Managing Your Pricing as a Freelancer

 The third area you must manage as a freelancer is your prices. This is often the most overlooked area of the three. Content and clients are much more straightforward to manage and less intimidating. To be a successful freelance writer, you must consider pricing on a regular basis.

What It Means to Mange Pricing

While you may understand what it means to mange content and clients, you may not understand how to manage pricing. The first step to managing it is setting your prices. A common question with freelancers is how much they should charge. Even though you can find all kinds of information online about prices that range from a couple of cents per word to more than $1 a word, it all comes down to you. How much do you need to charge for a livable income? 

Of course, you must also consider your niche and the demand for content, type of content, your experience, and other factors. In the end, your goal is to make a living from what you write. To accomplish this goal, you must charge enough. 

The second part of managing your pricing is knowing when to raise your prices. Most freelancers reevaluate their pricing once a year, usually at the beginning of the year. However, it isn't a hard and fast rule. You may have another timeline. For instance, you may wait until you've worked with a client for a year or longer before you approach them about raising prices. 

The important thing to remember is that you shouldn't be afraid to raise your prices. Your clients are probably raising their prices as needed and so should you. 

Increasing Your Income

Another part of managing your pricing is adding more types of content that pay higher prices to allow you to earn more while working less. For instance, blogs are a common way that writers get started in the business, but they aren't the highest paying forms of content. Landing pages pay better because their goal is to convert. 

As you get more comfortable with your writing, you may want to add new types of content to your list of skills. Focus on the content that pays better. Email, landing pages, website content, and other high-paying content will increase your income significantly. 

If you worry that your current clients can't pay more than what you're getting now, you may want to look at adding higher-paying clients to replace them. Instead of small businesses, you could focus on Fortune 500 companies or companies in larger markets. For example, if you live in the Midwest, you could target clients in California that wouldn't think anything about paying higher prices since they are used to the higher cost of living. 

Pricing is a key component to being a successful freelancer. Make sure you're pricing for what you're worth and what you need to thrive in your career.