How Much Should Freelancers Charge

In a study conducted by the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations which was reported in a 2018 article in Business Mirror, the Philippines is in 3rd place among countries engaging in online freelancing. Prior to embarking on freelancing career, it is important to learn the standard rates. Fixing freelancer rates depends on his skill, experience and negotiation skills. 

Billing hourly would be appropriate if your speed in working is just appropriate for your work-not too fast nor too slow. Working too fast and too slow seems unfair for you and the client, respectively. Industries expecting hourly rates include the business, technical and marketing writing work, web content and indexing. Per hour rate comes at $1-100 from beginner to advanced writers.

On the other hand, writers for magazines, journals, blog posts, and website articles get paid per word. For instance, in a freelance blogging service getting paid per word is highly recommended with pay amounting to $0.03 and $0.30 per word from entry level to in-demand expert. On the other hand, writers for marketing content get paid between 10 cents and $1 per word.

On the contrary, per page rates includes those industries engaging in making e-books, indexing, lesson plans, and academic writing. For academic writing, the pay differs depending on the turnaround time set by their clients. Thus, urgent papers have higher rates.  In our case, we pay our writers between $4 to $8 per page depending on the urgency of the paper, complexity of the task and seniority of the writer. Other pay rates are $15-50 per news articles page, $15-25 per page for e-books and $75 per book page.

Lastly, per project rate comes in for industries such as business, technical and marketing writing including trade magazines, newspaper, books (summaries, reviews, ghostwriting), brochures, script, and advertising. Per project comes in when the expected type of work will yield many pages. Having the work be paid per word basis might be disadvantageous for the writer especially if the paper includes few words with many graphs and charts. On the other hand, asking the client to pay per page for this type of work might look unfair for the client. So as to make everyone happy, have it be paid per project or per paper. Per project, the rate varies from $5-1000 and above depending on the type of work.

Generally, whatever writing industries you are working for, there is a single rule as to how you will get paid. Know your worth. This allows you to be more confident in dealing with any client because whatever it is you have demanded is what you truly deserve.