Freelance writing rates in Australia — the ASA rate card vs reality

Australia is unusual: it has a professional body that publishes actual recommended rates, updated annually and pegged to a union agreement. That makes the gap between what writers should be paid and what publications do pay unusually easy to measure.

It is a big gap.

What the ASA recommends

The Australian Society of Authors publishes recommended minimum rates, benchmarked against the MEAA (Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance) enterprise agreement for journalists and updated each financial year. All rates exclude GST.

Freelance writing, 2026 (after the January 3.75% MEAA uplift):

Poetry, FY 2026/27 (after a 3.3% WPI increase applied July 2026):

The ASA is explicit that these apply to short-term, one-off freelance projects and are estimates rather than a description of market conditions — some editors pay more, many pay significantly less.

What Australian publications actually pay

BRYME has verified 10 Australian publications against their own guidelines. Among those publishing a figure, the median is A$190 per piece, ranging from A$40 to A$1,000.

The gap, stated plainly

The ASA recommends A$1.12 a word. Aurealis pays two to six cents.

That is not a rounding error. It is a factor of roughly twenty to fifty.

Both are honest numbers. They describe different things:

The ASA rate card describes commissioned professional work — a magazine, government body, arts organisation or company hiring a writer for a defined job. It is what the MEAA has negotiated for staff journalists, translated to freelance terms.

Literary journals are grant-funded and pay what their funding allows. Aurealis is a small speculative-fiction magazine. Westerly runs out of a university. Their rates are not a negotiating position, they are a budget.

One market survey sits between the two. Rachel's List, which surveys Australian creative freelancers, reports an average day rate of around A$350–500 and print story rates near 80c a word — well below the ASA recommendation, well above the literary journals.

What this should change

Quote the ASA rate for commercial and commissioned work. It exists precisely so you have something to point at, it is pegged to a union agreement, and it is updated annually. Naming it in a negotiation is normal practice, not cheek.

Do not try to negotiate a literary journal. A$20 or A$40 for a poem is a grant allocation. The lever is choosing better-funded markets — Westerly at A$250 a poem, Kill Your Darlings at A$1,000 minimum for fiction — not haggling with an editor who has no discretion.

Notice the superannuation line. Overland states its online rate as A$180 plus 12% super. Under Australian rules, some freelance writing engagements attract superannuation, and it is genuinely additional money. Ask whether a fee includes it.

And GST. All ASA rates exclude it. If you are registered, add it. If you are not sure whether you should be registered, that is a question for an accountant, not an article.

The two markets in one line

A day of commissioned commercial work at the ASA rate is worth roughly six poems at Westerly, or fifty at the bottom of the Aurealis range.

That is not an argument against literary publication — a Griffith Review or Overland byline does things no day rate does. It is an argument for knowing which one you are doing before you agree to it.

Where to look

Browse the 10 verified Australian publications, each with the rate stated and the date BRYME last checked it, plus Australian house-style conventions on the same page.

And work out your own floor first with the rate calculator. If your number lands above A$350 a day, the literary journals will not meet it, and that is useful to know before you spend three weeks on a submission.

ASA rates read from the Australian Society of Authors' published rate schedules, reflecting the January 2026 MEAA uplift of 3.75% and the July 2026 WPI increase of 3.3%. All ASA figures exclude GST. Publication rates are BRYME's own dataset, each read off the publication's own guidelines page and dated on its listing. The Rachel's List figures are from a market survey rather than a rate card and are presented as such.