How High Should My Fees Be?
Written by Andrew Parker Sunday, 27 March 2011 11:30
One of the most crucial things that a fresh Internet Marketer wants to find out is what amount he or she should be charging for his (or her) products or services. This is definitely an important issue among the internet writers who are trying to present copy and content writing services to other people who need them. Some folks believe that they need to charge whatever consumers are willing to pay. This can be very difficult for people who are constantly told that only the lowest rates possible are fair. If you have been trying to puzzle out what amount you should charge for your writing, here is how you come up with that number.
First you have to produce a list of all of your monthly expenses. This includes the amount you pay each month in rent or toward your mortgage, your utility bills, how much you spend on food, your cell phone bill, credit card payments, etc. Make sure you add the price of doing enjoyable things like going out to dinner once in a while or money for a few frivolous purchases when you go shopping. The value of these elements has to be multiplied by twelve. This is the amount of money that you need to put in the bank annually. This is absolutely different than the amount of cash you need to earn.
To figure out how much money you should earn, take the amount of money you have to put in your bank account and then add at least forty percent. This will help you handle your taxes and fees-after all, the money you make online counts as income and you will have to declare it to the IRS and pay taxes on it. You will use this forty percent on your own Medicare, security taxes, etc. The number sitting in front of you right how-your bills plus forty percent-is the amount you have to make.
You probably plan on working at least forty hours a week. This is a good amount to prepare for but you ought to realize that only about half of that time will be performing actual work for clients. The rest of the time you will end up doing paperwork, marketing, etc. Why is this important? Because it influences how much you ask for. Your first instinct is most likely to take the amount of money you need to make and divide it by fifty two and then divide that number by forty (which will help you figure out your hourly rate). Instead, you need to be dividing by twenty-this is the amount of time you will be spending on client work.
Now that you have an hourly fee all established, the amount you charge per project is up to you. How long do you imagine it's going to take you to write an article or a sales page? Take the time it will take you to finish a project and multiply it by your hourly price. This ought to give you just how much that you should charge for your writing work.