How Much Do New Freelancers Earn?

New freelancers earn whatever price they set when they start.

For me, I began freelancing in 2014 at $75/hour. Before that, I owned a marketing company and our hourly rate was $150/hour, so selling my freelancing services at this lower was fairly easy, mentally speaking.

In 2016, my work load was full so I increased my hourly rate to $80/hour. New projects kept coming in so I increased it again to $85/hour. Each jump in $5/hour increases my annual income by $5–$10k. The small jumps made it easier to transition existing clients.

There are two keys to a starting hourly rate. First, is the amount of income we want to earn and the second is the amount we can demand/sell for our work. We may have to start at a lower hourly rate than we’d prefer, but once we fill up our capacity we can begin the process of moving towards our target hourly rate.

When starting out, I highly recommend setting a realistic annual amount of revenue you'd like to earn. The quicker you do this, the faster it'll be to get there.

Photo by Aidan Bartos on Unsplash