I am dragging this over to a new thread, simply because this discussion evolved on another thread that seems will end up derailing the relevant topic of discussion. Here is my (some what altered) post regarding this issue taken from the previous thread... Did I miss something on the FREELANCE part of the job? If you hire a plumber or an electrician (which by the way here in SA charge most of the times by the hour) do you tell him when to work and how much to work in an hour? I doubt it! So irrespective of how legal it is or not, I freelance because I DO NOT WANT to be EMPLOYED by a single EMPLOYER. I work as an independent contractor! I work on an ASSIGNMENT basis. We discuss the assignment, we agree on a price and designate a time line, I do the job, you pay me. That is it! If I want to, I work with you again and we follow the same process all over again. If you want to work with me again, we do the same. If you want to pay hourly, it is as simple as asking how long it will take me to do the job! I say 3 hours, you pay $1 per hour! Good! $3 it will be! BUT if you want to check on me and make sure I work 3 hours JUST FOR YOU - You are going to pay me a whole day's wages or you are going to hire me for a week or month and make me work as much as you can in 8 hours a day, 5 days per week! Come on, let us get real here! Some clients see "hourly pay" as an convenient way NOT to put up with the cost of permanent employees! It comes down to cheap convenient labour!
I'd have to disagree here. A local plumber who comes to your house (if paid hourly), advises how long a job will take, and what materials are required. Usually if he goes over that time, if he has any ethics, he'll negotiate the excess charges. But of course the entire time the plumber is there, if your diligent, you'll keep an eye on the time and review the final bill to see if he's over charging. If he is you take him to task on it, refuse to pay the excess charges and when he tries to sue you, then you provide the evidence that you collected about the actual hours he worked. In the commercial world there is no such thing as hourly pay unless you are a paid employee of the principle contractor. The PC will submit a quote or a tender and if he wins the job, if he expects that the job will take 3 months and it takes 6 months, too bad, so sad, no more money for him. So that covers how I deal with plumbers. But when your talking about copy writers, and I presume you talking about those you hire online, I would definitely not be hiring someone on an hourly rate. That's just plain stupid in my opinion. Unless of course you know the person extremely well and they have built a significant level of trust. Fee per project is the way I go. On top of that I expect time lines and milestones that are reviewable and measurable. The price should cover the writer for the time they expect to research and complete the copy. I've also included penalties for lateness (just as the principle contractor on a construction would have to agree to). That's my take on it.
And those that are for HOURLY rates will not thank you for this! LOL! Why would one want to hire someone hourly, but do not want to EMPLOY THEM?
It doesn't matter if you bill by the hour or by the project, it's the same thing (unless you have no clue what you're doing). Pay by the hour or by the project, again, same thing. When you bill by the project, you estimate how many hours you think it will take you, how much you want per hour and come up with the final cost. Why have a per hour fee? Because when you deal with large clients, you can't just say this [insert project] will ONLY cost $X. There are many people involved and what began as maybe a 10 hour job, can easily turn into a 40 hour job. Honestly, I have no clue what life is like in the $1 per hour world (as per your statement). If I'm billing by the hour, I always give my client estimates then I do the work. It's fairly straightforward.
The issue came up in reference to an Odesk discussion, where they encourage clients to act more like employers -- physically watching what the contractors are doing on their own computers (invasive, and entirely pushing the line between employee and contractor and the level of control buyers are entitled to have over the where, when, and how of freelance projects). If they want more control, then they can pay the taxes and insurance costs involved in hiring employees rather than the contractor taking on that entire burden. That conversation will also be staying in that other thread, as it wasn't about this general price choice issue but rather the actions of a particular freelance marketplace and why they're therefore not the best bet for freelancers to consider (unless they're completely ignorant of the rights they have as independent contractors or are completely desperate for crap gigs of course). Jason explained your own question beautifully though. All project rates are based on time estimates if the freelancer has any idea as to what they're doing. The client generally ends up paying the same. The benefit of per project billing (on the writer's side) is that the better you get at your work, the more you actually earn hourly. But you go in knowing you'll complete some projects in less time than your general estimate and others in more. The idea is that they should at least balance out.
LOL I figured that, but I'm not a politician so I'm ok if some people don't like what I have to say. There are times, and jobs, where it is more reasonable or applicable to pay an hourly rate as opposed to a fixed price. I guess that's a matter of opinion. What I mean by that is lets say you've built a reputation as being one of the absolute best copy writers in the business. I am pretty certain that if you had an hourly rate of say $50 and a job was going to take 8 hours to complete, you'd be charging more like $5000 and not the hourly equivalent of $400. So there are definitely going to be times when it's not in your interest to charge an hourly rate because you could make 10x that with a fixed fee. The same can also be applied in reverse. See this is exactly what I am talking about. If I hired you, and you estimated that the job would take 10 hours but it turns out to be 40 that's not some small error that's 4 times the amount of time and the amount of money. Why should I have to pay because you made a mistake. Part of being a contractor is not just to be good at (for this thread) writing copy, if you want to be a contractor you'll need to have a good ability to properly estimate your time and cover your own costs. Expecting the client to pay 4 times the original quote is sheer piracy and no one in their right mind would accept that. If you don't have the skills to quote correctly, perhaps you should rethink the idea of being self employed because that kind of error shows a complete lack of business skills as does expecting the client to pay for it.
I prefer per project billing. Straightforward, upfront, to the point. No question marks and no squabbles later. As Jen says, you guesstimate how long it will take, then you set a price. If you've underquoted (in terms of actual hours spent doing the work) then bad luck, and you'll know better next time. If you complete it faster than anticipated - bonus! Usually it evens out anyway. But to have someone peering over your shoulder to see if you're actually working for them (Odesk)? Not for me. If I want to be scrutinized, policed etc, I'd be working a fulltime job, not freelance. BTW, as far as I am concerned the "free" in freelance means that I am free to work at my own pace and in my own time.
You don't understand (and assume too much), because you don't deal with larger clients (I'm guessing). And by larger clients, I don't mean some guy who orders 200 little articles. I mean the big boys who spend serious chunks of change and have multiple people looking at and approving your work. You see, a project isn't just between you and a single-person client in these cases. The client is actually the company. And that company may have 5,6, 10 or 20 (or more) reviewing the project. So originally the client might want X and Y. But in the process of discussion with everyone, the client begins to modify what's needed. It's not "your mistake." Here's a great example: Recently I was doing a print job for someone at the top level in their industry. That project, after lots of "team discussion," had many alterations, because what was originally desired changed. If I had said your project fee (was doing it by the project) including all the revisions you wanted, I would have spent the last 5 working days doing stuff over and over for free. That would be stupid. You give your client a project fee and tell them what it includes. And you tell them what "overages" on their part cost. BTW, I'm not talking about $10 an hour jobs or some quick "SEO" articles as I don't do that. In fact, I don't consider $50 an hour to be great either. That's a pay cut in my book. Well, my rate is above $50 (that's actually not good). You see, it's all relative. A copywriter who is going to write a sales letter for you for $5,000 isn't going to do it in a day. That guy or gal is planning on sinking serious hours and days into the research and creative process to come up with your final project. Like I said from the start, it's basically the same thing. I don't know of one professional writer (my version of pro) that doesn't have a general idea of what his or her hour is worth and bases projects on that. Having said that, part of the "game" is getting your work done right and on time. For instance, if you tell a client a project will be $2,000, because you think it will take you 10 hours and it takes you 12, well that's your own problem, not the client's. And on the other hand, if it happens to take you 9, then you've just improved your hourly some. I don't know what this oDesk or whatever thing is. It's not used in my world.
This is an interesting conversation. Unfortunately I'm not into large-scale copywriting (yet) so I can't really contribute except to say that in terms where there are more revisions to be made, hourly rates seem reasonable. I have to agree that if you can't estimate the time a job will take you correctly, then you aren't doing your job to the fullest.
Point taken. Still I don't necessarily agree with your overall ideas. And only because what you are describing is not the services that were originally contracted. You are talking about altering the original agreement. It only makes sense that if the client wants to make changes to the original job in any form that it is going to cost extra. This is reasonable and normal business practice in any industry, not just copy writing. This is completely different to what I was describing and what I interpreted the OP to be describing. But... This basically contradicts the original argument you put forward and is in fact exactly what I already said, which you disagreed with and stated that I was making assumptions on. So in effect, it does in fact look as though we are in agreement even though we took a very long road to get there.
I figured some would confuse these two things: 1. You being a slow working 2. A project taking longer due to client changes With the first one, that's on you the worker. Learn to work faster, price your work properly, etc. The second one is on the client, which is why you never do things like charge $x for a project and include unlimited revisions and stuff. Sure, you can get away with it if you're just blogging or writing for article submissions and other small stuff. But that will KILL you in the professional world. To give you another example, an associate of mine was contracted for creating a publication. I joined the project as well. This print publication was being created from scratch and going out to well over 1,500,000 recipients (eventually more via Internet). What was originally believed to be a couple month project turned into a one-year project due to the client constantly changing things: adding requirements, removing segments, changing creative desires, etc. Usually what happens is you tell the client that their project will cost $X and include Y. If they want anything else, then you inform them of those costs. Some clients won't tweak things much and others just won't let a project finalize. So, I hope no one was confusing those two things now.
I am still confused on one thing....do we agree, or disagree? I think we agree but I don't want to make any assumptions.
Hi All - just to get in my 5 cents - most copywriters are like artists are like web designers - whereas my billing is straightforward. As a writer the projects are typically different. An article is different than a press release, as well as ghost-writing an ebook is different than editing one. So each has their own pricing structure. I simply take into account the amount of wording involved - how long I feel it takes me to research and finish. I then offer time for the buyer to sit and take stock of the work and offer 2 changes - I often hit it on the first try (articles) but sometimes a bit has to be changed here and there. If you get all of your information down first, everything else is smooth sailing. Now, with contractors like plumbers, mechanics and the like - where they are actually replacing parts and pieces rather than conjuring them out of their brain - then I would think that if the part is essentially needed and was not in the original agreement - look a little lower... there it is... right under your signature... the disclaimer about this issue. Writing is a tough market - when taking on a client, new or existing, always go over the material and check off items you'll need to complete the job. Also let them know up front about a revision amount or word limit. Having all this up front will let you know if the client is worthy of your time.
Probably agree. I operate like every other professional in my field, so it's nothing weird or special.
I would always pay by the job. It makes it too easy for freelance people to abuse the idea of gettign paid by the hour when you are not in the same room as them. You have no way of monitoring them. There is no management that can control that part of the process - getting the freelance to be productive.