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conkel-linnae
Community Member

cost per word

Hi! I'm more or less new on Upwork as a freelance writer and have noticed that many jobs ask for a bid on cost per word rather than an hourly rate. However, on the proposals my only option is to put down an hourly rate. Is there a way to change that? Or do I just mention the cost per word in the content letter section and not worry about the hourly rate part?

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michael_skaggs
Community Member

The client controls wether a listing is fixed-price or hourly, and those are the only two options available.

 

What you could do is input some nominal hourly rate, but inform the client that you charge per word, and give them an estimate of what you expect the project to cost. From there, there's a couple of options.

 

1. The client can switch to a fixed-price contract before making an offer. Then you just give a quote based on your best estimate, and honor it as long as they don't require you to go over that by more than a small amount (to account for inevitable differences in estimated vs actual word count).

 

2. Offer to invoice a combination of hours and rate to match your quote. However, manual hours are not protected on Upwork, so proceed with caution on that route.

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2 REPLIES 2
michael_skaggs
Community Member

The client controls wether a listing is fixed-price or hourly, and those are the only two options available.

 

What you could do is input some nominal hourly rate, but inform the client that you charge per word, and give them an estimate of what you expect the project to cost. From there, there's a couple of options.

 

1. The client can switch to a fixed-price contract before making an offer. Then you just give a quote based on your best estimate, and honor it as long as they don't require you to go over that by more than a small amount (to account for inevitable differences in estimated vs actual word count).

 

2. Offer to invoice a combination of hours and rate to match your quote. However, manual hours are not protected on Upwork, so proceed with caution on that route.

Okay thanks. That helps a lot!

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