Am I being taken advantage of as a freelance?

[Lavenderpillow]

I’ve been freelancing for a charitable organisation since the beginning of a year. I find the work really enjoyable and perfect for me, but I am paid minimum wage. I’ve applied for two permanent jobs there and not got them.
They’ve come back to me twice this year when they’re short staffed and asked me to fill in, which I’ve done and enjoyed but earnt bugger all for all my hard work.
They’ve now asked me again. Dh is concerned that they’re taking advantage because they know I’m keen and that the hard work I do doesn’t reflect in my pay at all. I have another job part time in a different field that I get paid a lot more for.
But I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot. Perhaps I could try and do this work elsewhere. I don’t know. WWYD?

Yes, I'm afraid you need to get your ovaries of steel on.

Ideally over the phone but by email if you honestly can't face it. I'd say that as you've now gained more experience, your rates are increasing to reflect that. But as they're a longstanding valuable client and a charity, you will give them an x% discount meaning your rate for them will be £15.

And that you appreciate that's a big leap but you need to remain in business.

They're basically paying you a lot less than minimum wage. You need to pay sickness, holiday, NI and pension out of that.

You’d get more as a customer assistant as Tesco’s, plus you’d get a staff discount, paid holiday and could contribute to a pension scheme.

I don't think any freelancer should charge less than £15 per hour for anything that requires any skill/experience whatsoever. With no holiday/sick pay or pension and irregular work you need to be earning way more than minimum wage for it to be remotely sustainable.

I work in a field that is notoriously poorly paid but I've stuck to my guns on a decent minimum hourly rate (£25ph) and am getting work despite that. If I charge less than that then it won't be viable for me to continue working on a freelance basis. For work that is more complex/specialist I charge more than that.

Thanks @Neighneigh

I work for a charity and I do very interesting and skilled work. I get paid £7.50 an hour.
My freelance work rate is £250 per day.

While it works for me it works.

Although I don’t think they know what my day rate actually is. I think they might appreciate me more if they knew.

The absolute - and I mean absolute - minimum a freelance should ever charge for anything is NMW plus tax, NI, holiday and sick contribution. That would probably get you up to £15ph.

For reference, I'm a freelance writer and my minimum rate is £50ph. I very, very rarely charge my minimum though. Charities will take the piss, but if you point out they are actually paying below NMW because of the expenses and costs associated with freelance work then they might be embarrassed enough to put their rate up.

Otherwise, say no.

@Lavenderpillow

It’s freelance writing work and they pay me £9 an hour. I know I could get a lot more if I manage to freelance elsewhere but I don’t know if anyone else would hire me! This is my first client.

Well they dont actually pay you that do they? As you are SE you have to take certain things off so in real terms they are paying you £6.75 which is ridiculous

Why are you on Min. Wage as a freelancer?

In your situation I'd say you have been offered more work and your rate is going up to £15 an hour - that's still very low but the problem is you've started off low too so proportionally it's going to be a big jump. I'd be interested in what others think but I wouldn't recommend you say ok my rate is now £25/£30 an hour, it's too much of a leap.

I agree that in an ideal world you’d have started at £25 an hour minimum, but that’s not possible to achieve with this client because of your historic rate. I’d tell them that you’ve been assessing your business rates and comparable work based on the other freelance commitments you have and your minimum charge from X date (next month) is £18p/hr. However as they’re such a long-standing client, and a charity, and you enjoy working with them, you are willing to discount this rate to £15p/hr.

If they come back and say that’s too much, ideally wait for them to counteroffer. If they don’t immediately, ask them to - ‘Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate budgets are squeezed for everyone at the moment. What budget do you have for this sort of work - perhaps there is an agreement that suits us both?’

Then you can open yourself up to negotiating a lower rate for guaranteed regular hours, or a short-term rate of e.g. £12.50 to be reviewed in January, or whatever. That’s all if you don’t want to lose the work so don’t want to be totally hardball.

But they will know they’re taking the piss unless they’re absolutely tiny and work on a skeleton staff, which it doesn’t sound is the case.

Sorry am back @Lavenderpillow
Well. I started off temping then got a 6 month job in a public affairs dept which turned into two years, then spent 6 years at a pr agency, then like a total f* idiot, didn't go back after mat leave. Instead I went freelance in to a specific sports industry. So I know roughly what the average daily rate is and traditionally have pitched myself just below that. Freelance work sometimes comes my way because I've been around over ten years just in this sport, sometimes I'll reach out on LinkedIn and say hi! Remember me...but tbh with two kids and covid and everything I've not actually tried very hard recently. My main bit of advice would don't specialise too much like I have. I'm in a real niche, the nichest of niches, in an industry that takes the piss ("oh we haven't any budget" etc etc).
Freelancing is hard work tbh. I think the best thing to do is join an agency that fills short term roles in copywriting and editing - often these lead to being offered a job anyway! But it does seem on here that the £20/£25 an hour mark is fairly standard if you have a few years experience. Hope that helps....like I said I'm not sure I'd take career advice off me! Ha.

It seems to me that everything is true, you are being used because you love this kind of activity and the fact that you are a freelancer. I'm very sorry to say this, but you may have to put a condition in front of your employer, either you get a salary increase for your inhuman labors, or you leave from there. Unfortunately, I do not know what will happen next, but I hope that if everything turns out for the worse, you will still be able to find your favorite job on the World Wide web and do your favorite things. For example, I like to develop websites, and when my work is not appreciated, I just don't do the work, only after that people realize how wrong they were. Maybe your situation is similar and you just need to be persistent. Good luck to you, buddy!