How to Raise Your Rates

When you get a little further into your freelance career — around 3+ months of full-time freelancing or 6+ months of part-time freelancing — it's time to start thinking about raising your rates.

The three main factors that justify a rate increase are:

→ The value you bring to the table → The experience you have → The demand you're in

If you already have experience working in your niche outside of freelancing, you may want to bump your baseline rates up right away or after just your first few clients.

How to Account for These Variables

Experience: Add 5–10% to your base hourly rate for every year you've worked in your field or niche.

Demand: Add 10% if you're fully booked or nearly fully booked.

Value: Add 10% or more if your work includes conveniences like strategy, planning, or research — anything that allows the client to be more hands-off. You can also charge more for writing that directly drives sales, forms a brand's voice, or drives significant traffic.

Example — accounting for experience:

Say your baseline rate is $50/hour. Here's what adding 10% per year of experience looks like:

→ 1 year experience = $50 → 2 years = $55 → 3 years = $60 → 4 years = $65 → 5 years = $70

When you're ready to raise your rates, add the applicable percentages to your baseline hourly rate and recalculate your packages.

Market Research

If you're still feeling unsure about your rates, do some market research. But before you do — a word of caution.

No matter what you see other freelancers charging, you're just looking to understand the landscape. Don't change your baseline rate based on what you find. Your baseline is your baseline because it's what you need to make to sustain your business and your life.

That said, if you see that average rates are higher than yours, that's a green light to charge more.

A few important things to keep in mind as you research:

→ New freelancers almost always undercharge → Freelancers on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr almost always charge less than those working independently → High-earning freelancers rarely publicize their rates — which means most public rates databases skew low; treat them as a floor, not a ceiling → Don't compare yourself to someone on chapter 10 of their journey when you're on chapter 1

Where to find rates data:

→ Freelancing Females Rates Sheet → The Bonsai Rates Explorer → Freelancer Map Survey → Contractrates.fyi → Vetted → AWAI State of the Industry Report — check for the most current year → FYPM — covers many types of creatives → The Editorial Freelancers Association Rate Database — rates here tend to run low; take with a grain of salt → Who Pays Writers? — also tends to run low → Contently's Rate Database → Ashley Cummings Freelance Writing Rates Survey → All Things Freelance Writing Survey → Freelance communities on Facebook, Slack, or Reddit → Ask a freelancer you know and trust

Industry Pay and Profit Margins

What staff roles pay in your niche:

Look on Glassdoor at what leading companies in your niche pay their in-house writers or marketers. Freelancers generally need to charge about 30% more than a staff rate to account for taxes and the lack of benefits — but this gives you a useful ballpark and can make your rates feel a lot less intimidating.

For example: I once found that email copywriters in the coding bootcamp industry were making $75,000 per year on staff — and I had been charging the equivalent of $49,000 per year. When my client asked for more hours and responsibilities, I used that data to justify raising my rates.

Funding and profit margins:

You can literally Google this. Some companies I've worked for bring in over $35 million per year. A company at that scale can absolutely afford to pay a freelancer $75/hour or more for copy that directly drives their revenue.

To find companies with money to spend, search:

→ "[your niche] + funding" → "[your niche] + venture capital" → "[your niche] + Series C funding"

Series C funding specifically signals a growth stage — that's when many startups are actively hiring freelancers and contractors, and they often have a marketing budget they need to spend before their next funding round. Companies in this stage are frequently looking for writers and willing to pay well.

You can also use Crunchbase to track recent funding rounds by industry.

You don't need to be scared to ask for what you're worth — even if you don't always get a yes. Every no simply moves you closer to a client who can pay you what you deserve.

How Experience Factors In

Just because you don't have much freelance experience doesn't mean you don't have any experience at all. All experience counts.

If you've worked in digital marketing, sales, or your niche industry in any capacity, that matters. Teachers, baristas, nurses, engineers, former corporate marketers — your background is part of your value.

Here's a general framework for how to think about experience:

Freelance experience: → 0–3 clients = just getting started; start at your baseline → 4–10 clients = intermediate; you can start adding experience-based increases → 10+ clients or 1+ year of contract work = advanced; charge more

Industry experience: → Under 6 months in your niche = still learning the landscape → 6 months to 2 years = developing expertise; small increases make sense → 2+ years = experienced; bump your rates → 5+ years = highly experienced; charge accordingly

Demand: → No demand yet = start at baseline and raise slightly with each new client → Some demand = mid-range → Fully booked = raise your rates; you've earned it

Real examples from freelancers I've worked with:

A freelancer with 10 years of digital marketing experience in SaaS had never freelanced before. She started at $400 per 1,000-word blog post. After 3 months, she doubled her rate to $800 per post — and still had more demand than she could handle. Her industry expertise mattered to clients.

A lifestyle writer focused on travel and beauty raised her rates four times in a single year. Most of her clients stayed with her. She invested in learning SEO, brought genuine first-hand experience to her writing, and consistently delivered clean, on-time work. All of that added up.

The only way to figure out what your market will tolerate is to pitch high and see what happens. If you need to negotiate down, that's okay. But you'll never know what's possible if you don't ask.

Come back and revisit this entire lesson in about 3 months. Once you have real clients and real experience under your belt, these numbers will start to feel a lot more concrete — and you'll have a much better sense of where you can push your rates further.

If you're not sure whether your experience counts or how to factor it in, reach out to a peer, a freelance community, or book a coaching session to talk it through.