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Freelance Copywriter: A Career Guide to Better Jobs and Higher Rates
Contents
Overview and definitions
The growth of content marketing has opened up an enormous amount of opportunity for freelance copywriters. However, this is a field with a low barrier to entry, and the supply of talent appears to grow with the demand in ways that keep earnings steady. In Nation1099’s recent survey of freelancers, nearly one third identified themselves as freelance writers.
Freelance copywriter rates have a vary widely in ways that don’t always correlate with experience level, responsibility, geography or the type of company you freelance for.
It does appear that “content writers” earn significantly less than freelance copywriters not described in that specific way. There are no specific salary figures for copywriters specializing in ad copy, video scripts etc., but the inference is that freelance copywriters in areas other than blogging earn more.
Freelance copywriters have a wide range of opportunities in almost any kind of business or sector imaginable. It’s the most common freelance field and has the lowest barrier to entry.
To improve your rates as a freelance copywriter you should strongly consider the strategic questions below that help you establish a niche and provide clear solutions to specific problems.
The average freelance copywriter has less than one year of experience. That may explain why average rates are very low. There is high deviation from the mean salary for experienced copywriters.
Freelance copywriters may specialize in:
- consumer products
- business-to-business writing
- content marketing
- printed marketing collateral
- Advertising
- website landing pages
- product pages
- produce descriptions
- sales letters
- sales scripts
- social media content
Some copywriters may specialize in long-form narrative content such as white papers. Others may specialize in creating slogans only a few words long.
Payscale’s analysis is that skills in branding have the biggest positive impact on copywriter salaries, along with technical writing.
In addition to creative skills, a successful freelance copywriter must be able to connect the client’s business goals with the audience’s interests.
The guide below outlines typical freelance copywriter rates and a path to improving yours.
(Nation1099 is an affiliate of some of the companies discussed below and may receive a commission if you purchase from them.)
Setting minimum freelance copywriter rates
Your rate as a freelance copywriter should be at least $78 on an hourly basis if you live in the U.S. and have 7-10 years of experience. Your minimum day rate should be $624.
If your rate is lower than this, you may be undercutting the market or bearing some costs of employment yourself that should be passed on to your clients.
How we calculated this freelance rate
We took salary data for full-time copywriters in the U.S. from several sources such as Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, PayScale and Indeed and applied our “all-in expense formula.”
This formula is designed to show the complete costs to you of having a freelance copywriting business rather than a job in this field. It ensures that your rates include the cash costs of your retirement benefits, health insurance, marketing expenses and other overhead, along with the value of unpaid work in your business.
This article explains in detail our formula for setting freelance rates.
You can use our freelance rate calculator to adjust the variables if you have more or less experience as a writer or marketing professional.
Variables and exceptions
- We assumed a freelance copywriter with 7-10 years of experience. Entry-level freelance writers may have lower fees based on their experience.
- Freelance copywriters with lower personal expenses may choose to pass on those savings to clients in the form of lower fees.
- Advanced or very experienced freelance copywriters are able to implement value pricing and retainer agreements which can mean higher pay than hourly rates.
- This formula doesn’t account for travel, meals, conferences, memberships or learning. These may add up to 25 percent to your expenses and therefore to your rate.
How can I earn more as a freelance copywriter?
Copywriters who get on the director path earn more money. To plan your path to higher freelance copywriter rates, you should research and understand salaried roles with titles like:
- Marketing communications manager
- Advertising creative director
- Marketing director
- Senior marketing manager
For example, the average director of marketing salary is $116,000. The equivalent minimum hourly rate for a freelance marketing director using our formula would be $120. The day rate, which may be more common for this role, would be $961.
The average salary for an advertising creative director is $134,000.The equivalent minimum hourly rate for a freelancer or consulting providing those services would be $138. The day rate, which may be more common for this role, would be $1,105.
In addition to fundamental project management and technology skills, the skills required for these more advanced marketing roles include:
- Product marketing
- Strategic planning
- Hiring
- Budgeting
To make progress toward higher freelance copywriter rates, it’s important to:
- Develop strong domain expertise.
- Solve high-level problems for your clients.
- Specialize in a niche so your prospective clients are reassured that you can support their particular strategy.
- Develop strong project management skills.
- Understand what marketing strategy is and how copywriting supports business growth.
- Begin expanding a team of subcontractors who can help you provide value to clients.
5 strategic questions to help you increase your freelance copywriting rates
- Service offering: Do you offer value to your clients beyond creating copy, such as strategy or project management?
- Trends and climate: What forces are changing advertising and marketing in the sectors your clients work in?
- Market: What unique segment will you target for your freelance copywriting services?
- Capacity: What skills do you need to develop in order to advance your freelance copywriting career?
- Learning: Do you know why you lose some prospective copywriting clients and close others?
Related reading: 4 Steps To a Clearer Freelance Brand
Where can I find freelance copywriting jobs?
1. Ask for referrals in your network
Give them a chance to root for your success.
I’m really enjoying our work together. I’m in a prospecting phase for my freelance copywriting business right now, and I wonder if you have any colleagues who you can refer me to. I would really appreciate an introduction to anyone who you think might be able to use my services. If so, I pasted a blurb about my work below that you can use.
2. Find mentors who can help you advance
Let your network know that you are trying to move into more experienced roles such as marketing director or advertising director.
As you know, my freelance copywriting clients often benefit from the project management skills, industry knowledge and strategic direction that I bring. I’m considering ways to can formalize that and to shift to a more consultative offering for companies that may need an outsourced marketing director. I would love to get your advice about the need for this kind of service. Are you available for a phone call or a coffee meeting?
3. Use job boards . . . with caution
We track emerging job boards and marketplaces on our lists of best freelance websites.
However, most — thought not all — of these sites emphasize lower paying roles for beginners. It’s very difficult to get serious clients and to increase your freelance rates through those sites, though there are certainly some exceptional success stories.
Some niche sites specializing in gigs for freelance writers that you should consider exploring further include:
- Scripted
- TextMaster
- ServiceScape
- Skyword
If you are an experienced freelance marketer looking for advanced projects, you may have more success browsing our list of best consulting websites and searching for director-level roles that require programmatic ad buying, creative direction, editing, strategy and project management.
Marketing resources for freelance copywriters
As a freelance copywriter, you are probably your own best marketing resource and have an advantage over freelancers in other fields.
Still, it would be great to have some support. In theory, that’s what online freelance marketplaces are for. They market you to prospective clients in exchange for a cut of the contract. In reality, most of them do little to market you and only provide an environment where you have to promote yourself just as energetically as you do outside that environment.
In other words, if a platform is a place where you can create a profile and hang up a sign but isn’t a service that pushes your profile in front of customers, they aren’t really helping you with marketing. It’s just a somewhat smaller space than the internet at large. But the whole point of Google is that it makes the internet really small really fast. Get on page 1 of a search engine results page for a given term, and you are in a marketplace with only ten sellers for however many people search that term
For this and many other reasons, we strongly believe that the best marketing resource for freelance copywriters — for now — is your own web domain. The more you can drive attention to that, the more you are in control of your own fate. You don’t want to depend too much, if at all, on other platforms.
That said, there are resources that will you get better at marketing yourself. See below in coaches, courses, podcasts, etc.
And we like to believe that Nation1099 has some pretty good advice for you. Follow the Grow section of our main navigation, and you’ll find some great information.
But none of these are resources that help you do any of the marketing the way a marketing agency helps a small business get the word out. It’s still all on you.
3 essentials for marketing your freelance copywriting business
1. Build a great website
2. Build a great brand
3. Get the word out
Michelle Garrett On How Freelancers Can Use P.R. Tactics to Grow Their Businesses
Career and business courses for freelance copywriters
Beginner and general copywriting courses
Of course you can find many skills-based courses online to help you learn writing. Some of the deepest catalogs are on Skillshare and Udemy.
Courses for experienced copywriters and marketing professionals
Lynda appears to have the deepest catalog of career and business courses for copywriters. For example, if you are trying to move into the director-level roles we discussed above, you can try:
- Setting a Marketing Budget
- Creating a Brand Strategy
- Online Marketing Foundations
EdX and Coursera, which emphasize university-format courses, have several in their catalogs that can help you advance to director-level work or to broaden your understanding of marketing overall:
- Four-course digital marketing certificate program from the Wharton School
- Online Marketing Strategies from Curtin University
- Digital Branding and Engagement from Curtin University
- The Strategy of Content Marketing from UC Davis
- Creating High Impact Campaigns That Tell Brand Stories from IE Business School
- Five-course sequence on content strategy for professionals from Northwestern University
Pluralsight has a beginner-level course on technical writing, which, as discussed above, is one of the specialties where freelance writers can earn higher rates. This course appears to be for engineers whose writing skills need work.
If you want to build on your foundation of copywriting by learning about the technical side of digital marketing, then Udacity’s nanodegree on that subject is a great place to start.
Many freelance copywriters benefit from specialized courses and coaches. For example, take a look at Laura Pennington’s Freelance Retainer Mastery Program.
Business coaches who work with freelance copywriters
Ilise Benun, the Marketing Mentor, works especially with creatives, many of whom are freelance copywriters. Her Pick-a-Niche Kit is a great intro to her services.
Check out Ilise’s appearance on The Next Level Freelancing Show
Ed Gandia helps copywriters build six figure businesses. He has done the most to influence the case we make here at Nation1099 that “the money is in the niche.”
Check out Ilise’s appearance on The Next Level Freelancing Show
More Clients or Better Clients? How To Shift Gears As A Freelancer
Future outlook and trend for freelance copywriters
- Keep an eye on chatbots. They are built on AI, but they require someone to write effective scripts, often with a little bit of personality.
- Journalism skills for sponsored content. We’ve notice a lot of request for quotes by reporters who turn out to be creating sponsored articles for branded publishing platforms.
- Video is an opportunity. You’ll hear lots of hype about the growth of video in marketing. On the surface that means less written content. In reality, it probably doesn’t reduce the demand for original blogs, and it grows demand for copywriters for those videos.
- Get measured or get left behind. Content marketing works. Stats prove it. But that doesn’t mean your copy works. Expect your freelance clients to measure results blog by blog and expect them to expect you to speak the language of metrics.