How much do you charge?

Hi. Today I wanted to go over one of the frequently asked questions I get, which is, "How much do you charge?" Now this question is a very loaded one. As a lot of people work on an hourly basis and I get it.

However, with writing sometimes you're not inspired in an hourly basis kind of time. So I often like to work on a project basis. Which means I give you a price for writing the whole entire project, along with any research I need to do, any interviews I need to do, any editing, including you know after drafts get turned in, editing on the backside as well. 

So that you will have a product that you can use, in whatever format that you need to use it in, and it is professional sounding. The grammar is correct, and everything is set for you to go ahead and get that printed, or use that across social media, or videos or whatever. 

So the problem with how much do you charge is a race to the bottom right. Not everybody has the same experience level. Not everybody has written every kind of project piece. I haven't written every kind of project piece.

But there are people out there who are not willing to do the research to figure out how to write those project pieces. Or how to make their current writing style better and so it all goes into that hourly price. 

Now, you can find a lot of good people on the bid for work sites. I'm not knocking them but not everybody takes the time, not everybody has the education, or the structured background in training as other copywriters do. 

Now, I don't have as much as a lot of people, and a lot of people don't have as much as me, so to give an hourly rate is not only shooting myself in the foot, but I believe not giving my clients the best product I could possibly give them.

​If I charge them a project price they then know that the project they are getting is something they can use immediately, and it's professional quality, and they don't have to worry about having to re-edit or rewrite something themselves. 

So with that I can work on it for as long as I need to work on it, so that I turn in the best possible project for them. Anything less would be a dis-service to my client. 

Whereas if you're paying an hourly person and you're saying that you want something done within a certain amount of time, you can expect only that kind of work. So keep those things in mind the next time you ask someone how much they cost and if they quote you a price. 

It just doesn't mean that it took them that amount of time to write the project, it also means that they're using their experience, their further marketing and sales knowledge or whatever else that they're doing for you in that project to make it the best for you as a company.