how much do freelance copywriters charge?

[CheeeseOnToast]

Hi everyone

I've recently started to spread the word that I'm available for copywriting (after being made redundant as a journalist) and someone's just contacted me and asked how much I'd charge to provide the copy for a website, and some other promotional material.

I was planning to work for free for while, but he seems willing to pay me so I wanted to take the chance to earn a little bit, but I dont really know how much to charge.

Do you charge per word or per document/project? A set fee? A fee per day, and give an estimate as to how much time it should take? How is this normally done? I dont want to charge loads and price myself out.

Hope someone can help me! I need to go back to him today. I suppose I could take a closer look at the work he requires and then send him a quote?

Help!!!

one of my clients is a copywriter - they charge £500 per day, or £62.50 per hour. That's for IT business to business type stuff which it seems there's a huge market for, not sure about other areas.

thanks Shrinkingviolet - wow that's a lot!! I think I'll say £100 a day.. I dont have a massive portfolio yet to interest new clients so I just want to get the work in really. Right now I'm arranging to meet the client next week to go through exactly what's required.

Ooh I'm excited!

that's only £12.30 per hour though - surely your skills are worth more than that? Don't undersell yourself! I'd be tempted to let them suggest what they are prepared to pay, then do the sucking teeth thing car mechanics do and say somethign along the lines of "well, i'd normally be looking at (what they've suggested plus £5-£10) per hour, but let's see what we can work out", adn come to a compromise of pretty much what they've suggetsed (unless it was an unreasonable suggestion obv). Then they think they've got a bargain, and you then have a benchmark for what people in your target market are prepared to pay.

Unless £100 per day is what the going rate is, in which case, ignore all of the above.

Hi Cheeseontoast

I work in publishing, rates vary a lot for freelancers and it depends on how technical the work is (basically its supply and demand). My work is legal stuff and proofreading/editorial freelancers get from £22 to £35 per hour - copywriting won't be radically different but often its on a per word rate. I did some copywriting fora specialist recruitment website a while ago and it was about £70 per 500 words. Other times fixed fees are agreed rather than per hour or per word count eg define the job with rough word counts and agree a fixed amount.

As I expect you know its areally competitive market with lots of competition for work at the moment but if you develop a niche area you can build a reputation. Try having a look at the NUJ website - they have details of rates paid for various jobs but I recall they vary wildly (and big publications can be the meanest!)

I think you are sensible to want to get the work and not price yourself out, but I'd think about per word or job rates rather than open day rates - clients aren't keen on uncertainty at the moment, they want a good idea of what the job will cost at the end of the day.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for your responses. I have gone back to potential client and said around £100 a day but that we'll come up with a more detailed quote/estimation after we've gone through what he's looking for, giving me room to manouvre a bit if i need to. The thing is, I would actually do it for free, but clearly if he wants to pay me then so be it

And good idea about checking out the NUJ site luckymummy, I haven't even thought of that.

Shrinkingviolet, I think as I get more clients and a bigger portfolio I'll be able to ask them what they want to pay etc, love the 'mechanic sucking teeth' idea. I spoke to a friend in the business after I posted originally and she charges upwards of £250 a day, so thought if I went in with my £100 offer he'll be more likely to take me on. I don't have a huge portfolio and so its a bit more of a gamble for him to choose me, rather than a more established freelancer.

Fingers crossed he wants me to do it for him! Thanks again

As a fellow freelancer I would urge you please not to set your prices too low - it is very very hard to raise your fees substantially afterwards, especially as much of your work will (hopefully) come from repeat clients/recommendations so it's very difficult to double your rate. It also devalues the profession generally and makes it much much harder for the rest of us!

Personally I think working for free is a little different, as long as you make it clear that you are getting a 'value' from it, be that experience, cuttings, contacts, or whatever. However I would always be open about the fact that it is a 'one-off', and for me it worked very well when I waived a fee for one client, then ended up with several year's worth of (well paid) work from them..

Don't forget you'll need to cover expenses like computer/software/phone/internet etc, and you need to set aside some of your income for tax, so £100 a day won't go very far!

I do some business to business writing for a website and get paid 30p/word.

No, no, no, £100 far too low.

Dh in a not dissimilar field charges £300 - £400 per day. Set a daily rate, not per hour, if you possibly can.

No! £100 far too low. Almost impossible to raise fees after you have established a working relationship. I made this mistake and now am in a stupid position of not being able to afford to work for my early clients, who would offer a pretty steady flow of work.

Also, IMO, you bring down the market for everyone else - obviously not blaming you for anything, but to think about maybe?

I charge between 20 and 35 quid an hour or a minimum of 200 quid a day. I will negotiate for work I am desperate to get/love doing, or as 30andlurking says, do it for free.

I have been a freelance copywriter for 30 years. I don't do journalism because the skills required are completely different.
If you want to be a copywriter and have the luxury of not needing a salary, then why not get a job as an intern or a junior? That will give you the three things you need to make it as a freelancer a)skills b)reputation and c)contacts.

Ooh this is rather interesting. My current part-time job involves a lot of copy-writing, copy-editing and proofreading and I thought about going freelance to boost my income.

However, when I looked into it further I got the impression that rates of pay are very low, averaging £7 to £9 for proofreading and £8 to £10.50 per hour for copy-editing!

I know that these jobs are different to copy-writing, but I'd be interested to hear your own views on average rates of pay.

I got the prices from "Freelance Proofreading and Copy-editing - A Guide" by Trevor Horwood. Is it totally out of date?!

while we are on the subject, how would one go about setting up as a proofreader/copyeditor? i have no paid experience whatsoever but have proofread/written for several charity papers and proofread for students up to phd level.

would i be wasting my time?

i mean copywriter

mn typing is truly no indication of rl ability

Just bumping!!

I'm interested in setting up as a freelance as well. I was a web and intranet editor in the public sector for six years full time before DD arrived 18 months ago, and have done other bits of online work as part of other jobs and voluntarily at different times. I have copywriting, copy editing and proofreading experience. I'd really like some work that I could do at home one or two days a week, but feel unsure about how to start looking for it.

I also feel a bit nervous because although I did it all for my job I have only done short courses, never used proofreading marks etc. (as it was all onscreen) so am worried that I'll be asked questions that I can't really answer about the technical skills. Presumably the way the work's delivered and the format it's delivered in is all negotiated at the outset, so it's clear what the client expects. Is that the case, or are there accepted ways that things are done for online work?

Any advice about how to proceed? Should I be looking for agencies? I don't have a lot of contacts, but can put the word out to those I do have.

Check out the Society for Freelance Editors and Proofreaders - they offer a lot of support and also run very reasonably priced training courses.

I work as an editor/proofreader and charge £400 a day for technical B2B stuff. My absolute minimum rate would be £150 for a daily rate as anything less and it's really not worth my while, particularly after you take childcare into account. However I do get a lot of work from an editorial services agency who pay badly but deal with all the grief from the authors such as finding the work etc, payment and invoicing. I also do the occasional free or voluntary stuff if it's in a new area as it creates a lot of goodwill and can lead to further (paid) opportunities.

I charge £35 an hour.

I'm a freelance copy editor and proofreader and charge between £18.50 and £20 per hour. Some clients prefer to set the rate themselves, which is generally around the £19 mark. I usually work on educational books, but sometimes get the odd trade title come my way.
staranise I'd never get away with £400 a day in my field as the publishers' budgets are ridiculously tight! I'd love to do some of the more technical stuff you're involved in - any advice on how to go about it? I'm finding the education market is very quiet at the moment.

I think it's really hard to get proofreading work because the competition is huge, but yes I'd use the society of proofreaders' rates and I agree the NUJ has a list of rates too (they are on the low side as non technical publications pay much less).

Copywriting for agencies or corporates is different though and you don't want to sell yourself short. The ranges are wide, from 200 pound a day up to 500-700. It's really hard to establish a rate since the range is so big.

I have years of experiences inhouse where the rates are much lower for freelancers so now I'm doing it from home it has been tricky to hit the right figure. Online writing is also riddled with people who are happy to be paid peanuts, which doesn't make it easy for certain clients who don't understand that you have to pay for quality.

I have sent heaps of CVs for proofreading from home as I don't live in London anymore and despite 16 years of experience, not a sausage. Waste of time unless you do technical, medical or legal. There are heaps of people, I moderate a freelance forum and it's dire. Sorry to rain on parade.

The best best is quality digital writing with SEO thrown in, this is starting to get valued and I'm getting somewhere there.

Sorry if I sound negative but am only interested in making money reasonably quickly and minimising efforts as I am looking after a child and have no time for pitches that go nowhere. I'm also not aggressive enough. I'm specialising on a subject any work for decent money.

Would love to hear of positive experiences that contradict my doom and gloom...

Hi again
My technical stuff is writing for deep-pocket finance firms, hence the high rates plus there is less competition as it is sooooo boring and specialised that not many people want to do it! TBH, I'm moving away from it as I hated the work and hated dealing with that type of firm. Nearly all my work came from contacts after a few years working in-house as an editor for an M&A firm and a legal/financial publishers. As someone else said, contacts really are the best way of finding work - acquaintances/family/friends working in Internal Comms or Marketing etc who can push freelance commissions your way.

I also did volunteer work for a local charity, editing their newsletter and got a book commission on the back of that experience.

My editorial servies agency gives me as much proof-reading work as I want but as I've been working around having three children, I've never asked for more than 1-3 days max - I find that work very convenient as I don't have to deal with the authors or the invoicing etc and can stop for the holidays etc. But their rates are low by comparison with daily UK rates (they're based abroad).

Best of luck with it

Hi staranise if you don't mind me asking I would be interested to know what agency you get work from? I am a work at home mum doing freelance editing/writing and proofreading and have lost some clients recently due to freelance budget cuts... so am desperate for more leads! Thanks iarose

Hi Iarose, i work for Wordsru but if you Google 'editorial services agencies' there are lots. Best of luck )

Cheers Staranise I will give them a go... what sort of documents do you work on for them out of interest? thank you iarose

Used to be a wide variety of stuff (lots of academic, some business, some fiction). I've worked for them for a while now so I can now be more choosy and I go for the ones with long deadlines of a month plus (usually novels), otherwise it can feel like you're on call 24 hours a day.

Hi thanks for your response... the criteria state you need an MA or other post-grad qualification.. do you have one of those? I have loads of experience and a degree but not an MA as such.