The copy is marketing copy. The client is a friend on one of the coasts, and I am in the Midwest.

And thanks for reading this!

Well, how long do you think it'll take, and how much of a pain is it going to be (ie, how much do you want to make for your trouble)? Also, what's the turnaround time?

$100 an hour is a good starting point, and adjust up or down from there depending on the answers to the above questions.

(Also, geography is irrelevant -- writing isn't a geographically based market.)

paging caff.. paging caff....

Hmm. The copywriting might take five hours. I think it will be pretty easy. I might do some simple research online. The analysis should involve simple research but a write-up also. There aren't many details on it yet. I'll ask about the turnaround time.

Thanks!

(Who is caff?)

If you've got a wordcount target, consider calculating the approximate cost per word:

number of words
----------------------- = price per word
time spent x hourly rate

I typically aim for between 50 cents and a dollar per word. Which may be a bit high for some publications, but if it's marketing, it should be fine.

Hi, I'm caff. *waves*

me3dia, you'd think it'd be fine. I'm a freelance copywriter and price tends to vary depending on experience. If you've been writing for longer you can charge more. I've met more than my fair share of "we don't have the budget but we can give you $100 to create our entire campaign" type of folk.

Are you giving them a project rate or a per hour rate? If it's just an hourly, it doesn't matter how long it will take although your friend will probably want to know, especially if they have a certain amount budgeted for the project.

I've got some clients I deal with regularly who are very open about what their budget is for the project and if it's not enough I say so and don't do that one, or accept it and know that whatever hours I put into it will be around that price.

Depending on the project I do a sliding scale too. Concepting, taglines and branding type work goes at my highest hourly price. My lowest goes for tweaking copy that is already written in some form that just needs smoothing over, etc. Then I put everything else wherever it fits based on that criteria.

One thing you will want to take in to consideration is that if you have more rounds (revisions, etc) it will be more than you anticipate (the 5 hours). So either tell them that your fee covers one round which you expect to be 5 hours. If that changes and there are more rounds, expect to have a backup plan for what you will charge for that. Sometimes I include 2 rounds in my fee and increase the fee to cover my time accordingly.

Oh and to a more $$ type of answer, anywhere from $30-60/hour for less experienced up to $130-200+ an hour for those with more experience and awards (usually). It also depends on location too only to the point of standards of living and income rates vary and all that.

That's caff! *points*

There's caff! Thanks! And thanks again me3dia! Between the two of you I think I can give a quote without guessing.

Thanks too, dabitch, for the traffic control! :)

Metachat is great!

Good luck halonine!

Thank you! :)