Rates

Behold! Our New and Improved Rates Database Is Here

By Dillon Baker November 30th, 2016

Ah, rates—that most bedeviling of freelance topics. What does this client pay? What does this writer charge for her work? How should I figure out my rate?

Figuring out how much to charge for your work is, of course, what puts food on your table and a roof over your head. Yet there may be less transparency surrounding rates than any other aspect of freelancing.

That’s why we released the Rates Database two years ago. By crowdsourcing rates from our readers, we hoped the transparency would help freelancers negotiate better rates, find better-paying clients, and avoid publications that undervalue freelancers.

It’s been successful so far. It is consistently one of our most-visited pages, and I know from conversations with freelancers that many have found it valuable.

But it still had a few problems.

For one, it wasn’t formatted well. It was simply a very long list without a search function, which meant readers had to CRTL + F to find a specific publisher. That may have been okay a few years ago, but we knew we could do better.

Additionally, some information became outdated since new entries weren’t automatically entered on the list. We had to go back manually and add them one by one, which simply wasn’t sustainable on our end and prevented freelancers from accessing the most recent data.

Finally, there was no context given to the rates. Though we asked for comments in the entry forms, there was no way to enter them on the public list. Some of the most valuable information—both on the rates themselves and on the clients—are in the comments.

We think the new Rates Database fixes all three of those issues.

It is now formatted in a simple but effective table that gives you the ability to search and filter by column. In other words, no more CRTL + F. It will also auto-update. We may go in occasionally to fix formatting issues, but otherwise when you enter a rate, it will appear for the public to see. We also have included comments in the table, which we hope readers will take full advantage of by detailing their work with particular clients.

If you want to see it in action, click here. And please feel free to ask anyone in your network to add any rates information they may have.

We also have plans to analyze the rates and find larger trends, like we did with this look at the difference between print and digital rates. The more data we have, the better insights we can give.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoy the new and improved Rates Database. If you have any questions or suggestions, send me an email at dbaker@contently.com.

Image by Shutterstock
Tags: , ,