How To Become A (highly paid!) Copywriter (even w/ zero experience)

How Much Should You Charge Per Hour as a Freelance Copywriter?

When it comes to how much exactly you should be charging, theres no right answer. When in doubt, charge at the lower end of the median when youre a beginner, and raise your prices from there as you get more experience (by the way, the median hourly rate for a freelance copywriter is $34.16 according to Payscale).

How Much Should You Charge Per Page as a Freelance Copywriter?

If you want to charge based on the type of content youre writing, check out this chart from professional copywriter Abbey Woodcock. She surveyed 68 copywriters for GrowthLab to find out how much they charged:

First, theres a HUGE disparity between a highly experienced copywriter and a beginner copywriter. This should be encouraging for anyone just getting started.

Also, even when youre a relative beginner, youre still making a good amount of money for your services. Say you write an About page for a company and charge $85. If that About page only took you an hour to write, thats a fantastic ROI on the time spent.

Ramit Sethi’s tips for improving your copywriting skills

The following advice is from our founder, Ramit Sethi, who has been a copywriter for over 15 years. He’s written everything from a New York Times Bestselling book to million dollar sales pages – so he knows his stuff.

Tip #1. Focus on the reader

This sounds so obvious, right? Arent all writers focused on the reader? Nah-ah. Not at all. It’s shocking how often writers lose focus when theyre writing. In fact, a lot of writers sit down at their desk, stare at a blank page for a minute, think, What should I say?

What should I say.? And then wham! Theyll just dive right into whatever they feel like writing about. They go off on long tangents. They inject their writing with random stories. And they make everything about themselves (this is I, I, I syndrome). In the process, they kill their writing.

Mediocre writers talk about themselves. Great copywriters write about what their readers care about. This takes planning. You also must be meticulous about the actual words you use (which well cover later in this post). But its important to know: the best writers focus their copy on their readers not themselves.

Tip #2. Focus on learning more.

Good copywriters never stop improving. They dont wake up one day and think, Wow, my writing is perfect; Ill never have to change it again. That would be absurd.

Beyond that, theyre constantly investing in themselves. They read books on copywriting and marketing. They buy the newest courses. And they read other copywriter’s stuff to stay in the loop. They know its important to stay sharp and always keep up-leveling their skills.

Tip #3. Be humble.

Good copywriters arent fighting tooth and nail to defend every idea they have. They’re always looking for feedback. That could mean they show their first draft to a friend to see if it’s interesting. Or it might mean reaching out to customers directly for their take.

Good copywriters know that getting feedback on their early first drafts helps their writing improve by 10x or even 100x. They dont see feedback as criticism. They see it as an opportunity to improve their work.

Notice that I dont say anything about grammar or editing skills. Those things are important, but you can develop those skills over time with practice. What I pointed out are the mindsets that you MUST bring to the table.

You can work on your technical writing skills later on, but if youre starting out with the wrong frame of mind, youll never make it as a copywriter.

So adopt these mindsets. If you do, youll already be 90% of the way to being a good copywriter.

Tip #4: Use the Bar Stool Test

Imagine youre sitting at a bar with your closest friends. Youre having a few drinks and chatting away.

After a few minutes, your friend asks you, What does your business do again?

Would you read off the mission statement from a company about page and say something like, were on a mission to drastically reduce process inefficiencies for our valued clients?

No. If you used stiff words and robotic phrases like that, hed look at you like you were crazy.

So what would you do? Youd take a sip of your drink and just start talking, using simple words and stories.

Good copywriting works the same way.

Its not super-dense technical material. It uses short sentences and reads the way people talk.

If you want to be a copywriter, read everything you write out loud. If you find yourself thinking, Theres no way I would ever say that, trash it and start over.

Tip #5: Write to your reader

Every time you write, you should focus on your reader. One of the best ways to do that is to stop talking about YOURSELF and talk to your audience. That means drop all the mys and Is in your copy and start saying you.

• NO: My customers dont like studying — maybe I can help them shortcut the studying process!
• YES: Do you hate studying and do anything to avoid it? Do you wait until the last minute even if you have an exam the next morning to even touch your paper?
• NO: Im proud of the results that Ive helped my readers achieve.”
• YES: You will see extraordinary results. Our team has helped thousands of people, just like you, create breakthrough after breakthrough in their business. Now it’s your turn.
• NO: I know youd benefit from our services. I’ve helped dozens of people lose weight.
• YES: If you skip a day of going to the gym, who holds you accountable? That makes it easier to skip twothen threethen suddenly, you wake up and found you haven’t worked out for a month. Well make sure never happens to you again so you look and feel incredible.

Do you see the difference? When you write to your reader, you turn tired, boring writing into exciting and relevant copy.