these deliverables. Here's how that works, here's how it helps you meet your goals, and it costs $10,000.
Right. And then you say, you know, it's 50% upfront, 50%, you know, 30 days later. That also helps qualify the client, right? If you're at a high hourly rate, what if someone stops paying your invoices, right? If you at least did half the work and you got paid half upfront, now we're at least somewhere in the ballpark, but a lot of times hourly is like invoice every week or every two weeks, or sometimes horribly every month, right?
And people can just like decide not to pay it, right? Rather than doing like 50% upfront, 50% later. So I think there's just a lot of complicated things that go into it, but I'm just, the hourly rate thing is also, I think, um, something where like, as you get better, you're getting paid more per hour. At with a project rate, right?
So there could be a project where you got paid $2,000 or $3,000 and you got it done in three hours by some magic. You got it done in three hours. You were like, Hey, it wasn't as complicated as I thought. Now you made a thousand dollars an hour. There's no way you could walk into a client and say, I charge a thousand dollars an hour.
Let's do this thing, right? Like it just. And you would be like, it'll, you know, if you got it done faster, you would've charged the client more, right? You would've said, Hey, it actually this average is out to be five to 10 hours or something. Or it averages out to be seven hours and you actually got this particular one done in three.
Now you either lost money or there's this weird invoicing for time you didn't work right. And I think that just ends up being this weird thing. There's a lot of times where we are working. We don't actually think of that as work time, where we're doing research, we're organizing notes, we're collecting things.
Like a lot of times I'm collecting sources or I'm collecting information that's not technically research, but it's setting myself up for success. Like I'm setting up templates or I'm organizing notes or something, and that just feel silly to charge for like the work itself, right? Like people want you to turn on the time clock when you're actually writing, right?
Which is another piece of it. So I think what just, whoops, I almost knocked my computer over. So I think what we're thinking about hourly versus project or day rate versus project Yes. The, the, you could change the structure and yes, you can raise your hourly rate, but I always feel like the project rate allows you on the backend to get a faster hourly rate and still get paid for the value of your work, right?
So even if it takes you three hours instead of 10 hours, now you're making a better hourly rate and you can get back to other types of work. And there's a lot of other ways that I feel like that benefits and it sets the project up just to be, um, I feel like more fair, but also just setting expectations for goals in a much more realistic way.
Um, Albert says, from a business perspective, it's an easier sell to provide by the pound rate the entire project B, as opposed to by the ounce. Hourly free to a client or publication. I don't think I've ever worked hourly for a publication. That's always, usually a flat fee. But yeah, I think it's just easier as to like for their budget.
Right. I just tell my clients every time we talk about like, how do you charge hourly or by the project or day rate. I always end up saying like, I do project because there's no surprise invoices. We, you know, we can work. Like I, you know, we talk about budget is your budget. Are we playing the same game?
Right? If I know the work is $3,000 and you have 500, we're not playing the same game, right? So there's also this piece of like the, the budget being the right fit for the work, and then understanding there's no surprise invoices. This is the flat fee. We know what it is. And I, I know there's, I've gotten many, many notes, many notes from people who are like, oh my gosh.
I sent a surprise invoice basically to my, my client. They didn't realize it took me five extra hours, and now they're pissed that it cost, you know, X amount of extra dollars. I just don't like that idea. I like to set the whole project up for success so that people are really focusing on will the work do what it's supposed to do, or will the work be of the quality or talking to the audience or doing the thing it's supposed to do, versus like, oh my gosh, we got this weird invoice that's higher than we thought, which is just a really awkward conversation.
Okay, let's talk about three. So three, oh, if this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about building a freelance writing business, freelance copywriting business, uh, that you love. Subscribe, or if you wanna make more money in less time. Um, that's something that I think, let's talk about three.
So when we're moving forward, I think that you do the thing that works for you. If you feel like you wanna charge 200 bucks or 300 bucks an hour and you, that's how you wanna work, fine, do that. I just want to put the nugget in there that. The conversation with your client should be about value. It shouldn't, the most of the conversation should not revolve around hours.
So like 80% of your conversation can be about everything else in the project. 20% can be about budget and hours and all that stuff. If most of your conversation is quibbling over hours or, um, trying to figure out if it should be this or that, or if it should be, it just, it becomes a nightmare. Um, I think when we're kind of thinking between these, um, hourly is right for certain clients, it just depends.
Um, a lot of times, day rates can be helpful if you feel like you can just get it done and that's just how you like to work for certain things like you. I. Spend the whole day working on one project or you don't like, I always feel like my schedule is like slotting different things in like there's different appointments or calls or uh, deadlines or stuff, and I am constantly shifting my schedule around.
So I feel like it's better for me to do project. But if you're someone where you're like, these two days are dedicated to this and you're someone who time blocks and you feel like a day rate, Is better. Do it. Try it out. That's the other thing. Try it out, right? Try a day rate with a client that's asking about a day rate.
Try hourly, try project, and pick the one that makes sense for you, right? I think a lot of times we're moving forward in a freelance business. We have to try the things that make sense for us. Some of those things will be dictated to us by clients or by agencies. Or, um, by how the ap, the accounts payable system works, uh, or the magazine.
Right. Magazines are usually flat fee. I don't think I've ever had a magazine that's hourly. Uh, but I think that you should experiment with different stuff. I think when you're kind of thinking about like, well, my day rate is eight hours times this number, if it takes two days to do it and someone wants it, you know, done at this time.
What does that cost? Also, remember that that's kind of a rush job, right? If someone's asking for a day rate and you have to finish it that day, you have to get it done basically in 24 hours, right? That's a rush job. So there's a lot of things that go into a day rate too that help, you know, raise the price, but also raise the pressure of getting it done that day.
So for me, I just, I feel like out of all of those things, I try to avoid hourly just because I don't wanna have awkward conversations with my client. I don't like the idea of surprise invoices. I like the idea of being able to plan my money better that way. So I know it's like when it's coming in or what's happening or, um, what's going on, like with my invoicing so I don't have to send crazy invoices all the time.
Uh, I just think it's better to do. A, a set thing that matches the goals part. So I feel like when we're kind of thinking about our invoicing strategies or like, I know freelance writers who charge by the project, but they still track their time. If that's something you feel like is helpful, do it. I don't feel like that's helpful to me.
I feel like that makes me feel sad that sometimes something takes a really long time where I'm like, oh my gosh, it took way longer than I thought. Uh, that just doesn't, it doesn't motivate me to work better. What motivates me to work better is to see the thing come together and know that it's doing the right stuff.
That it's meeting the client's goals. That it's, that it's doing the right messages at the right times. That it's communicating the value. Like that piece powers me up more than like being like, oh my gosh, it's this many hours. The other thing to think about when you're doing this is. That there is a certain amount of like butts and chairs, mindsets, right?
So there's a lot of times with a nine to five or, um, when you're kind of like coming from that environment or you're coming from a really strict environment like that where you're like, my butt has to be in the chair from nine to five. Like, I, I can only get up for a 30 minute lunch and hourly and day rate, I feel like promotes that quite heavily.
And if that's not how you work, that's not how I work best. Um, they may not be for you, but if you are someone where you're like, I procrastinate, or This just helps me stay focused. If I know I need to be at my desk by X time and then I'm done by X time, maybe hourly and day rates are for you. I feel like it's, it's a, it's a process, but the conversation between you and your client should always be focused on the value and the goals.
Like what are we driving towards? How do we do that? What are you looking for with this project? How do you, like, how would this project be successful? Um, when do you want it completed? Um, and talking about budget and talking about how, you know, are you guys playing the same game basically, like the, are you, is one of you playing like, you know, backyard badminton and some one of you is like playing in the N F L?
Like there's very, very different gaps there. So, As we're moving forward with this, I think trying things out is really helpful. I think figuring out how to position that for value is important. Um, I think really making sure you're charging appropriately. A lot of times, like I said, you'll get clients that are, even if you charge 50 bucks an hour and you tell 'em it'll be 10, 10 hours, right?
And they're like, whoa, that's way too much. Right. And if you told them, what is that 500 bucks? You're like, if I, if you tell 'em 500 bucks. Um, and they're like, oh, that's okay. You know, it's, you'll sometimes get clients that will argue with you about 10 bucks or 15 bucks or 50 bucks, which is just not what you wanna be doing, right?
They're like, well, um, like this a, a question I've gotten from clients back in the day. When I kind of used to do a little more, um, different types of work was like, well, if you, if you cut this thing or if you do this thing differently, can you cut two hours? And I'm like, why? Why, why are we doing this? So a lot of times it's, it's this weird conversation you get into where they're like, well, if you do X, like if you work faster, will it cost less?
Or, um, if you, what was the other one? Like, basically if you, um, If you don't do this thing that you know you need to do, will it cost less? Or like hourly is their negotiating point rather than understanding the value piece, right? So be careful about doing negotiations for hourly or day rates, um, just because it's, it's really easy to start saying like, oh yeah, I could take a $10 cut per hour to do this work.
And then you're feeling bitter the whole time you do it. Um, and it's just really rough. Really think about that. Think about the kinds of conversations with clients. Think about how you charge for your work. Think about value, think about their goals. Think about quality. Flower power says, I've realized, uh, that the clients who are super focused on what exactly am I getting for each a hundred dollars increment end up being people I don't enjoy working with.
Project fees help weeded them out. Yes. That is another thing where they're like, well, if we add a hundred dollars or if we add an hour, like what happens? Right? They just do not understand the process at all. Like they don't understand how content is created. They think that it's just like their other job, right?
Like they think it's like, oh, if you answer 40 more emails, you get this more percentage done. Right? It's not like that at all. Like writing is this beast that you have to tame, or writing is like this. I think about it the same way as a sculpture is like you're chipping away at the story. Like you have this marble block of information and you have to chip away at it to get to the story.
You have to create the thing, right? Or, uh, the other way I always think about it is like it's a blank puzzle. You don't know how that puzzle fits together until you fi finish the project, right? You're looking at a bunch of blank puzzle pieces and you're trying to figure out how they all go together, and then at the end you're like, oh, it's a picture of this.
Right? So I feel like anytime someone's trying to, to nickel and dime over that anytime someone is, is worried about small increments or someone is, um, you know, concerned about the. Change in this many hours, or if you did X instead, could you do this? Sorry. I just have like a lot of pokey hairs today. My hair, my hair's like poking me in the neck.
Um, so it's, it's this weird, like, if you work less or if you do this shortcut or if you do this, will it cost less? And it's like, that's not like, no, that's not how it works. So, yeah, like it's not, it's not a, it's like this amount of stuff. We'll get you this thing, right? And there's a, like, there's been one writer that I've met Slack that I've known, like talked to where I really thought they overcharged.
Every other writer I've ever talked to has severely undercharged. So the idea that someone, it's super rare that a writer goes in there and overcharges someone, right? So like you have clients that are worried about you overcharging, or you have clients that are worried about. Um, you like, you know, scamming them or something and it, it's just not a thing.
Writers are nervous a lot of times and they're scared about charging real money. Um, and they're, they're, they're nervous about pricing. So it's just this crazy idea, I think that a writer would grossly overcharge for their work, right? So anytime you're getting into these weird conversations over a few hundred bucks or a few 50 buck clumps, right?
That's just not your client. Like, it's just, it's that's nut town. They're missing the whole point. Um, Flower power says, hold on. She says Yes. Oh my God. Exactly what you just said. If I wanted to cut corners and cut costs and be micromanaged, I'd go back to my old job. Exactly. If I wanted to do this kind of weird thing, right, where you're, you don't really care if it works or not, or if it's the quality thing and you just wanna get it up.
Sure, we could go do that. Like someone else can do that. Right. Um, Yeah. In the sense of management wanting to cut corners. 'cause it saves money. Yeah. It's not about the, that's the thing is like people wanna focus on time because they think the time is money part. Right. Which is partially true. But there's also, like, you, you just putting something up doesn't mean it's gonna work.
Just getting something done if it's crap is not gonna work. Right. There's a, there's an idea of done is better than perfect, but you at least have to do a good job on the done part. Right. So I think it's just the, the times where you're working with these clients that. Ask strange questions where you're just like, you don't understand the process.
Like instead of questioning like, well, should I do that and should I cut my thing, you know, cut my costs or should I, um, cut my fee or should I, you know what, what really is in the process? It's like, you know that this is what it costs to get the thing that they want, right? That's why this is another reason, and I'm gonna pop it up.
This is why I have my free pricing guide, is I update it regularly, so it's free. Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. This is why I have my. Excuse me. My free pricing guide is because I wanna make sure that writers are charging what the work is worth and not going through these weird quibbling things like that.
There is a more available way to charge for your work and that there is, um, there is credible information from a ton of different writers on what they're charging and what are the rates. Versus going off a client who may not know anything, right? Versus going off a client who may not have ever worked with a freelance writer but thinks they knows what it should be, or that they're like, well, I only have a hundred dollars.
What can you do for a hundred dollars? Like there's times where you'll get on conversations where someone will say that, Hey, I only have X amount of dollars. What can you do with that? And it's like, what? What? Like, this isn't like you're going in to get an ice cream sundae saying like, I have $10. Put as many toppings on as you want.
Right? That's not how it works. So I think there's also like the, just the value piece or just the, um, just the way that we're going about our work and the way that we are getting paid or charging, I think is paying attention to how that works and understanding that most writers under charge. That's a, a normal thing in our industry.
Right. I don't know why there's a pervasive weird client thing where they think like, some writer is like overcharging, like pretty much every writer I meet is undercharging. So that's always a crazy idea. But yeah, when you're thinking about day rates, hourly and per project, kind of dice through those things.
See what works for you, see what makes sense. Um, we would do, we would do a pup date, but Charlie's not here right now. Charlie's actually sleeping. Charlie's sleeping in another room and uh, I didn't wanna wake her up. So I didn't wanna wake Charlie up. She's sleeping. But, uh, so we, we didn't have a pup date today, but that's, you know, kind of rare.
We always have, we usually always have a pup date, but I hope that this was helpful. I hope this helps you see what makes sense in terms of like, what is a day rate, what, how does hourly work and how would you charge by the project? I hope that this has been something where you like, kind of see where things could get dicey or where they can really help.
Um, I think that this is a, it can be a complicated topic when you're trying to figure out how to work with clients and you're figuring out what types of work you're doing. So I think that piece is part of the process and I think you should try different stuff and see what works for you. Um, but I think just understanding like how people are charging or how these things all work with clients and in your own business is really important.
Yeah. Yeah. Yay. For Charlotte sleep. Yeah. Charlotte's actually just as like a little pup date, even though she's not here. So Charlie is, um, She's doing a lot better after her teeth. So she's been kind of having a rough road. Like she's been really sensitive about it, but yesterday she finally ate hard food for like the first time in a month.
So we've been giving her soft food and we have been kind of seeing if she'll eat, go back to, she's been only hand fed. She didn't wanna, she doesn't wanna eat by herself. Um, so we're trying to see like, is it the texture? Is it 'cause the food's too hard or is it, you know, what is it? So she's finally sitting up while she's eating.
'cause she's been only laying down. So she's sitting up and she ate totally hard food. The other day after we've been kind of increasing like the toughness of the food, like only sort of marinating it in a beef stock for her. So seems like she's perkier, she's been making little noises like you guys know that Charlotte makes all kinds of noises.
She makes dinosaur noises and um, like strange little alien noises. Uh, so she's kind of been starting to do that again. So she seems like she's feeling better. Um, but she is sleeping. So like, if she's sleeping, sometimes I won't wake her up and bring her in here. And that's, that was one of this time. This is one of those times.
Um, uh, Albert says, the only way I can think of overcharging is based on having a cv. I can t I can cite that I wrote for this magazine or this newspaper. Um, if you have what I call legit credits, I mean, it's not even overcharging that would be charging for value. If you have a bunch of past clients and you have a bunch of.
Um, you know, if you've done a bunch of great work, you're still charging for value. I don't even think that's overcharging. I think that's understanding the value that you're bringing to the table. Like the overcharging thing is, like the example that I have, I wrote it down somewhere. I don't have it like it's somewhere in my notes, but the example was like four blog posts a month at like $30,000.
Like, so this was someone who just like, did not understand. They didn't get it. They want, they were like, well, I wanna be a six figure freelancer, so I should just charge for this blog post project to make six figures. And that's not how it works. So this was something crazy like it was four blog posts a month plus like two social media posts.
It was some crazy low amount of work for $30,000 a month or something. So like this was like obviously not correct. Right. Someone had the wrong impression of how to make six figures as a freelance writer. They thought like, As a freelance writer, you just charge whatever, and then you charge that based on whatever project you're working on.
Not, not that you have multiple different projects at appropriate rates that are for value and you get to six figures. So it's not, this was like a crazy example and most of the time, like when I meet a writer and I read their work, I'm like, you should be charging more. So this, this. Idea is, it's not even, I don't think it's overcharging.
If you're charging for someone who has a long history of, um, doing great work, someone who's worked with a bunch of great publications or worked with a bunch of great clients, I think that's charging appropriately. Um, like I said, like this is a huge gap. You wouldn't charge 30 k a month for four blog posts and some social media stuff.
Right. I the like that would be something that you would be charging for. Um, You know, content strategy or brand messaging or messaging and positioning. Some big long project that takes either multiple, like a month to three months or a, a long period of time to implement. And it has a lot of other, um, waterfall kind of effects in their business.
Like you set a strategy or you help them with messaging and positioning, or you help them with brand messaging and then that informs all the stuff they do in their business. So it's worth a lot because it informs all, it's a plan for the rest of their business, right. So there's a lot of things that go into that, and there's a lot of deliverables.
Like, there's like 20 deliverables, sometimes it's not four blog posts a month at 30 k a month, right? That would be, that's just crazy. So most of the time, like, like I said, don't, don't get in the conversations about nickel and diming. I just think that just sets it up for weird stuff. Um, but focus on value and quality.
I think that's the most important piece. Uh, I'm here every Friday. Well, we are normally here. Charlotte's not here right now, but we're here every Friday. If you ever have a question that you want, uh, covered on here, this was actually a question that someone asked me the other day, so I was like, we should do a live stream.
Uh, you can put it in mandy.com/question. It could be a question or topic, and I put 'em on the live stream. Um, I hope that this was helpful. We're here every Friday at noon central time and uh, I hope everybody has a great rest of their day. Bye.
________
Trying to figure out how to price your work for what it’s worth? Check out my FREE Pricing Guide!
Need some fantastic contract and marketing templates to make your freelance writing biz run as effectively and efficiently as possible? See my Templates!
Want to stay in touch for weekly detailed advice plus updates on new freebies and courses? Join my email list!
Want to follow me for inspiration, tips, and to stay connected?
So psyched you’re joining me on this livestream adventure!
