Freelance writing: setting your rate
Feb 8th, 2008 by Nut
I’ve been freelancing for this one client for a few months now. The deal was one big project at the beginning and some small upkeep on a month-to-month basis. Everything was fine until last month, when that upkeep became more than just minor. I spent five hours working on something that usually took around two.
This meant I was being paid somewhere around $6/hour. Not good enough, especially since it involves translating from English to Spanish.
So I decided to change my rates from a per/project basis to a per/hour basis. I told the client that I would begin charging the new rates in one month and that I would tally up the time worked just so he could see what it would cost him one month after that. In other words, I’d still get paid the same but I would let him know how much it would cost him next month, just to give him a ballpark figure if he didn’t want to pay it.
I told him I’d be charging $25/hour and for five hours it would be $125.
He balked, telling me that was too high and he didn’t like the per/hour charging system because he had no way of knowing how long I actually worked. But he likes my work and would like to continue to use me. I told him I just can’t work for $6/hour anymore.
In his last email, he told me that he could go as high as $50/month, up from the $30/month he pays me now.
It’s still pretty low, but if the work goes down (last month may have been an aberration, but it also may have been him trying to get more work out of me before my rates went up) to two hours again, I’ll be making my ideal $25/hour.
I’m torn on what to do. The whole idea I started this was to have some alternative income coming in, as well as diversifying my income. I know $360/year isn’t much (it would now grow to $600) but it’s still something and I’m torn on whether or not I should drop it rather than get paid less than I’m worth.
It’s not like I have a bunch of other clients waiting in the wings so if I say no to this guy I probably won’t have any side income at all, which is bad. Last month, when I was working the five hours (which were horrible, by the way, it’s menial and boring) last month I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being taken advantage of. M feels the same way.
But I feel if I stick to my guns and turn down the $50/month I’ll be going back to before I had any freelance income, I that feels like a step back.
What do you guys think? What should I do?
Open an ING account and get a $25 bonus!
I agree, you shouldn’t be working for $6/hr.
If I was in your place, I’d tell your client, I’d work for $50/mo, but if it entails more than 2.5 hrs of work, I’d either put it off until next month or bill him for the extra work.
On the flip side, blogging probably paid less than $5/hr for the first year. Infact I’m not even sure it still pays more than minimum wage!
I think LoD has it right. Feel free to go with the $50/mo., but if you feel that you are getting more work than is possible just do that amount for the month. So if you are translating a three page paper, maybe he only gets 1.5 pages this month.
Another way to look at things is that if he’s willing to go up to $50/mo now, you’ll be making more than what you did before. If you take that extra money and factor into the bad months, you’ll still be on track for your original $15/hour rate. You just have to be sure that more bad months don’t show up.
Time to do some self-marketing. Obviously you have great skills. Continuing this is to under-earn. If you’re unable to cut this client loose, I’d suggest underearners anonymous.
This one’s easy. First of all, getting paid by the hour in the freelancing industry is absurd. There’s absolutely no gauge for how long you’ve worked or how long you’re going to have to work. No one gets paid this way, seriously. What you need to be doing is getting paid by the word like everyone else is. It’s the only way to accurately gauge the amount of work to match it with a reasonable price. Hours don’t mean anything.
Since you’re already getting paid a pretty menial amount, i would start off asking for anywhere between 5-10 cents a word. If it’s something that’s a large number of words that might still be too high, but I don’t know how much you’re having to write/translate. Sit down and crunch some numbers and for God’s sake, find a job where they aren’t stingy bastards. Craigslist has a surprising amount of people looking for translators, and most of them are willing to pay a decent rate.
Good luck!
Don’t sell yourself short. They may be able to find another translator, or they may not. But if you accept less money than the job is worth, you will resent the work.
Have you considered charging per translated page? Or having them submit a project to you and you giving them a price quote before accepting the job? That way, there is no confusion about the rates you charge, you get a fair rate, and neither party feels like they were taken advantage of.
THanks for the advice! I like the idea of doing only a certain amount of the work and passing it off until the next month, though I know he won’t like that and will cut me loose if that’s what I opt for.
As for charging by the word/page, it might work. It may be that doesn’t want to pay that much but it may also be that he feels per hour is too “flaky,” i.e. I could charge whatever I want.
[…] what I did so that I can do it better the next time. I’m OK with making mistakes (like when I set my freelance rates) because I know it’ll probably be the last time I’ll make it. Plus I’m stubborn […]
So what did you do in the end?
Brip, I suggested the per-word pay scheme and he said he still wouldn’t be able to go over $50/month, regardless of the pay scheme. So I told him we could try this month at that rate and I’ll make a decision based on how much more work it is. He also threw in some talk of having other writers “at the ready” that want to work with him, which may or may not be true. Either way, I’ll work this month and reevaluate, though I’m getting the feeling I’d rather drop him and focus my time on developing this site.
[…] Freelance writing: setting your rate […]