@Jenny, I don’t publish my rates because every client is so different. I do, however, let folks know before we chat that I have a minimum engagement fee. That tends to weed out clients that are working with smaller budgets and I can often refer them to someone else. :)

Really interesting post. I know this is old now, so I don’t know if you’ll look at this but I notice that your websites don’t have your rates on them. Is this because publishing your rates didn’t work out well?

I’m considering publishing a rough guide to my own rates, but I’m interested in other people’s experiences.

Amen. One of my motivations for putting my rates on my website is to eliminate tire kickers who have “something like a $200 budget to rewrite an entire website!”

I do state that the rates on my site are meant to offer guidance only and that I will work up an individual proposal for each client. Still, I like offering flat rates as opposed to hourly because customers can have some fanciful ideas about how long it should take me to do copywriting. I once had a prospect ask for an hourly rate because “that should only take about a half hour, right?” Wrong.

I started publishing my hourly rate on my site soon after establishing my web copywriting business in 2008 and have kept them there every since (although those rates have increased over time).

My main reason was that my site ranks very well in Australia and I just received too many emails from people wanting some quick and cheap web content, which isn’t what I do. After I published my hourly rates, those emails dropped from around 20-30 a week to half a dozen to a dozen a week, but at least these people are serious about investing in their business.

I don’t feel I can publish fixed rates for certain types of work, because there are too many variables involved and no project is ever the same. So the question ‘how much’ now often becomes ‘how long’ (would I need to spend on a project) but at least by publishing my hourly rate, potential clients have a certain indication they can consider and that saves everyone time.

I’m very glad I no longer have to waste my valuable time on preparing dozens of proposals each week that were never going to go anywhere anyway because those people had something like a $200 budget to rewrite an entire website!

Establish yourself first with a base of offline clients. Remember them? They’re the folks you can see, touch, smile at and talk to. Real people.

When you have a regular monthly income rolling in, you can treat the online enquiries that come your way as ‘optional extras’ where you can set your price at what you think is good professional value. If the would-be client doesn’t like it – so what? You’ll be surprised just how many times that ring of confidence will win the day. You can find more gems on Buzzwords’ website: http://bit.ly/TjCqIY

I think I have been afraid of scaring away people with rates. However, if I think about it, if they don’t want to pay my rates, I really don’t want to waste time trying to win their business.

Thanks for sharing!