What is a rate card?
A rate card is an easy way to show clients your rates. It might include fixed prices for specific services as well as your hourly and day rate.
Freelancers and agencies tend to make a rate card because it makes the whole price negotiation thing much easier. Instead of endless back-and-forth over email, you can just send over a one-page rate card with all of the information they need. Trust us when we say that kinda simplicity and transparency is a REALLY attractive feature for a client.
Why should I make a rate card?
When you're talking to a potential client you need to explain as much about yourself as possible, in the shortest time possible. A rate card can help you do that. In just one PDF you can communicate all of your rates for various services. It saves a lot of time by potentially weeding out a lot of clients who aren't willing to pay your prices. But more than that, it's just a simple and easy way of communicating your rates. Clients will appreciate that.
How do you work our your copywriting rates?
"Hold your horses! I don't even know what my rates are yet, and you're telling me to make a rate card. Big Bang Copy, are you insane?"
Apologies, dear reader. We appreciate that we got a little ahead of ourselves there. And this is no laughing matter. One of the biggest challenges for any freelancer or agency is figuring out how much to charge your clients. Go too low, and you're selling yourself short. Go too high, and you're pricing yourself out.
If you're really new to this, you could use your annual salary to work out your hourly rate. This calculator converts your annual salary into an hourly rate. We recommend adding about 50% onto that, because freelancers almost always work at a higher hourly rate than salaried workers. Once you've done that, you've got yourself a ballpark copywriting rate to work from.
You could also try asking other freelance copywriters how much they charge. Try to find other people with similar level of experience to you, and base your own rates off that. For example, our standard hourly rate for new clients is £45 p/h. We have quite a few years (10+) of copywriting experience behind us, but don't tend to add on useless extras like other agencies do. And that rate feels about right to us.
Otherwise, it's really just a case of trial and error. Once you've been doing it for a few years you start to get a decent idea of how much is just right. It might take a few people baulking at your price or secretly celebrating a cheap win before you find that figure.
Downloadable copywriter rate card template
Click on the image below to view our copywriter rate card template. It's part of a pack of copywriting templates that we've put together especially for you lovely lot.
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