How Much Should You Charge When You Start Copywriting
How much should a beginner copywriter charge?
When you start copywriting, you’ll find that there’s one defining feature that’s both brilliant and terrible at the same time.
That’s the lack of a barrier to entry.
Anyone can start applying for jobs and freelance work as a copywriter. You don’t have to get any qualifications, you can build a portfolio from nothing really quickly, and providing you have a vague idea what you’re doing, you should be able to get some clients in pretty short order.
That’s the great part.
The terrible part is that everyone else on the planet can do the same. Of course, a lot of them can’t speak English and don’t have a vague idea what they’re doing, but that doesn’t stop them from applying for the same work as you are applying for.
The people mentioned above muddy the waters. There are people right now who’ll work for 0.001 pence per word. There are people who will work for free because they want exposure. (Hint: Don’t do this.) Essentially, there is no lower limit on what to charge.
On the other hand, we’ve all read tales of guys like Dan Kennedy and Gary Halbert demanding seven figures, a percentage of the business and the business owner’s most beautiful daughter as payment for a five hundred word sales letter. So there’s seemingly no upper limit either.
So, how much should a beginner copywriter charge without pricing themselves out of the market either way?
The answer isn’t a straight $20 an hour or £50 per 500 words. It’s more complex.
I’d argue that as soon as you decide you want to be a copywriter, there are four things you should do. Not for the money, but because they’ll help you work out (and increase) the money you can ask for.
Four Points To Determine How Much A Beginner Copywriter Should Charge
Point One: Get Your Own Projects Up and Running.
Most people (myself included) undercharge when they start because they truthfully don’t have a clue what they’re doing and they rely on other people’s work to pay their bills. If you get to the point where you’re making enough from your side projects to a) demonstrate results and b) earn money so you don’t have to beg for scraps, then you have a lot more control over your pay.
For instance, if you write a $5 e-book and its sales page, then you can give your potential clients experience of writing both content and sales material. You can also say “My copy converts at an average of X% and some projects have a return of X%.” Those figures are worth more to a business owner than your volunteer work at the local animal shelter. (Or your English degree.)
In the general working world, as automation grows, outsourcing grows and economic purse-strings get tighter, employers enjoy the power they have over their employees and potential employees. If you want to command the wages you want (if not deserve) then you need to flip the script and demand money. You can’t do that if you’re on the breadline and beholden to one income source.
Point Two: Take on Cheap Projects for the Experience.
If you haven’t worked on Fiverr, upwork or some other freelance site, you’re losing out. Honestly, these things are great in the short term because you’re never going to get a mix of eclectic jobs (which you get paid for) anywhere else. This part is especially for those who think they should write for experience or exposure. You can work for hundreds of businesses in different countries, markets and in different ways, and because the standards of freelancers are so low and the jobs are so easy, it won’t be much of a sacrifice. You’ll learn loads about business and what works and doesn’t by doing this.
Point Three: Work out what you actually need to charge.
After a while of following the two points above, you’ll know how long an individual project takes, what value you can bring to the client’s pocket and what you need to make the job you’re applying for worth your while.
I don’t mean that in the sense of “what are my ideal goals and how do I get that beachfront property in Miami,” but in terms of Job X will take ten hours and the employer’s return on that ten hours is £X pounds. What’s your fee for them to be profitable?
For instance, If you’ve got an hour and you get $2 for that hour, you’re getting $2… is your time really worth that? Or do your own/previous projects earn more than that? (If they don’t, check out my article on How To Get Better At Copywriting and then How to Get Copywriting Clients.)
Point Four: Work Out What You Should Charge
By this point, you should have an idea of what you need to charge. Before you send off those invoices, work out what you can charge.
I have lost so much money in the past because I didn’t do this, I want to cry sometimes. Seriously.
Just because you need $10 an hour and your current projects mean you can consistently get a 5% conversion rate, doesn’t mean that those numbers are the numbers you pick.
As an example, I’ve been working on a business idea for a while now. If I charged £X amount, I’d be happy, because I’d make money on the business, I’d be able to provide a great service and everyone would be happy.
Then I found out that most companies in the field were charging ten-to-twenty times the amount I was planning to offer the service for.
Whilst that’s good news (More money, yo!) it also changed my little business plan entirely.
There’s no use in bootstrapping a business when you’re going to make 10x the money you anticipated. You ca spend more on everything. You can afford to spend more time on each project as well. Each client gets more attention, each purchase can be bigger, your time commitment changes.
The same is true of copywriting. You don’t want to go into copywriting looking to compete with the outsourced, barely English-literate armies. You can sell a 300 word article on Fiverr for $5. Don’t try and sell products that cheaply to a brick and mortar business at that price point though. They’ll think you’re a scammer or an idiot.
For instance, take my little side-business from above: If I had started quoting companies at £XXX when they are used to paying £XX,XXX, then I would have come across as completely amateurish. As a writer, you absolutely cannot come across as amateurish – people already think that writers are poor starving artists with no business sense – so you must give them a quote that’s professional.
Want to know the easiest way to do this?
Get quotes yourself as if you were a business hiring in your niche.
There’s nothing wrong (ok, maybe it’s a little wrong) with getting quotes from other copywriters looking to do the job you’re looking to apply to.
For instance, if you want to write copy in the legal field, then go find other legal copywriters and see what they charge. Look at the good ones. You want to be a good one, not a cheap one. Email them. See what their prices include. See what extras they charge for.
(For instance, in the little business I just researched, people get charged for phone calls, research and prototypes being built – I would never have thought to charge for those things.)
Once you have a good idea of what the pros charge, use the information from the first three points to see where you sit, and then charge accordingly.
Final Thoughts
Some of you will have read this far and be pretty annoyed that I haven’t given a figure. The fact is though, that if you do the above, you’ll know the following:
- What you’re worth
- What you need to live on
- Where you rank in terms of stuff you can offer compared with competitors
- How to best price your service/product so that you offer the best value for money without appearing too cheap
Finally, you’ll have a pretty in-depth answer to the question, “How much should a beginner copywriter charge?”