What is the ideal price for line editing, copy editing, and proofreading jobs

[095105b2]

As an editor, I usually work with the industry standard of payment, but I noticed that most clients tend to pay much lower than the industry suggests. So, I am asking my colleagues what the best offer to give a client for line editing, copy editing, and proofreading jobs is. 

[AveryO]

Hi Brian, 

I'm not sure what the going rate is, but I'm sharing the Upwork Rate Calculator for freelancers to help you compute your fee. However, we also share this link with clients wanting to see the median rate for freelancers in a specific category. You may want to check it, too, to help you identify the median hourly rates in your field.

[bundie702]

How much to charge is really something you'll have to decide for yourself. You might not want to bother with the small publishers who offer something like 3 cents a word to edit badly written stories by ghostwriters, from whom they insist upon receiving 12k or 15k words weekly, because not only is the pay abysmal, but the writing will be a jumbled mess without following the most basic rules of writing (such as capitalizing dialogue tags, i.e. "He said," "She said") that will be very tedious to correct, because the writers are rushing to bang out words to meet the requirements. The newest thing is that clients are giving freelancers timelines ("I'd like this done within 7 days") or saying that they sometimes will need something done right away (but don't offer increased pay for these rush jobs). One client even freely admits that they pay "well below industry standards," but adds that they can offer steady work...as if they think we don't know that the only thing worse than doing one job for below minimum wage is a steady diet of the same. For the life of me, I don't understand why people try to take advantage of editors. Imagine telling any other serviceperson--a plumber, an electrician, a snowplow operator--that you can only pay them X amount when the going rate is considerably more!

Anyway, look for corporate assignments, which pay much better. There's a lot of competition for those, but they do exist. Good luck to you.

[095105b2]

Thanks 

[williamtcooper]

Brian,

It depends.

What is the industry and the skill level required by the client?

A very typical price I see posted is around $50 per hour for Intermediate to Expert level.

However, I earn $200 per hour at an Expert level and am extremely detailed from a Marketing Sales perspective.

The more skilled the more you can bill by the hour.

Have a great day!

[yofazza]

> Upwork Rate Calculator for freelancers 

It said my estimated minimum hourly rate is $3.

> industry standard of payment

I don't think there's a standard that can be used in a place like this where there are so many variables from locations, living cost, expertise, objective, etc. All of those variables are affecting the "standards".

A same product, let's say a pencil, exactly the same ones, can be sold at a different price on a different location or to a different group of people.  We can say, standard is set by the market.

Let's say $10 is the minimum for you to live a decent life. You'think you'll have problem competing with an entire group that contain people with different skill levels (some might be above you) on the same niche but only require $1 to live a decent life? Maybe, but remember that's not the only variable in the market. Client's preference is also a variable where they might prefer you over the other group of people. Etc.

So, I agree it's only ourselves who can determine our rates here. Time is required to find the most comfortable one. Adjustments might be needed over time as everything around are changing.

[prestonhunter]

Let's be completely honest.

Lots of people don't need any additional money to live on.

But we don't say that those people should work for free.

How much money a person needs doesn't factor into how much money I'm willing to pay them.