Per word, day rate, or project fee — which to charge

Most writers pick a pricing model by accident — whichever one their first client used — and keep it for years. The three models behave very differently, and the wrong one can quietly cost you a third of your income.

The three models

Per word

What it suits: journalism, magazine features, publications with a fixed rate card. Most of the paid opportunities BRYME lists work this way, because publications budget by page.

Typical figures from the EFA 2026 Rate Chart (1,100+ respondents): articles and essays 25¢–45¢ · blog posts 25¢–45¢ · business/marketing 32¢–87.5¢ · technical 87.5¢–$1.08 · medical $1.00–$1.50.

The hidden problem: per-word pricing pays you for length, and good editing shortens things. A tight 800-word piece can take longer than a loose 1,500-word one. In documentation and copywriting — where brevity is the skill — per-word pricing directly penalises competence.

Use it when the client sets it and the rate is good, or when the work genuinely scales with length.

Day rate

What it suits: copywriting, consulting, workshops, embedded work with an in-house team.

Typical figures: the ProCopywriters 2025 survey of 474 UK freelancers put the average at £480/day, up £40 year on year, with a median of £440 in the 2026 edition. By segment: junior £250–£350, mid-level £400–£600, senior £500–£800, financial services £600–£850, specialists £800–£2,000+.

Strength: it prices your time honestly and is easy to compare against a benchmark. A day is a day.

Weakness: it caps you. However efficient you become, you can only sell so many days — and being fast actively reduces your income.

Use it when the scope is fuzzy, the work involves meetings, or the client wants access to you rather than a deliverable.

Project fee

What it suits: almost everything else, and it is the model most experienced freelancers converge on.

Strength: it decouples payment from hours. If you get faster, you earn more per hour. If you bring judgement that saves the client a week, you can price for that.

Weakness: you carry the risk. Underscope the job and you absorb the difference.

Use it when deliverables are definable. Always pair it with a stated revision count and a written note of what a scope change costs — that single sentence prevents most freelance disputes.

Which to use, by work type

Converting between them

You need to be able to move between models mid-conversation, because clients ask in whichever unit they think in.

• Day rate → hourly: divide by 7.5 (the standard UK billable day)
• Hourly → per word: multiply your hourly rate by your realistic words-per-hour, then divide. At $80/hour and 500 finished words per hour, that is 16¢/word
• Per word → project: multiply by word count, then add 25–40% for briefing, research, revisions and admin

That last adjustment is the one writers skip, and it is why so many per-word jobs feel underpaid. The writing is never the whole job.

Use word count to pages when a client specifies pages, and the freelance rate calculator to establish the floor underneath all three models.

The one rule that matters most

Whatever model you use, know your hourly equivalent afterwards.

Take the fee, divide by the hours it actually took — including the briefing call, the two rounds of revisions, and the invoice chase. That single number tells you whether the job was good, and it is the only figure that makes different jobs comparable.

Writers who track it discover the same two things almost universally: the prestigious low-per-word commission was a poor use of a week, and the boring documentation job paid triple.

You cannot price well without that feedback loop. Start it on your next job.

Where to go from here

• How to price your freelance writing — the foundations
• How to raise your freelance rates — using survey data as leverage
• The highest-paying writing niches — where the rates are structurally better