Freelance rate shaming has got to stop
Let’s talk about how we talk about rates
I love communities of freelance writers. It’s an amazing place to find solidarity, learn lessons and connect with humans in a career where you’re otherwise often holed up alone in your house most of the time.
But I could do without one common phenomenon in freelancer communities: rate shaming.
On their surface, conversations about freelance rates are vital to our success. They help us root out inequalities and discrimination, pinpoint publications that are worth our time, evaluate offers we get from editors and get comfortable talking about money.
Those are all important benefits of transparency around rates. That’s why resources like Real Media Salaries and Who Pays Writers are valuable and popular among journalists.
But rate conversations have a nasty downside, too. They can make you feel like you’re doing everything wrong.
When you see another freelancer state, broadly, that you shouldn’t write for less than $1 per word, that writing in exchange for a link is selling out or that writers who take low pay ruin the market for the rest of us, you want to shrink into your seat if you fall into any of those categories.
And, guess what? Many of us fall into some of those categories.
I once learned another personal finance writer — with less experience than I have — was setting a minimum per-word rate twice as high as my lowest rate, and I panicked. Was I a worse writer than I thought? Was I too weak in negotiations? Should I be ashamed of the work I’d taken on? What would people think if they knew I worked for that low rate? Should I be drawing a harder line?
No. None of this.
When I took a step back and surveyed the situation, I saw what everyone leaves out of these rate conversations: the nuances.
It’s all about the details. This writer was building a personal brand, selling courses and products — drawing a line on low-paying freelance gigs meant prioritizing time spent growing the business in a different direction. The family had recently added a baby. The writer’s spouse worked full time, so maybe turning down work didn’t pose a major risk to their income.
I was actively building a business and brand as a freelance personal finance writer, prioritizing a variety of bylines and relationships, doing client work full time, supporting myself and my partner as the sole earner and hanging out in my apartment with nothing else to do because of the pandemic.
I eventually shifted my rates up quite a bit. As new clients came in, I quoted higher rates. I started turning down most low-rate offers and parting ways with lower paying clients. Because I’d started building Healthy Rich, my partner was working full time and I wanted more free time to spend with friends and family.
(And this 👉 I delivered a workshop for Moxie detailing how I used my obsession with organization to increase my freelance pay by finding better clients. Get access here.)
Also, by the way, throughout the year I was charging those rates I was so ashamed of, I outearned my day-job income from the previous year by $2,000. I was doing fine.
What’s with the shame, then?
It’s because this whole freelancing thing is scary and confusing. There’s so much “advice” coming at you from every angle, and it seems like everyone is way more successful than you are. If only you could get the right information and put it into practice the right way, you could be successful, too.
But everyone defines success differently.
Everyone relates to money differently.
Every client comes with a unique set of pros and cons that determine the rate that makes their work worth your time.
Every writer is ambling down a unique path toward a unique set of goals.
No other writer is chasing your goals or living within your circumstances. No other writer can tell you the “right” rate for any kind of work.
Accepting a rate someone else considers low doesn’t make you responsible for a low-paying freelance market. That’s scarcity talk. Freelance work is abundant, and if writers want to command higher rates, they can.
The reverse is also true, in case you think this is just a shove to accept low-paying work. If you want to set your rates higher than all the writers you know, do it. Only you can know how a rate fits into your overall career choices and path, so only you can choose the right number for you.
✍️ Not a freelancer yet but want to take the leap?
In my class, How to Start Freelancing, I walk through the exact steps to set yourself up financially, professionally and emotionally to start freelancing — whether you want a career change or a side gig to make a little extra money. You’ll learn how to add ease and joy to your life by designing the job or career that’s just right for you. Paid subscribers have full access to this and all Healthy Rich classes.
"Every writer is ambling down a unique path toward a unique set of goals.
"No other writer is chasing your goals or living within your circumstances. No other writer can tell you the “right” rate for any kind of work."
This resonated strongly with me. And yet we, as a group, are driven by scarcity thinking that says what they get takes away from me. No, it doesn't.
So interesting to learn more on freelance writing, thanks for writing this. For freelancing in data infra work, I have found it so much harder to negotiate than when I've had full-time offers (where there is a wealth of online resources sharing datapoints around the company/role payscales). Freelancing rates for me have either seemed much lower or much more nebulous and harder to negotiate. I think we could all do with more (positive and supportive!) freelance rate sharing!