How I Built My Freelance Writer Pricing Guide (And How to Use it to Grow Your Rates Strategically)
I get a ton of thank you notes and celebratory wins from other freelance writers who've used my free pricing guide, but I also get a bunch of questions. This week, we're talking through how I created this free guide over the years, and how to use the guide to increase your rates, price strategically, and figure our your place within the margins from newbie to seasoned freelance writer.
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Today. Welcome in Linda today, we are talking about my freelance pricing guide. So I I've had this for a while. I put it out a long time ago because I felt like there needed to be an updated guide and I just wanted to help other freelance writers and make sure that they had that information too, because I'd been collecting it for so long, um, for my own views. And I just felt like there weren't that many guides out there that were really consistent. They were all kind of all over the map. So today we're going over my pricing guide and I wrote some notes. So we're going to go over basically what the pricing guide is. And if you don't have it, I made a new thing. So if you don't have it, you can get here Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. So you can hop up there and get it while I look for my notes.
So basically we're going to go over a few cool things. So if you don't have the guide, yellows.com/pricing guide, now we have these cool little things up here. So one of the things that I find over the years, like over the last 10 years of me being a freelance writer has been that we need some sort of more, um, a better collection method. So I started making this guide because I had been asking other writers who were in all different niches, did all different types of work from content marketing to content strategy, um, to focusing just on blog posts or just on white papers, just on case studies. And I just started collecting this information and I just saved it all the time and I would update my own rates cause I'm like, okay, well, I don't have as much experience as this person, but I do have more niche expertise or, you know, I would kind of compare and contrast where I would be on that scale.
So when I started creating the guide, I started to, uh, Linda will do a pup date. And the second, um, well, when I started creating the guy, um, I wanted to have as many different types of projects as there were. I didn't want the guy to just be copywriting or just be content marketing. Um, I wanted to, to include all these different things that I feel like freelance writers need to know about. And I mean, I have never found a guide, like at least that I use, that's like something that you can use regularly that has all this information in one, I just wanted an easy place to look to say like, all right, I'm doing a case study. I'm thinking about this. Or I got this new type of project, you know, maybe I haven't done a webinar script yet. And I'm like, Ugh, what, you know, what are other people who do these for an on a regular basis?
What are they charging? And I write down and then I put it in the guide. So the guide has all these different types of projects because I wanted to know like, Hey, if I want to go into creating a pitch deck, or I want to go into my messaging and positioning, or I want to go into something else, I have it already written down in this guide. And then I just made it available for free because it's like, I, it's kind of that thing where all of the boats rise when the tide comes in, right. It's that famous quote where they're like a rising tide raises all boats. So it's kind of like that if we have this guide, that's available, everybody can look at it and hopefully raise their rates or at least be kind of in a reasonable range for that. Or maybe even higher if they're like, ah, that feels low for me.
I've been doing these things for 10, you know, 10 years. I want to raise it. And they've been undercharging. Like this is something that they can use to kind of figure out what other people are charging. And I still update it all the time. Um, I constantly ask people like, what are you charging for this? Um, what are you charging for that? Like everybody from newbies to six figure freelancers. I asked them all the time, if you've been, um, if you have been around me, like, I probably asked you, like, what do you charge for this? And what do you price for that? And why, how are you figuring it out? And I added it to the guide because then like a lot of times what ends up happening, Hey, Getty, welcome in what a lot of times, what ends up happening I've noticed is people are undercharging, freelance writers roll in and they start just charging.
They're like, oh, like I thought, I thought the going rate was a hundred bucks for, you know, a thousand words. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Right. So that kind of thing helps raise our rates across the board. So instead of people rolling in and thinking that they should be charging a hundred bucks for a thousand words, um, maybe it's a thousand word blog posts. They're just like, oh no, I should charge at least, you know, 30 or 30 to 50 cents a word, depending on my experience. Um, or whatever you feel comfortable with. I still think it's really important that we all kind of collect these things. We need to collect them so that, you know, we all get fair rates or not like, um, having some writers who undercharge and like they quit freelance writing or they quit writing altogether because they're like, I just can't make money.
It's like, Nope, got to fix your prices strategy. Um, so I want to make sure that this guide, uh, is available like that. We can all use it to price our projects and that also spans different levels. So one of the things, um, that I wanted to talk about, uh, I see comments, Linda says your pricing guide has helped me price a project. I was considered for a very helpful, awesome. I know Linda's gotten some wins with the pricing guide. I know a bunch of my core students, um, had gotten wins with the pricing guide. I get people, one of my favorite emails, I've gotten a bunch of emails and one of my favorites is that someone downloaded the guide and that same day they raised their rates and got the gig. So they were like, oh man, like I doubled my rates from what I normally charge.
And I sent off my proposal and I got the gig and I'm like, yes, that's the point? That's the whole point is that you get this guide and you're like, oh, I should be charging more. Or like, oh, I kind of was like, thinking it was this, but it seems like a lot of people are charging this. And then you get to actually raise your income, right. As you raise your rates and you get to a value, right. That you feel is fair for your value of the, for the value of your work. Um, then you kind of, you know, you, you end up making a livable income, right? So, um, when you're using these things, you can use them to grow your income because there's a bunch of different benchmarks. So one of the ways I set up the guide was that there's like the low end, which is usually for newer freelance writers or new writers in general.
And then like the seasoned, experienced writers are kind of like charging this much. Uh, and I think I probably need to update it because I feel like rates have been rising. I feel like, um, some of my friends are getting higher rates than, uh, than I have in the guide. And I need to update the high end of the range. So I'd put that in there. And I still get comments about this too, of like, how do we figure it out? It's such a big range. It's like, to me, that's kind of like exactly. You kind of need to figure out what the value of the work is based on your experience, um, your niche expertise, your knowledge, how you do the project, all that stuff. And I think that's better than caging everybody in with intervals saying newbies should charge a hundred to 500 and middle range.
People should charge 600 and a thousand and experienced people should charge a thousand to 2000. Like that boxes people in. I wanted to give ranges, especially with like a plus sign at the end so that people would understand that they're not boxed in by the level that they're at. There's a lot of people that I talk to, especially like this was another email that I really loved. I got from someone who had been a freelance writer for 30 years, they'd been a freelance writer for 30 years. And they were like, I had no idea. I should be charging way more. Like, thank you so much for this guide. And it is, you know, it's kind of this thing where you fall into a loop, right. Fall into a loop with your pricing and you forget to update it. And that affects your income that affects these ranges that affects like how you feel about the value of your work.
And if I were to just give that person that got that person who had 30 years of experience, just give them that guidance, say like seasoned writers should be this. Well, maybe they didn't think they were a seasoned writer at 38 years of experience. Like maybe they had very low self confidence or maybe they were trying a new niche or a new type of writing. And they're like, oh, well maybe I'll just pick mid mid range. Like, you know, cut my price just for this. And I just don't want writers to do that. I think you should price based on the value of the work to the client, the value that you're bringing to the table as well, your experience, your knowledge, all the stuff that makes the value of you working with this client. And that's why those ranges are there. I don't want you to roll in and just pick the lowest or the highest.
I want you to pick the thing that makes the most sense to you. And that's why we have these ranges. And I've thought about it. A bunch of times, I've had this conversation with several different writers and I thought about breaking it down into different ranges. I've thought about range, like saying here's kind of a guesstimate of try this, try this, but I get too many notes of people just raising the rates straight out. And I want you to pick the price that feels good. Like sometimes when I price work, I'm like, oh, I don't feel good about that price. Like maybe I feel like it's too high. I'm like, you know what, there really isn't that much research. Or I only have to do one interview or like, I'm like, Ugh, I just don't feel good charging my, my regular rate because it just doesn't include the same things. And I think you should pick a rate that you feel good about that you feel like it helps you kind of
Hello, what you're doing over there.
Um, Charlotte's over here, she's sitting here. Hello. Um, I want you to pick a range and the number that makes sense to you. If I bought two in with, with different types of intervals, I feel like that just kind of like gives you a limit and I don't want it to be a limit. That's the cool thing about pricing from other freelance writers is like everybody has their own kind of stuff. Um, but when you kind of get rid of the idea of like a limit, if you get rid of the idea that you're like, I'm only in freelancing for three years, I can only charge up to this amount. It opens the doors to a lot of different things, a lot of projects that you really start to get in-depth knowledge for. And maybe you're not as good as white papers as you are as case studies, right? So you get your case study and you're like, you know what? I'm going to charge the highest amount, um, because I'm really good at case studies and I'll charge kind of the mid to low range for white papers, because those aren't really my strong suit. Like that gives you freedom to kind of move around. And then as you get better, you can raise your rates. Um, and I also think it's really important to share money and financial information with other businesses, right? This is kind of like
How we
Learn from each other. What is, what is acceptable, I guess not, maybe not acceptable, but maybe, um, we kind of learn what the market will do. It's kind of like pricing a house, right? Um, our house. So for example, we live in Austin and our house has changed in value so much since it was built. So since our home was built, our house has, um, gone up crazy and our house has more than doubled since we've owned in value since we've owned it because we live in Austin. If we were to pick this house up and put it in the middle of Wyoming, it wouldn't, it would be less than what we paid for it. Or if we picked up this house and we put it in like Silicon valley, or we put it in LA or something like that, it would go crazy high because like, you know, of the type of property it is and the square footage or the features or whatever it is, that's kind of what we're doing here.
Right. We're kind of pricing based on a bunch of different things. And there's some things where, um, when you talk to certain companies, a going rate for them is they're like, yeah, I've worked with writers before, and this is kind of like, they're going right. And you're like, oh, that's not the going right here. So then you're not a fit. Right. But we only know that by kind of like pricing our services based on what the market is bouncing back. So for example, during COVID, a lot of times we were like, Hey, our budget's been slashed. We can't offer you this, but maybe we can offer you this. Um, and then you take like a rate cut. Cause you're like, well, I need the work. Or maybe you're like, Hmm, I want to do this work. I need the clip. Um, nice Linda. Um, oh, okay.
Get Getty. I missed this. So get it says big, thanks to Mandy for found it. Foundational price again. Yeah. So the price of guy's a big deal. If you haven't gotten it yet, I'm going to pop this off. You haven't gotten it yet. I have new things, so you can get it here. Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. Charlotte, Charlotte gives a paw of approval. She gives it, she gives it for Beanitos. Wait, does she have five toes? Charlie, do you have five toes? Yeah. Cause she has her do cloth. So she has her pads and then good job, Charlotte, five, five claws. Um, and then Linda says the range helps you gauge how much I'm worth and that conveys confidence and yeah, exactly. So when you're thinking about bounce back from the market, that kind of helps you figure out like, okay, normally my highest rates are okay, goodbye.
My highest rates are, you know, work for people. But right now during COVID I'm gonna like pull it back a little bit. So we kind of use that kind of like the housing market as a bounce point. And that gauge that Linda's talking about, the amount that you get in there, um, in the guide gives you kind of like a buffer zone of like, okay, I will accept this, but not this. Um, this is kind of like the lowest and it kind kinda gives you a good feeling for what you feel is appropriate for the value of the work and your value to the client. Um, so I think that when you, you kind of look through the guide, it's just really helpful to get all of those. She has a five toed sloths. Charlotte is totally applied to it's law. So when you look through the guide, you get all of this information and you get to use it in real time with the market, with clients, raising your rates.
Um, and it's not just raising your rates that gives you more income. It's learning about different project types. So I didn't realize that a lot more people have been getting contacted recently about podcasts. So, um, like I have a couple of friends who have been asked to not only like create the podcast, um, figure out topics, get it all set up, um, work on interviews or whatever. Like not only that, but they're getting paid well for that. And that's something that we should do as writers we should think about like, how can we support all of these new emerging kind of things like podcasts or live streams with content. And that's something I can add to the guide, right? It's some new type of project and that can help with increase in your income because maybe that project is a 10 K project, right? Instead of writing a bunch of blog posts, you get one 10 K project that spans X amount of months and you do that and that can help raise your income because you can do a few of these projects at a time.
So I found that it's not just about like writers rolling into the guidance saying like, oh crap, I've been charging way too little. I need charge more. Um, it's also about writers learning about different types of projects and figuring out what works best for them and then charging appropriately for the value of that work. So we're going to do a quick pup date real quick. I don't think they're out both on camera. Oh, bear would a beautiful cross pause. What a gentlemen, what a little gentlemen got a little, I'm going to put these in the thing because otherwise it makes a lot of noise. All right, Barry, you look like a little gentlemen and I love you. You look so cute. I'm gonna move this light real quick.
Just so we have in the right posts.
Okay. Ooh. Live stream. All right. Peeps. So we give one to Mary Charlotte, go to your hall. The whole good job. Good job. You're going to have a whole one for Barry for the gentlemen bear and one for many good girl in her Hobbit hole.
That's what we've been teaching her. Is that that's her Hobbit hole. Here we go. Let's see if we can figure this out. So everybody gets on camera. There we go. Now everybody's on camera. Cool. Great. So the next thing I want to talk about in my notes here, and if you have questions on the pricing guide or you've had, if you have any questions about freelance writing, feel free to pop them in the chat. I'm happy to answer anything. Or if you're watching this as a replay, you can pop them as a comment below. Happy to answer those as well. If you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about creating a profitable, sustainable freelance writing business, make sure to subscribe. All right. So let's talk about, um, figuring out your place or, I mean, let's talk about how to price strategically. So this is something that, um, yeah, Barry does weight a lot. So we, I call him Barry, but his name is Bo. We have 10,000 names for our dogs. So Charlotte is many, a lot of the time or she just like looked up. So did you hear me say mini mini? She got her interested ears on the interested ears
Are on. There you go. Good job. Here you go, Mary, what a good bear.
Good job. Yeah. They have 10,000 nicknames and they hardly ever get called their, their real names like that. It's very rare. So let's talk about how to price strategically. Um, we already talked about our range. We already talked about, uh, income and a bunch of other things. So let's talk about pricing strategically. So this is something that I think a lot of, oh, darn it. There we go. Technology. This is something that I think a lot of freelance writers end up making mistakes on. They end up charging their internal worth for the work. They end up thinking that the work, the price of their work is the same as like their internal person price. And that's not true. The worth of the work is like the worth it is to the client. So for example, if you create a lead magnet, which basically like is an ebook or a downloadable of some kind, like a checklist or, um, some sort of way for them to grow subscribers or give free information to their audience, or you create a case study or a white paper, they're going to use that in their marketing materials potentially for like at least a year, if not more, they're going to use it to grow subscribers.
They're going to use it to make sales. They're going to use it to prove their product works or to give you tips and tricks or to help their audience learn more about their product in a, in a helpful way. Right? They're going to use that a ton. So if they pay you $2,000 for that, that's a very small amount of what they get back from using that in their marketing. So their products are usually more like the products that we work for. Typically as freelance writers, they could be way more than $2,000 for that product. They could be a POS system that can be $20,000 to install for just like one customer. So two customers will be, you know, $40,000 and that would have already paid for itself in terms of the lead magnet. So when you think about the cost that they pay us to do the writing, to get them leads and subscribers and sales, it's very small.
That's why a lot of times when you read about copywriters, you okay, are there wiggle bug wiggly over there? Um, uh, that's why a lot of times copywriters end up taking like a percentage. There's some copywriters, like really big copywriters who write sales, EMA mails for people with like millions of people on their email list. And they take like a percentage of the sales because like, that's, there's not only just writing it and getting that person sales, but taking a small percentage of the sales is like they helped get them. So that's part of the deal. That's kind of like what I try to think about when I'm creating stuff or pricing, like, what is the value that I'm bringing to the table? Like how many times have I done this? How well do I know this audience? How well do I know this product?
How well do I know my client as a niche and a topic? Um, and then also basically like, what are they getting out of this? Like, is this something that's really going to nail it for them? Is it going to be something that, um, lives for a long period of time? Is it going to be something that they'll replace really quickly? Is it something seasonal? Is it something that they're going to end up using to direct the rest of their business, right? Is like if you were doing messaging and positioning, are you doing content strategy? Um, or you're helping with like a wide range of content marketing, um, content, project projects. So like you're doing like white papers and case studies and blog posts on one project, um, or you're end up doing, helping them with a podcast, like things that will live on the amount that they're paying you to do that is like so small compared to what they get out of it.
Um, there's like some stat that I read a long time ago, which is like, um, like they get like crazy ROI. I forget what it is, but like 62% of people who do it, there's a HubSpot statistic about this. Um, basically like the ROI that they get on content strategy, it's like a third of the price and they get like 300 ROI or whatever, but basically like the amount of money they spend on creating the content is so much lower and the amount they get spent pushing it out and getting it available to people, um, and making sure that, uh, it helps them grow whatever they're trying to grow, whether that's sales or their audience or whatever, all of that is so much smaller than the amount of money they make off of it. Like when you think about that as a writer, that's when I, I try to tell like coaching students for core students, when I'm like, it's not about like just a writer, that's not how it works.
Um, you're supposed to be creating content that can live for a long period of time. Right? It's something that is so much value that it can live for a long time. Plus you should be charging accordingly. We don't want to like crazy go nuts with it. Right. Like there was, um, someone a long time ago, there was a freelance writer who said they wanted to make six figures. And they said, and they were like, yeah, I'll just charge them $30,000 a month for blogging. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And it wasn't just, it wasn't strategy. It was just this person I think was too new to freelance writing and they didn't really understand how it worked. And they were just like, I want to make six figures. So like, it'll be, you know, um, I'll do like whatever it was, 20 blog article, like 20 blog articles or blog posts a month and that'll be three $30,000.
And it's like, no, no, no. Um, so the way that you want to think about it is like the balance, the balance of the value of the balance that you're bringing to the project, not like your inherent value as a person. Um, but the value of all this stuff, um, that you can combine together and then price it appropriately. We don't want to go crazy. Like, I think a lot of times there's this worry that if we charge too much, that your client will, uh, like the potential client will just like laugh at you or like, think you're crazy. Or like you won't get the project. And sometimes yeah, you'll be out of their price range, but you have to think about it as like, they're not your client, someone who's rolling up into your, into your inbox and asking you to price something. And you say, I, you know, I believe it's this.
And they're like, oh my God, I can't believe that. Or they're like, no, like that's not going to work for us. They're just not your client. Like either they don't, you know, they're trying to burn and turn content, right? They're like, we'll give you 50 bucks. And if you write 10 articles a week, you know, that's 500 bucks and whatever, that's the wrong attitude. The attitude should be that it's value content. It's not creating a ton all the time. It's creating things strategically and then pricing them strategically. And it's about finding clients who understand the value of the content itself, the lifespan of it, how it works with content strategy, how it works with their marketing plan, how it works with our funnel, right. How it brings brand awareness and then warms people up and get some familiar with everything and helps them understand the product.
And then maybe they eventually buy it. That whole deal. It's about that. It's not about people who are trying to just like, I just heard, I need to create content now. Like, will you create my content? Like, no. And I think this is something I did like, uh, I've I've talked about pricing before. And I think a lot of times writers roll up to me. Like they get in my inbox and they sent me an email and they're like, what would you charge for this? And it's like, they have no other information other than like, it's a 1200 word blog posts. And like, what do you know about this topic? How many times have you written about this? Like, what are you doing? Any research or interviews or SEO stuff or images, or like, what are you doing other than like 1200 word blog posts?
Because I've written blog posts that are the same word count where some are ultra dense. Like they are very hard to write because every single thing that has to be crammed into that small word count, like really matters. And some of them are just like this, the same word count, but it's more general. It's more of like a sweeping topic rather than a deep dive. Those are two different prices. And I think a lot of times writers are just like, oh my gosh, they asked me what my price is. And then the panic, right. They panic. And they're just like, what would you charge for this? And it's like, you have no information. You didn't ask them to send you an example. You didn't ask them to walk you through. What's included in the post. You didn't ask them what their budget is, which is number one, you got to ask them that you didn't ask them like any other information, like about this product.
It's kind of like going to a grocery store. Right. You wouldn't just like pick up a bottle of shampoo and just say like, what would you charge for the shampoo? Like, you know, nothing about the brand what's the ingredients are like, is it sustainably sourced or is it like a plastic free bottle? Or is it eco-friendly company? Or is it like a rare ingredient in the shampoo? Like, or, um, even, even food, right? You don't just like pick up two oranges and say, what would you charge for these oranges? Like one's organic and grown in a special garden with like only special things. And one is like just a regular orange from Florida, wherever it comes from. You know, those are really good, important things to pricing. And I think a lot of freelance writers make that mistake. They just like, think it's the same, like, oh, it's just a blog post.
It's this much money or, oh, it's just a white paper. It's this much money. And then they end up getting in these situations where they're like, oh my God, it's so much work. I had no idea. Like, because they didn't ask questions upfront. And that really matters to your pricing. And it really matters to the value and getting the work done. So I think when you're thinking about your price and stuff, when you're thinking about the strategy, when you're thinking about putting things all together, you have to ask these questions like you have to go in, and these are in the guide too. So popping that up. If you haven't gotten the free pricing guide, Andy ellis.com/pricing guide, free pricing guide, you can get it there. Um, maybe I'll change these things. Sometimes they look like a little goofy, like, I don't know, I'll have to fight.
So that later you think it looks goofy or no, you can't see it yet. Okay. So, um, when you're doing your pricing stuff, you have to remember that you need a strategy that makes sense for you and you need a strategy that isn't just like, it's a blog post. It's not just a blog post. You don't want to sink yourself into a ship, like in the ship that you're in. You want to make sure that you are asking them for examples, asking them what the blog post or whatever. Like what is, how many pages is the white paper? How many is it? Um, what are we doing? Images, interviews, what type of research? What types of materials are you giving me that I need to go look through? Like, what do we need to do for that? So you have to think about all of these things.
When you're doing pricing, you have to think about like, what that actually means. It's not, it's, it's a common thing that they just ask, like, what would you charge for X? Okay, well, what does the X mean? And a lot of times when you get something in your inbox, a lot of times, for me, I've noticed over the years, when I get someone who leads with price, they just don't know as much about content. Like they do. They're just like, what would you charge for this? And you're like, can you give me information? They're like, it's just a blog post. And you're like, Nope, we're not a fit. You don't get it. Like, you don't understand what the blog post can do for you. You just heard you need blog posts. Like there's a big difference between someone who understands why they're creating the content, how they're creating the content, what purpose?
Like what's the purpose of the content and why it needs to be that way then someone's, it's just like, I need a white paper. So big differences there. We see, I see some stuff from Linda. So Linda says, yeah, you have to say no to stuff. So there's times when like people block at your prices, that's going to happen. Like you do that too. Right. We go to the store and you're like, oh, I don't need organic apples. I'm just going to make this thing with regular apples. Or you're like, oh, I don't need this special thing. I'll just buy the store brand. Like there's a lot of times we say no to products all the time. And for some reason, as writers, I think we feel very sensitive. I used to feel very sensitive that people thought I was overcharging them or thought I was not worth the price or thought that, um, you know, it was like, sorry.
Um, that, that I was like doing it wrong. And it was more about like me as me being worried about like their perception of me than like the actual thing. And me realizing like, oh, we're just not fit. Like I know this content is worth this much, you know, that kind of stuff. So, um, Linda says when you're transitioning into a new niche, but you have experience that can contribute to the project. Do you charge as a beginner or as an intermediate writer moving up? So Linda, you're going to charge at what you feel comfortable with. So if you've done that project like 10 times or a ton of times over the years, then I would charge what you think it's worth. Like I would get into kind of the mid range. Um, and you've been a writer for awhile. You want to mix all these things together and you know what, even if you price it wrong, even if you decide to price it at the intermediate or the newbie level, or even the seasoned level, once you get a price and someone says, yes, that means that you get to move up from there.
So like, let's say you charge $600 for a thousand word blog posts. The next time you get a client, you're like, okay, I've gained some experience. I did a ton of blog posts. I've written, you know, I wrote 20 new blog posts for this old client that I had. I'm going to go move to $700. You can always move up. So if you have new niches, um, I think that you still have experience, right. It doesn't just because you're in a new niche. It doesn't negate all the other stuff that you have. It's just a matter of finding the balance. So I would kind of pick some numbers that you feel good about. I would roll through the guide pick numbers that you feel good about first. Then you can kind of say like, okay, in this project type, I've done it a bunch. I'm going to raise my price a little bit.
Um, this thing I haven't done very much, maybe I'll lower it a little bit until I get one or two clips and then I'll hit this mid range. So I think really the beginner prices are for people just starting out. So I always kind of view it as the beginner prices are for people who are brand new to writing or brand new to freelance writing. If you're coming into freelance writing and you have like 20 years of marketing experience, that's like, you should be you, you know, definitely not a beginner writer. Um, it should be something where you kind of match that experience with the value of the product and you're not our project and, um, your knowledge and all that other stuff, like someone who's bringing 20 years of marketing to a project, someone who maybe ran a marketing department and ran all the content for a company that is a lot of value that you're bringing to a project.
So even if you're changing niches, you still have value. Like you still have been writing and doing writing projects for awhile. I think I would, for most people, what I found is kind of like two to three to four, five years is kind of the mid range of freelance writers. Um, and then like beyond five years is usually seasoned. So if you've been kind of a freelance writer for like less than two years, usually that's a newbie range. And that's like, what I'm saying is like, you're brand new to writing. You're brand new to freelance writing and you have no experience, no clips, no nothing. Um, or you have very little stuff to work with. If you have a lot of stuff to work with, if you've been, um, in different phases of content creation for a business, or you have, you know, other stuff to bring to the table.
I think at least as far as like, I know Linda, you know, like Linda is one of my core students. Um, you may have seen her testimonial on LinkedIn or Instagram, uh, this week. I think it went out. Um, but yeah, so I think the important part here is like, I would pick prices that you feel good about and then figure out how you want to wiggle those. So what ends up happening is we often price below what we probably should. So I've sent out project quotes a bunch of times where I priced below what I probably should have. Um, and that just happens sometimes. But then you kind of learned from that over time, you kind of like, oh, I should charge more. You do the project. And you're like, next time I do a project like this. And of course you will always ask for an example. So you can see like, oh, this looks like that other project it'll be this, um, that kind of helps you drive all your pricing stuff. So any other questions that I can answer before we hop off? Um, let's do a pup date while we wait for questions. So any other questions, pop them in the chat. Let's find the tree dose. Very, you look
Very gentlemen Lee. Good job. Bear. Charlotte, are you in your, have a whole Charlotte, you had to go to your house, the whole go to your household mill. That's not your hollow hole. Go to your alcohol. Good job. Good job. Good job. Bare. You look like, well, gentlemen, I let you look like a little tiny deer. Good job guys. You guys are great. You guys did great on the live stream today. That's
Another thing is we have now, um, we've now taught, um, Bo and Charlotte, the word livestream. So we'll tell them to come up here for the live stream, big Yon, good job, Charlotte. Um, we will tell them to come up here for the live stream. So they'll like run upstairs and we'll give them a treat. And now they know the word live stream. So like, if you see me say live stream and see their ears move that they've now learned that word. So that's actually helped us get them into place when we need them to. Um, yeah. So Linda, if you are, if they're you normally priced low, one of the things that I learned over the years is that, um, uh, okay, great. Um, so one of the things, if you're, if you normally find out that your pricing lower than other writers, sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone and charge a little bit more, that makes you uncomfortable.
So, um, this is like a, a lesson that a lot of people do is like, Hey, pick something that you feel good about and then push yourself a little bit, like raise it by a hundred bucks, raise it by 50 bucks. Ray, was it like if you're doing a giant project, raise it by a thousand bucks. Um, and I'm talking like multiple five figure projects, like push yourself a little bit to charge a little bit more and find the clients who will, you know, who understand why you're charging more. It's not just like charge more and then keep swimming in the same pool of clients who like, don't get it. We want to hit a better rate and find clients to understand why, excuse me, we're charging that rate.
All right. So I hope
That was helpful. Um, you can grab the free pricing guide below. There's a ton of links in this video. I was just Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. And I hope this was helpful. Pricing is super important as freelance writers, especially creating prices that are fair and like value based, creating prices that make sense for us. And then understanding kind of what like are companies and, um, publications with the market is like there. And then also the market in terms of what other freelance writers are charging. I think it's really important to keep your rates up to date and oh, one last thing. Raise your rates every year. Every year that you're a writer, you're learning, getting experience, getting more knowledge, doing more projects every year and need to raise your rates. So I hope this was helpful. Everybody, all the pups are pretty happy. They're hanging over there. Charlotte's finally laid down. Beau's got his gentlemen paws all working for him. All right. So we will be back here next Friday. I will see you at noon central time, and I hope you have a good, a good weekend. Alright, bye.
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