I just found out the average hourly rate for a new freelance writer is way higher than I thought

So I was looking at some old forum posts here, trying to figure out what to charge for my first blog post job... and I stumbled on a survey from a writing group. It said the average starting rate for someone with no portfolio is around $50 an hour. I was honestly shocked... I was going to ask for maybe $15, thinking that was fair since I'm new. The survey had over 500 people answer, which seems like a good number. It made me realize I was selling myself way short just because I haven't done this before. I guess the skill itself has value, not just the years of experience. Now I'm rethinking my whole pitch email. Has anyone else had a moment like this, where a simple stat totally changed your starting price?

4 comments

4 Comments

max_patel12mo ago

I saw a similar survey last year from a content marketing group. They had rates for social media posts, and the low end was still like $75 per post. I was charging $20 and feeling lucky to get it. That number just stuck in my head, made me feel kinda sick about all the work I'd done for peanuts. I slowly started quoting higher, and to my surprise, a couple clients just said yes. It's wild how we get stuck in our own little bubble of what we think we're worth.

jamiesullivan2mo ago

Yeah that "stuck in our own bubble" thing is so real, max_patel1. I read something once about how we price based on who we talked to last, not the actual market. It's easy to get stuck there.

jenny422mo ago

Totally, I read this blog post about "anchoring" where your first price point just locks in your brain. Like if your first freelance gig paid $15 an hour, you keep using that as a guide even years later when your skills are way better. You have to force yourself to look at fresh data, like current job listings or industry reports, to break that anchor. It's crazy how much money people leave on the table just because of a number they decided on years ago.

wood.jana1mo ago

My old boss at a small agency in Austin always said our first client set our market rate for years. We landed a big project at $50 an hour early on and just kept using that, even when our newer work was way more complex. It took a competitor casually mentioning their $120 minimum to snap us out of it. We were basically running a discount service for our whole city because of one old deal. How do you even start to reset that for a whole team?