As the title indicates I was just curious when you feel the need to increase your rates? - Do you do it anually? - When you have enough clients at your current rate? - When you plan on buying a new house/car etc ? - Random - Or anything else I can't be bothered to write out Also how much do you often increase it by each time you do it?
I understand where you are coming from but I feel as I write more articles on various topics my knowledge is increasing and the quality gets better each article (hopefully) so I believe I'm worth it, however my clients may not think the same. I've only had one major price increase after talking to a few writers from this forum. I went from charging 1.5 to 4 cents a word which was the best thing I've ever done so thanks to everyone. I think from now I will be increasing my rates by 1 cent a word each time or something but I still need to get a regular flow of clients as at the moment I just get work as and when it becomes available or someone contacts my via my thread. I'm working on making a site when nominet sort their issues out and let me register the .co.uk domain I want Richard
I raise my rates when I feel tried of writing at the previous ones. Generally happens once a week or so
Looks like you're ready for the rate rise then. How about when you get your domain you can do the raise. Or you can say to existing clients that you will be increasing your rates for new clients however you are happy to continnue on your exisiting rate for another xxx months/weeks
I usually re-evaluate my rates at the beginning of each year, based on demand changes (that's also when I decide what services to add or cut). Don't worry about whether or not your current clients will agree to your rate increases. It's pretty irrelevant. While it's nice if most (or even some) do agree to your new rates, raising your rates means understanding that you'll very likely have to alter your target market. Until you're prepared to do that, you're not ready to raise your rates.
I "officially" raised rates at the beginning of this year, but the change was really almost irrelevant. To solve this exact rate-raising problem, I advertise a range of rates for a service so that I have some flexibility when it comes to offering estimates. As I prefer to estimate based on my calculated hourly rate, I figure how many words I can actually write in that hour for a particular project. If it's something simple, I might write at the lower end of my range ($0.10 per word.) If it's more complex or will take a lot of revisions, I might write at the higher end ($0.15 per word.) At the moment, the only set rates on my site are press releases and content packages. The system works really well for me as I have so many repeat customers with various monthly content packages. I'd suggest establishing a range of rates. That way you have flexibility to keep old clients (if you want to) at the lower end of the range until you have plenty of new clients at the top. Then you bump the range up again after six months to a year and repeat! To answer an implied question (at least I believe it was) in the original post, I don't raise rates for new houses or cars. I actually offer a discount. That way I get lots of new interest and clients for a limited time. The extra work brings in extra bucks for a month or so, then I actually get to keep some of the clients around at my normal rates or for other services after the special has run out. The extra work is worth the extra money, but I usually am tired of the special after a few weeks. Rebecca
Every year there's a mandatory 3% increase in rates to keep up with inflation. So a $100 project becomes $103. My rates and work aren't on the low end, so typically there isn't too much adjustment beyond that. As to writing for many industries, that really doesn't add value. It just means you're not focused on anything. Specializing makes you more valuable. If I need an article on the process of Public Relations, I really don't care that you've written about cars, vegetables, Web site marketing, tech gadgets and other stuff. I'd look at your quality level and what you've done in the field. Rather than writing on lots of topics, you want to create lots of formats (memos, news releases, newsletters, sales letters, blogs, hard news articles, feature articles, email articles, ad, etc). That does add value. And of course, you can raise all you want, but if you raise beyond your ability and above your best target market, it will be rough times. You can charge $5 per character if you want, but getting it will be a tad tough.
At least once a year as part of annual business planning. It's also the time I evaluate service offerings and set goals. Like internetauthor, I have a range of rates to give me the flexibility to charge based on how long I think the work will take. For example, blog posts have a lower per word rate than articles. I'd also consider raising rates if demand or cost of living increased.
I have a price range that I use to set rates. Some of my clients fall on the higher end, and some on the lower end. Makes for a happy mix all around! One of my clients is bumping my rate up a cent per word from this month on, and I didn't even have to ask for it. I actually like having a lot on my plate, and steady, easy and no hassles work coming in. It makes no sense to me to raise rates dramatically, and sit around twiddling my thumbs. Your rate increases should be related to your target market, and the quality of your work.