Dear Freelancer, You’re Ripping Yourself Off
The title of this article should be pretty self explanatory; you’re ripping yourself off. How? By undervaluing your work. What I’m about to say is geared towards freelancers but anyone can take my advice. With that being said, odds are you should probably be making more than you are now, whether you’re a man or a woman. (but let’s be real, mostly a woman)
The phenomenon of freelancing is increasingly becoming more in demand and popular. Which unfortunately means more competition in the work force, which also means your income decreases.
I’ve worked as a freelancer for a little over a year now, and it’s decent pay for a college student trying to juggle internships on top of every day life. Two months ago, my biggest client decided to cut me off without any warning or notice. 95% of my income went out the window. I’m still not happy with the way things ended but that’s the life of a freelancer. That situation gave me no other choice but to start looking for more jobs on Upwork. Yay Upwork. I’m still picking up gigs here and there so I can’t complain. Now if you didn’t know, three days ago Upwork decided to raise their service from 10% to a disgusting 20%. Needless to say people were not pleased. Where am I going with this? Well, with over 53 million freelancers killing each other over logo design gigs, service fees, limited job positions etc. People actually undercharge their work.
I had this epiphany yesterday while I was leaving work. I discovered a new podcast, Allison Behringer’s “The Intern”. I eventually got to the fifth episode, “What’s Your Worth?”, and I was dumbfounded. To give you a quick summary, Allison (The Intern), felt like her work was being underappreciated so she asked her boss for a 50% raise. Just the thought of asking someone for a raise gives me anxiety and uncertainty beyond belief. The take away point is — Ask for a raise if you deserve it.
As soon as I got home, I found Glenn Stovall’s “Freelance Pricing Handbook”. I read the whole thing in 20 minutes and my life flashed before my eyes. With the information I learned from those two resources, I immediately took action. Aka: My Upwork rates are higher now. Sorry clients.
I higly recommend you check out both the podcast and the handbook.
With that being said, my biggest realization came from my own research. I decided to compare the average hourly rates of a few “average” brick and mortar jobs and freelance tech jobs. The results are in the bar graph below. Pro Tip: Just use Google Spreadsheets for charts and save yourself 3 hours of trying to find cool Millennial looking infographic tools.
The numbers are mind blowing. Developers are grossly undercharging themselves from anywhere to 45–65%. The hourly competitive rate for in house devs is approximately $37.98, and Upwork freelancers with the same amount of experience are charging $20/hr. That’s insane. For all of you freelance devs reading this, you could literally double your salary if you wanted to. The second most undervalued people are Freelance Customer Service reps, with a difference of 56%. People who work in person at call centers can make up to $16.35/hour, but freelancers only charge an average of $9.21. If you conducted the same research for any other job position, the numbers would be the same. Freelancers are screwing themselves over. The numbers aren’t even including the extra work, unexpected changes, overtime, or stress that clients are capable of providing. No offense clients.
So, what do I do now? Start reevaluating yourself and your work. If you deserve the rate it you think you do, change it.
It’s as simple as that.
Side note: If your work sucks don’t raise your rates please.