Lesson 2 – How do I charge for my services? [3 of 7] TWM

More about the money.

Figuring out how to charge for my services was one of the biggest frustrations I had when I started out.

Should I charge hourly rates? Per word?

I really wished someone would just tell me how. (That didn't happen by the way).

How I Went About Charging For My Services

I googled.

Seriously! I asked around, and obviously that didn't give me any answers. But I figured that either the people I asked didn't know how to answer me or I wasn't asking the right people.

But anyhow, back to how I went about charging for my services.

No other choice, I had to do my research in 2 places: the public libraries and the web.

Writer's Market

This is an annual publication that provides you with information of getting published in the different areas of writing.

In other words, it includes the topic of how much should I charge.

You can check out a handy PDF guide I found online from the writersmarket.com titled How Much Should I Charge?

You can buy the book online with free worldwide shipping by clicking on the image, or I highly recommend that you borrow the latest edition from a library.

Search "Copywriting Rates Singapore"

That was the key word I used and I must say there are more useful results these days than 7 years ago!

Here's 3 useful links I found:

Obviously because I am from Singapore, I would add "Singapore" behind "Copywriting rates", so you can add the country you are from behind "Copywriting rates" to get more relevant search results.

Or if you're like me, curious to find out more generic results, you can just search "Copywriting rates" or "Charging for freelance copywriting", "freelance writing rates 2017 or 2018), or head over to UpWork to find out what their highest rated writers and editors are charging.

I find this one pretty good: Get Freelance Writing Rates

More Useful Resources Online

Instead of just knowing what the market rates are, I find it more useful to also know how to people actually price their services. So I found the following resources extremely useful and informative:

How Did I Charge Eventually?

"How do you charge for copywriting?" is a question I am so immune to already, and the answer that I give almost always astound others.

"Per project basis." And my answer hasn't changed for years. In other words, if you're really looking for a copywriter, then let's sit down and discuss what's your project about and if we're the right fit before I send you a quotation according to the project's needs and complexities.

I don't charge for the sake of squeezing an extra few dollars out of my clients but I actually take the time to figure out what they really want and need (which may not be the same thing sometimes), before I lay it on them.

I strongly believe in value, so if I can deliver what they are looking for and they can afford to pay for my services, then we have a deal. Sometimes we will have to negotiate, but most of the times, I choose the clients I want to work with.

So in the resource I shared with you, Freelance Writer Fees; How Much Should I Charge?, it's really spot on how I go about charging for my services. Depending on the nature of the project, I can charge

By the project (flat rate)
By the hour
By the page
Retainer fee

By the hour, I started out charging $100, which then grew to $150 which I eventually stopped charging by the hour because I am not interested to trade my time for money.

And really it makes the least sense of charging your services by the hour anyway. Why? if I am a really good writer, and I take less time to deliver a higher perceived value, then why am I charging lesser?

Then I moved on to charging by the page... starting from $250 a page to eventually by the project.

But I gradually evolved from solely copywriting to content marketing to internet marketing today. Simply because, there are more ways to make money with writing than just selling your services. And we are talking about passive and residual income here! (Which we will cover in lesson 4.)

2 Cool Videos To Wrap This Lesson Up

Am a follower of The Futur because they offer really cool and useful information, even though it's for Design, but check it out to have a better idea how you should be pricing your services.

How to Price Design Services & Make More Money