Rates

How I price

The short answer: I quote a fixed fee for your project, so you know the cost upfront and can plan accordingly. No hourly stopwatch, no nasty surprises at the end, no awkward conversations about scope creep. Every quote is tailored, so these are starting points rather than a menu – but if you need a figure to take to finance, here’s where things usually begin:

  • single pieces from £250
  • larger projects from £1,500
  • monthly retainers from £1,750 (one day a week equivalent)
  • a day rate of £450 for longer or open-ended work.

The slightly longer answer is below, for anyone who wants to understand how I arrive at that number (which, in my experience, is most charity comms managers, most of the time).

Fixed fees, not hourly rates

The fixed fee covers everything from reading your brief through to delivering the final version, including a reasonable amount of back-and-forth on revisions. You’ll know what you’re paying before we start.

I prefer this model because it aligns my incentives with yours. I’m not rewarded for working slowly; you’re not penalised for asking a good question that takes me an extra hour to answer properly. We both just want the work to be as good as it can be, on time, for the price we agreed.

For ongoing work, I use a monthly retainer instead: a set number of days each month, paid at the start of each month, so your costs are predictable and I can reserve the time.

What affects a quote

Every project is different, but the main things I’m weighing up when I put a quote together are:

  • How many words, and how messy they are. A clean draft from an experienced writer takes considerably less time than a first attempt from someone who’d rather be doing something else.
  • What kind of work it needs. A proofread on a finished document is quicker than a developmental edit that reshapes the structure and tone, which is quicker than writing something from scratch.
  • How quickly you need it. Standard turnarounds are built into my quotes. Working evenings, weekends or over bank holidays to hit a tighter deadline usually increases the cost – though I’ll always tell you upfront if that’s what we’re looking at.
  • How much context I need to build. A first project with a new charity takes longer than the fifth project with a charity whose brand voice I already know inside out. (This is one reason retainers work out well for everyone involved.)
  • Whether there are unusual complexities – specialist subject matter, heavy fact-checking, multiple stakeholders to reconcile, source material in another language. These come up more often than you’d think! I’ll flag them in the quote.

Industry benchmarks

As a Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), I follow their code of practice, and my pricing respects their suggested minimum rates. In practice, for work that draws on twenty-five years of charity and publishing specialism, my effective rates sit a little above these, where you’d expect an experienced specialist to be, and where the ProCopywriters rate survey puts senior charity-sector copywriters.

I mention this because charities’ finance teams sometimes want the reassurance of an external benchmark. Now you have one.

How to get a quote

Drop me an email with a rough outline of what you need — word count if you know it, deadline, what stage the text is at, anything unusual about the project. I’ll come back to you within a working day, usually with a fixed fee, occasionally with a couple of questions if I need more to go on.

If you’re not sure whether a one-off project, a campaign partnership or a retainer fits best, have a look at the three ways we can work together. Or just ask me! I’d rather talk through what you actually need than sell you something that doesn’t fit.

A note on charities and budgets

I work almost exclusively with charities and Christian publishers, which means I understand that budgets aren’t infinite and that every pound spent on comms has to justify itself. I’d rather have an honest conversation about what’s possible within your budget than quote you a number that makes you wince and quietly never email back. I may be able to suggest a narrower scope, a different service, or – occasionally – point you towards someone whose rates suit you better. Either way, you’ll get a straight answer.

For publishers

If you’re a publisher rather than a charity, the same principles apply, but it tends to work best as a fixed fee or a day rate for a defined piece of editorial work such as copy-editing or proofreading a manuscript. I’ll provide a quote once I’ve seen a sample and the word count. My day rate is £450; a full-length book is typically up to five days’ work depending on length and the state of the text. 

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