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andreawillmore
Community Member

Average hourly rates less than $5

Hi All

I'm new here and struggling to get my first job in. I work in the publishing side of design, so do any kind of publication. I set my hourly rate according to my experience of over 20 years and my skills. Every time I find a job that sounds like my kind of job, I see the clients average hourly rate paid is less than $5. This sounds completely crazy. Who works for that? Am I missing something. Should I be sticking to my guns of my hourly rate set or should I be lowering it just to get a job in and some points scored on upwork?

Thanks

Andrea

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colettelewis
Community Member


@Andrea W wrote:

Hi All

I'm new here and struggling to get my first job in. I work in the publishing side of design, so do any kind of publication. I set my hourly rate according to my experience of over 20 years and my skills. Every time I find a job that sounds like my kind of job, I see the clients average hourly rate paid is less than $5. This sounds completely crazy. Who works for that? Am I missing something. Should I be sticking to my guns of my hourly rate set or should I be lowering it just to get a job in and some points scored on upwork?

Thanks

Andrea


 _____________________________

With your work background and skills, stick to your guns, or if you lower your rate, when bidding, only do so marginally.

 

If you  go for and land any of the the $5.00 jobs, you are likely to be disappointed and no clients are more picky than the bottom feeders. If you start off at $5.00 people will expect you to stay at that price.  

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18 REPLIES 18
colettelewis
Community Member


@Andrea W wrote:

Hi All

I'm new here and struggling to get my first job in. I work in the publishing side of design, so do any kind of publication. I set my hourly rate according to my experience of over 20 years and my skills. Every time I find a job that sounds like my kind of job, I see the clients average hourly rate paid is less than $5. This sounds completely crazy. Who works for that? Am I missing something. Should I be sticking to my guns of my hourly rate set or should I be lowering it just to get a job in and some points scored on upwork?

Thanks

Andrea


 _____________________________

With your work background and skills, stick to your guns, or if you lower your rate, when bidding, only do so marginally.

 

If you  go for and land any of the the $5.00 jobs, you are likely to be disappointed and no clients are more picky than the bottom feeders. If you start off at $5.00 people will expect you to stay at that price.  

Thanks so much for confirming. I'll do that.

prestonhunter
Community Member

Why does $5/hour seem crazy?

 

If a client can't get the work they need done by paying $3/hour, doesn't it make sense to pay more?

 

Clients should do what is in their best interest, which is what you should do as well.

You misunderstand me. I was saying that it seems crazy to work for less than $5 an hour in my industry. Not crazy for the client at all .. they are scoring. I guess people are more desperate than I thought. Perhaps this is a case of clients using freelancers straight out of college.

I agree with NIchola.  Bottom feeders - most of them are farmers - are to difficult to work for.  Higher paying buyers are generally more professional.  They are looking for value with higher quality output.

Thanks you! I'm glad to hear there are some clients that understand value.

You're cRaZy, that kind of thinking is why the top 1% own over 90% of the wealth.

lysis10
Community Member


Robert I wrote:

You're cRaZy, that kind of thinking is why the top 1% own over 90% of the wealth.


You live in Beverly Hills, sweaty.

kat303
Community Member


@Andrea W wrote:

Hi All

I'm new here and struggling to get my first job in. I work in the publishing side of design, so do any kind of publication. I set my hourly rate according to my experience of over 20 years and my skills. Every time I find a job that sounds like my kind of job, I see the clients average hourly rate paid is less than $5. This sounds completely crazy. Who works for that? Am I missing something. Should I be sticking to my guns of my hourly rate set or should I be lowering it just to get a job in and some points scored on upwork?

Thanks

Andrea


 Not crazy at all. In fact the minimum hourly rate is $3 an hour on this site. And there are hundreds of freelancers willing to work for that or even lower. Their (freelancers) cost of living in certain areas are extremely low. They don't have any skills or experience so they can't charge more. Or they are so desperate to get their first job and first feedback they will work for free if it were allowed. Clients hiring those bottom feeders are not the clients you want to work for. They will give you endless edits, claim your work is not good or not what they wanted and ask for refunds, or will expect you to do a lot more work then originally contracted for, without additional payment for that extra work. 

 

Stick to your rate. or what you think you are worth based on your experience, education and number of years working in your field. Good clients are out there, they are just hard to find. 

Thanks Kathy. Good points and noted. 

Just be strong and confident. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. The market is huge, after all.

My advice is to lower your hour price just for a short time. For example, I started with 20 dollars per hour. 10 months after, I was charging 45 per hour. Now I'm on steady 45.

Also, when you see a Canada or an USA based client averaging on 4.75 dollars per hour, you can assume you're not going to have a great time with such a generous client. But I think never go with anything less then 15 or 20 dollars for the first few gigs.

Of course you can always ask you friends to 'hire' you for 30 dollars per hour and leave you great comments. But that sounds a bit like cheating to me. 🙂 

 

 

 


@Filip K wrote:

Just be strong and confident. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. The market is huge, after all.

My advice is to lower your hour price just for a short time. For example, I started with 20 dollars per hour. 10 months after, I was charging 45 per hour. Now I'm on steady 45.

Also, when you see a Canada or an USA based client averaging on 4.75 dollars per hour, you can assume you're not going to have a great time with such a generous client. But I think never go with anything less then 15 or 20 dollars for the first few gigs.

Of course you can always ask you friends to 'hire' you for 30 dollars per hour and leave you great comments. But that sounds a bit like cheating to me. 🙂 

 

 ____________________________________________________

You absolutely cannot do this at all!  It is not a "bit like cheating", it is cheating,  and it is also against Upwork's ToS, which could get your account terminated. 

 


 


 

Of course you can always ask you friends to 'hire' you for 30 dollars per hour and leave you great comments. But that sounds a bit like cheating to me. 🙂 

 

 

 


 I hope you are not serious! 

purplepony
Community Member


@Andrea W wrote:

Hi All

I'm new here and struggling to get my first job in. I work in the publishing side of design, so do any kind of publication. I set my hourly rate according to my experience of over 20 years and my skills. Every time I find a job that sounds like my kind of job, I see the clients average hourly rate paid is less than $5. This sounds completely crazy. Who works for that? Am I missing something. Should I be sticking to my guns of my hourly rate set or should I be lowering it just to get a job in and some points scored on upwork?

Thanks

Andrea

___________________________________________________________________________

Welcome Andrea!  Following is some Upwork information regarding Graphic Designers you may not be aware of that may assist you:

 

$10-$30/Hour-76,439 individuals                      Those who have earned over $10K-10,335 

$30-$60/Hour-29,177 individuals

$60 +/Hour    -10,675 individuals                       No Earnings Yet-133,946

 

I suggest you either stick with your rate or perhaps initially lower it just a bit until you have completed only a few projects.  In addition, I also suggest that you always work at the current rate stated on your Profile.  Occasionally Freelancers accept less than their current rate which IMO is suicidal.  When some potential Clients see that they oftentimes assume that the Freelancer will work for a lesser rate for them as well. 

 

 

 


 

Thanks everyone and thanks for those stats. Very interesting.

 

Seems the overwhelming consensus is to either stick with my rate, or lower my rate on my portfolio slightly initially and go from there. Don't support the bottom feeders unless that's where I want to stay and, as always, the bottom feeders are usually the most difficult clients.

 

I'll keep trying ... 


@Andrea W wrote:

Thanks everyone and thanks for those stats. Very interesting.

 

Seems the overwhelming consensus is to either stick with my rate, or lower my rate on my portfolio slightly initially and go from there. Don't support the bottom feeders unless that's where I want to stay and, as always, the bottom feeders are usually the most difficult clients.

 

I'll keep trying ... 


 You can offer a flat rate to your clients, in a fixed price contract, where no hours are recorded and you are a bit more flexible regarding the price. I like fixed price contracts (translation) because neither the client nor I have to worry about hours and rates - everything is clear from the start. A good way to go for smaller projects. 

Thanks yes I have done that in the case where the client set a fixed rate. I didn't realise I could set a fixed rate if client had proposed an hourly rate, but will look into that. In publishing, we also sometimes set a page rate, so I'll look into maybe suggesting that on some bigger books etc.


@Andrea W wrote:

Thanks yes I have done that in the case where the client set a fixed rate. I didn't realise I could set a fixed rate if client had proposed an hourly rate, but will look into that. In publishing, we also sometimes set a page rate, so I'll look into maybe suggesting that on some bigger books etc.


 yes I think often clients are not aware of the option, and if I were a client, I would prefer to do that...

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