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Freelance · two weeks' notice · one client at a time
The rate is at the top of this page, because that's the question and everything else is preamble.
Most freelance sites make you send an email to find out whether you can afford them. This one doesn't. The number is below, with what a day actually contains, what moves it in either direction, and the work I turn down.
6 hoursIn a working day, and that is the honest number
1Client at a time, on the main booking
2 weeksNotice, both ways, written into the agreement
30 daysPayment terms, invoiced monthly in arrears
The rate
A day
$780 · single days
- Six hours of actual work
- Meetings count as work
- A written note at the end of each
- Booked in, not squeezed in
A week
$3,300 · five days
- Roughly 15% under the day rate
- Because it costs me less to sell
- Consecutive, not scattered
- The usual shape of a booking
A month
$11,800 · retained
- Four days a week, one kept free
- The free day is not negotiable
- Invoiced monthly, terms as above
- Two weeks' notice either way
Replace these with your own numbers. Publishing them costs a few enquiries and saves every conversation that was only ever going to end at the price.
What a day actually is
Six hours, not eight — Nobody does eight hours of this work and the people who invoice for eight are counting the wrong thing. Six is what can be done well, and pricing it honestly is easier than defending it later
Meetings are work — A day spent in your workshops is a day. This is worth agreeing at the start, because the alternative is a quiet argument in week three about what a day means
A note at the end of each one — Three or four lines: what got done, what's next, what I'm stuck on. It takes ten minutes and it is the single thing clients say they miss when working with anybody else
Your tools, your repository, your board — Rather than a private setup handed over at the end. It is slightly slower and it means nothing walks out of the door with me
The hours I keep — Ordinary working hours in my own timezone, stated on the agreement. Overlap is arranged deliberately rather than assumed
What a day is not — It isn't a rolling right to my attention outside it. Between bookings the answer to a question is usually yes and free, and that stops being true if it becomes the arrangement
Meetings are work — A day spent in your workshops is a day. This is worth agreeing at the start, because the alternative is a quiet argument in week three about what a day means
A note at the end of each one — Three or four lines: what got done, what's next, what I'm stuck on. It takes ten minutes and it is the single thing clients say they miss when working with anybody else
Your tools, your repository, your board — Rather than a private setup handed over at the end. It is slightly slower and it means nothing walks out of the door with me
The hours I keep — Ordinary working hours in my own timezone, stated on the agreement. Overlap is arranged deliberately rather than assumed
What a day is not — It isn't a rolling right to my attention outside it. Between bookings the answer to a question is usually yes and free, and that stops being true if it becomes the arrangement
What makes it go up
Rush work — Anything that displaces a booking already made. Usually a third, and it is offered rather than haggled over
Weekends and nights — Double, and I'd rather talk you out of it. Almost nothing needs it and the work is worse
Being the only one — Where there is no second person who understands the system, the risk sits with me and the rate reflects it
Exclusivity — Turning down other work to hold time open is a real cost and gets priced as one
Weekends and nights — Double, and I'd rather talk you out of it. Almost nothing needs it and the work is worse
Being the only one — Where there is no second person who understands the system, the risk sits with me and the rate reflects it
Exclusivity — Turning down other work to hold time open is a real cost and gets priced as one
What makes it go down
A longer booking — The week and month rates are the published version of this. Selling is most of the cost of freelancing
Charities and small teams — Ask. There is a lower number, no application form, and no requirement to prove hardship
Work I'd have done anyway — Occasionally something is interesting enough to change the arithmetic. It is rare and it is not a strategy
Being told early — A booking made three months out is worth more to me than one made next week, and that gets shared
Charities and small teams — Ask. There is a lower number, no application form, and no requirement to prove hardship
Work I'd have done anyway — Occasionally something is interesting enough to change the arithmetic. It is rare and it is not a strategy
Being told early — A booking made three months out is worth more to me than one made next week, and that gets shared
What I turn down
Equity instead of money — Not a judgement on the idea. I can't pay rent with it, and a freelancer holding equity gives advice that quietly serves the equity
Unpaid pitch work — No spec designs, no sample chapter, no "show us how you'd approach it" with three other people doing the same. A paid half-day trial is a fair version of that and I'll suggest it
"A quick call to pick your brain" — Where it is genuinely a question, ask it by email and it gets answered free. Where it's a scoping session with the invoice removed, it's a scoping session
Being the only technical person — On anything that has to keep running after I go. It's a bad outcome for you dressed up as a saving, and it's how freelancers end up impossible to leave
Work I can't put my name to — Ghost-written credentials, fake reviews, anything designed to mislead somebody. It has been asked for more than once and the answer doesn't move
Agency-of-record without a retainer — Being the default person for anything that comes up, on day rates, with no reserved time. That is a job, and it should be paid like one
Unpaid pitch work — No spec designs, no sample chapter, no "show us how you'd approach it" with three other people doing the same. A paid half-day trial is a fair version of that and I'll suggest it
"A quick call to pick your brain" — Where it is genuinely a question, ask it by email and it gets answered free. Where it's a scoping session with the invoice removed, it's a scoping session
Being the only technical person — On anything that has to keep running after I go. It's a bad outcome for you dressed up as a saving, and it's how freelancers end up impossible to leave
Work I can't put my name to — Ghost-written credentials, fake reviews, anything designed to mislead somebody. It has been asked for more than once and the answer doesn't move
Agency-of-record without a retainer — Being the default person for anything that comes up, on day rates, with no reserved time. That is a job, and it should be paid like one
How the money works
On the page rather than in a PDF nobody opens. None of it is unusual — it just tends to be discovered rather than agreed.
Invoiced monthly, thirty days — In arrears, for work already done. Not on completion, because completion is a moving target on most of this work
A deposit on first bookings — Half the first week, held against the final invoice. It comes off, not on top, and it is waived for anyone who has paid before
When an invoice is late — A reminder at 30 days, a second at 45, and work pauses at 60. No interest and no drama — the pause is the mechanism and it is written down so nobody is surprised by it
Expenses at cost — Travel and anything bought for the job, receipted, no markup. Agreed in advance over a modest amount rather than appearing on the invoice
Booked time is booked — Cancel inside two weeks and half the booking is payable, because the time can't be resold that late. Move it instead and nothing is charged
What I don't do — No hourly billing, no time-tracking software, no minimum billable increments. The whole point of a day rate is that neither of us watches a clock
A deposit on first bookings — Half the first week, held against the final invoice. It comes off, not on top, and it is waived for anyone who has paid before
When an invoice is late — A reminder at 30 days, a second at 45, and work pauses at 60. No interest and no drama — the pause is the mechanism and it is written down so nobody is surprised by it
Expenses at cost — Travel and anything bought for the job, receipted, no markup. Agreed in advance over a modest amount rather than appearing on the invoice
Booked time is booked — Cancel inside two weeks and half the booking is payable, because the time can't be resold that late. Move it instead and nothing is charged
What I don't do — No hourly billing, no time-tracking software, no minimum billable increments. The whole point of a day rate is that neither of us watches a clock
Check the diary
Say roughly when and roughly how long. You'll get a yes, a no, or a date — usually the same day.
Check the diary
"Lower than this" is worth saying rather than hiding — sometimes a shorter scope fits the budget honestly, and sometimes the right answer is a name that isn't mine.
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