How to Set Your Freelance Rates and Charge What You're Worth

Just as in life we sometimes struggle to find our worth in our career journeys too. Be it your corporate role or your freelance roles, you might want to consider upskilling yourself, staying up to date and charging what your time is worth. If you are a freelancer, this is even more so, so do your best and take the share of what you deserve. You might, if you are anything like me, be reluctant to remind clients to pay their dues, and ask for compensation, but you must. Think of it this way, in life there are things we need to do though we might not like or might make us feel uncomfortable. But to do the things we like, sometimes we need to put up with things we don’t like, like reminding our clients that we need to be paid, and on time, as much as possible.  

 

 

This article will focus on some tips to go about this professionally so that misunderstandings and misjudgments are minimal. Inevitably there will be people who see what’s wrong with you no matter what you do, be it clients in the freelancing world or colleagues in your corporate world. As a person who has experience in both realms, I can assure you people will be people sometimes, in both scenarios.  

What to Consider When Pricing Your Gigs as a Freelancer 

There are several things or factors you need to consider when you price your freelance services. Be it that you are offering web design, social media management or writing services (yes, writing is not dead, and I believe there will always be demand for human writing, just like there will always be a demand for human art, despite the AI revolution). Freelancing is an art too, the way you go about it matters. I am learning the ropes, every passing day. The fun thing about freelancing is there is something new to learn every day. 

Keep Working on Your Skills 

You might think you know it all, until you realize you don’t. No one knows it all, no matter how experienced they are in a specific field. It is good to have confidence. But it is stupid to be arrogant. Arrogance often stems from ignorance is something I have come to realize over time, I learned this through observation and my own experience. Give yourself time to master skills that don’t come naturally to you, or perhaps you might have built up mental walls and excuses against not learning. Don’t discard or disregard your strengths just to satisfy social expectations. Think about it, when you need it the most, your friends are very unlikely to come to your rescue, maybe very rarely there will be one or two who stand by you no matter what, but most of us know that most friends are fair-weather friends and whenever there is a sign of foul weather, they are gone. Don’t live to satisfy society is what I keep telling myself. If you don’t wrong anyone and earn in a legal way, you are doing more than good. Coming back to the topic, there is always something more to learn, no matter what your field might be. This attitude will help you become a better professional regardless of your choice being to work as a freelancer or work at a corporate setting.  

Be Consistent in Your Efforts 

I must confess, I struggle here so much that I feel like a hypocrite for mentioning this here, but I will, regardless, because I believe and know it to be true. If you consistently work on growing your freelance business, because I think it is a small business, you will get good at delivering a satisfying service and keep getting good feedback. This will result in repeat customers who come back again and again to obtain your freelance services. Freelancing is a game of quality rather than quantity is what I feel and believe. You must pick and choose, since you can’t be all and do it all. You can try but I believe that being consistent in your field or subject area of choice will help you establish yourself as a professional. If you do this with time, you can increase your rates. You must be genuine about this, or you might overestimate or underestimate yourself. 

Select a Suitable Niche 

Jack of all trades is often a master of none. There are exceptions like Leonardo DaVinci, but you might be better off starting off being good at one thing and slowly expanding into other areas if you do choose to be a generalist over a specialist. It’s all up to you, I or no one else should tell you what to do, you should decide what is right for you. I recommend that starting out start out by mastering one area and dipping your toes into other areas that work for you. You need to find what works for you and the best way to do that is to try different methods to get things done. What works for me might not work for you. If you choose one niche, you can research and identify what rates other freelancers are charging who have similar skill levels to you and then decide what you would like to charge as a fee for your service. It’s best to start off with a low fee and increase it as you gain more experience and become more skilled in your chosen field of freelancing.  

 

Have a Method of Tracking Your Progress 

You need to have a method to track your progress when it comes to work. When freelancing you don’t have a boss to tell you that you are doing a crappy job. You also don’t have an annoying coworker who buzzes around you telling this is wrong and that is wrong because they are feeling super insecure, or perhaps they might have a point very rarely. This means you must be honest with everyone, mostly with yourself. Take the time to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are in you chosen field. Take writing for example, there are many sub-niches in the field of writing from SEO content writing to social media copywriting, which means that you have a large range to choose from and you might soon find that you are better at one sub-niche than you are in any other. Just be confident in your skills and as Shakespeare most eloquently put it “To thy own self be true.” This I believe should be a golden rule if you plan on excelling as a freelancer because no matter what others say, if you take the time and effort to understand your strengths and weaknesses, no one will know you better than anyone else. Having a method to track your progress will help you increase your prices as you become more skilled and experienced in different niches and sub niches. 

 

Different Freelance Pricing Models 

When it comes to pricing your freelance services there are several models you can look at before choosing one that matches your needs. You can select what is best for you depending on your skill level, lifestyle and schedule. Starting off might be overwhelming, especially if you are transitioning from a corporate environment to a freelance job. The one (and perhaps the only good thing) about a corporate job is that you get a paycheck in your bank at the end of every month, which might not be the case when you are starting off as a freelancer. If you live in an Asian country like I do, (I wish I can change that soon) you will have a tough time explaining things to your family and friends. 

 

Some might not understand, some might pretend not to understand, but the most important thing is if you understand that freelancing is the life you want, despite the risks that it comes with, then you might want to weigh the pros and cons of both the corporate world and decide according to your situation. I believe freelancing offers more freedom compared to a corporate job, and if you are an introvert like me, you will feel relieved that you don’t have much socializing to do too. You need to decide what is right for you at the end of the day, in freelancing you call all the shots. And if you think it is a risk, I believe that nothing in life is completely risk-free or guaranteed.  

 

There are several methods that you can go about charging for your freelance services. From hourly to per task completed, you can decide what suits you best. It can be challenging to select what is right for you, but by trying out different methods, you will be able to figure out what is the right pricing strategy that works best for you, your niche and the clients who choose to invest in your freelance services. Below, let us take a closer look at these in more detail. 

 

 

Hourly Rate Based Pricing 

When charging for something at an hourly rate basis, you charge for every hour you work on a certain project. This model can be used if you are someone offering freelance writing services, graphic design services and even consulting services. If you want to charge by the hour for your services, you will need to discuss this with your clients. Usually, if you intend to charge by the hour, it is best to use platforms like Freelancer, Upwork and LinkedIn. These platforms are some of the common examples of platforms that most freelancers use if they offer hourly rate-based pricing. Some of the key benefits of opting for an hourly rate-based pricing system involves the convenience of tacking and billing for time spent working on a specific project. This can be fair if the project scope has not been clearly determined. If you look at the drawbacks of this system is that your income is tied to the hours you can work and stay productive, which means that your income will depend on how productive you can be on an hourly basis.  

 

Project Based Pricing 

If you decide to charge for your freelance services based on per project, you know that you will get the fee at the end of the project. This is great, because if you are highly skilled and experienced, you will be able to complete many tasks much faster than other less skilled or experienced peers. If you are a highly experienced and skilled freelancer, you might want to consider opting for project-based pricing. Charging based on the project means that the client is aware of the complete cost which will help streamline the process of negotiations and communication. One major drawback of this includes the fact that it becomes difficult to estimate the time required for completion when it comes to complex projects. 

 

Retainer Pricing 

If you are planning to work for a client's long term, then you might want to consider signing them up based on a retainer pricing system. This is the closest you will come to having a paycheck, quite like if you were working in the corporate world. But this involves you searching and reaching out to clients to get orders or work. One downside of retainer-based pricing is it does restrict your level of freedom and autonomy as a freelancer. If you value these above anything else, you might want to rethink your decision about implementing a retainer pricing system. 

 

How to Figure Out the Ideal Rates as a Freelancer? 

If you are looking to figure out how to set your ideal rates as a freelancer, then you might want to go about considering several factors when coming up with these rates. You will need to take into factors such as how much you want to earn per month or per year. This will help you decide where, when and what to invest in your time. Of course, there are exceptions, and everything isn’t always about money (that might be the reason you decided to leave your toxic and draining nine to five job which absorbed not just your blood sweat and tears but perhaps your sanity and peace of mind). Let’s dive into some of these factors below.  

Figure Out How Much You Want to Earn

If you want to become a freelancer and take it seriously and earn as much or hopefully even more money than you did at your day job, without scaring away potential clients who pay well but maybe not illogically large amounts (only you know if you can charge the amounts you charge). If the client is satisfied with your skill level, which they are most likely to judge based on your portfolio 

Have an Idea about Your Availability  

Though people might think you are not doing a “proper” job, that’s their opinion, and usually this is quite unjust and jaded, especially if they have no idea about your daily schedule. Some might even use it to their advantage, so you might want to look at who your close circle is and change it if you are not quite happy with it. Some people say humans are social creatures, but I’d like to say no theory is absolute. Find out what works for you. In my case the more people in my life, the messier things have got, so I prefer to write and work on my own. You need to find out what works for you, and that is once more up to you. No one is going to push or beg you to do the work. No one’s going to coax you or motivate you to do your work. You will have to do all that and be solely responsible by identifying how many hours you can be productive and deliver quality work. The cool thing and perhaps the scary thing about freelancing is that you are on your own, but the best thing is also that you are on your own and if you win big you can be proud that you did it all on your own, mostly, without relying on others to motivate you to get the work done. That is, I believe, a worthy accomplishment worth being proud of.  

I hope you found this article useful and hope it would motivate you to take a shot at freelancing if you always wanted to or have always been putting it off. I’d like to say to you, there is no better day than today and the thing about life is that tomorrow is never guaranteed. If I were you, I’d chase my dreams instead of getting caught in the rat race and going about life like a hamster on a wheel. I’m not saying it is going to be easy, but if you get where you want to, I can almost guarantee you that you’ll feel that you have achieved something awesome.