What to charge as a copywriter
Copywriting is priced in three incompatible ways at once: by the hour, by the word, and by the project. The per-word rate is the one clients ask for and the one that quietly punishes you, because it pays you for typing rather than for the thinking that made the typing short. Start from what you need to earn, then convert.
Start from your own numbers
Work out the floor first. The per-word conversion appears underneath once you have it.
What copywriters actually charge
Useful as a sanity check on your own figure, and not as a target. These are compiled from published surveys of different sizes and methods, so treat them as the shape of the market rather than precise values, and note the dates.
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average per word, all writers | $0.42 | 500 freelancers surveyed, January 2026 |
| Professional copywriting, per word | around $0.70 | AWAI 2026 survey |
| Blog posts, per word | $0.25 (range $0.10 to $0.50) | 450-writer survey |
| SEO articles, per word | $0.35 (range $0.15 to $0.60) | 450-writer survey |
| Whitepapers, per word | $0.80 (range $0.50 to $1.50) | 450-writer survey |
| Technical documentation, per word | $1.00 (range $0.60 to $2.00) | 450-writer survey |
| Average hourly | $53 | 350 writers, US and Europe, 2025 |
| US median hourly, writers and authors | $34.75 | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024 |
| Most common hourly band | $25 to $49 (34.9% of writers) | survey compilation |
| A 1,500-word blog post | $250 to $399 most commonly (27%) | 213 writers, Peak Freelance |
One finding is worth more than the table: in a survey of 500 writers, 78 per cent were charging around 40 per cent below the market rate for their level of experience. If your own number comes out well above what you charge now, you are the norm rather than the exception.
Three things that decide the rate more than the words
What the words are for. The same 800 words are worth very different amounts as a blog post, a landing page that carries a product launch, or a sequence that goes to a list of 200,000 people. Technical and regulated writing pays two to four times general content in every survey above, and the reason is risk and scarcity, not effort.
How many rounds are included. Say it in the quote, in a number. Two rounds of revisions within the agreed brief, further rounds at the hourly rate. Almost all copywriting that loses money loses it in round three, on a brief that changed after the work started.
Who wrote the brief. A clear brief from someone who knows what they want is a different job from extracting the brief yourself through four meetings. If you are doing the second one, that is strategy and it is billable, and quoting it as writing is how a good rate becomes a bad one.
Questions people ask
Should I charge per word or per project?
Per project, with the per-word figure kept privately as a check. Per-word pricing pays you least exactly when you are doing your best work, because the thinking that makes copy short and sharp takes longer and produces fewer words. Quote the project, deliver the project, then divide afterwards to see whether the price held up.
What if a client insists on a per-word rate?
Give them one, calculated from the piece rather than the market. Estimate the hours the piece genuinely takes including research and revisions, multiply by your floor, divide by the word count, and quote that. The number will often be higher than the going rate, and the honest answer to why is that the going rate assumes somebody writing faster and researching less.
Is a low rate worth it to get started?
For a short, deliberate period with a specific purpose, sometimes. As a strategy it fails, because a rate is far harder to raise with an existing client than to set correctly with a new one, and low rates attract the clients who are hardest to work with. If you need portfolio pieces, it is usually better to do a small number of jobs at a proper rate than a large number at a bad one.
Do the numbers I type go anywhere?
No. It all happens in this tab, there is no email box and nothing is stored. Most rate calculators online are lead capture with arithmetic attached; this one has nowhere to send anything, which you can confirm by turning off your wifi and using it anyway.
Next
Everything on this page is worked out in your browser. The numbers you type are never sent anywhere, there is no email box, and nothing is stored when you close the tab. That is worth saying because most rate calculators are lead capture with arithmetic attached, and your income is not a thing you should have to hand over to find out what to charge.