One of the challenges many writers face is deciding what amount to quote for a B2B copywriting project. Yet it’s key to landing new work and new clients.
Charging a project rate instead of an hourly rate is generally preferred as the project fee can take into account your expertise, the client won’t worry if you’re charging “too much per hour,” and it’s easier for your client to budget for the project and get any needed approvals since there’s a fixed figure.
Part of knowing how much to charge and adding a project to your schedule is knowing how long it will take you to complete it.
Two internal templates can help you draft a project proposal — a Project Time Ranges template and a Project Price Ranges template. These will help you determine how long a project will take and what you may want to charge for it.
Project Time Ranges Template
This Project Time Range Template lists three common projects and potential time ranges for completing the entire project and each specific task. These example projects are a landing page for a single promotion sales page, multipage (10 pages) website with sales copy and SEO, and a special report or white paper.
Listed time ranges are conservative, leaning towards taking more time, which is helpful for beginning writers. The ranges also factor how long it will take the client to provide information and feedback.
This template should be customized with your personal time ranges. Once you’ve completed the same type of project multiple times, you’ll have an idea of how long it takes and can add that range to the template. When you quote a project, you’ll be able to say you need two or three weeks from start to finish.
For example, the awards entries I write for one particular program take about 40 hours over two to four weeks. So I know if a client comes to me two weeks before the program’s deadline, I need to have 20 hours a week available for those two weeks.
You can add other projects to this template to customize it to your needs.
Project Price Ranges Template
The Project Price Range Template lists a range of rates for some of the most popular online and offline writing services.
The range can be quite large — for example, from $250 to $1,000 for a single article. You want to set your rates based on your level of experience, your niche or project expertise, and what your industry will bear.
For example, a beginning writer may charge $250 for an article, while a seasoned pro in a specific niche could charge $1,000. Most writers will be in the middle, the $550-$700 range.
For each of the services you offer, put your personal range in the “My Rate Range” column. You can either delete the other projects or save them on another tab. I recommend saving them but moving them out of the way. You never know when you may offer those services later. This way, your template will clearly show your projects and customized rates.
Using These Templates When Creating Your Project Proposal
With these templates, you can feel more confident in preparing project proposals. You’ll also be able to create them and send them to your client faster.
For example, if you are drafting a proposal for a white paper, you know you want to quote between $2,000 and $7,000 and allow from 15 to 43 days. This is still a large range, so if you’re a beginner, your personal range may be $2,000-$4,000. While you don’t use the time frame in the proposal, it will help you frame client expectations for a completed project. In this scenario, I may quote the client $3,000 and tell them the project will be completed within five weeks.
These templates put your personal price and time ranges at your fingertips, making it easier for you to prepare your project proposals and to plan how much work you can take on at any given time.
Next week, we’ll provide several templates to help you create an agreement with your new client, who has — of course — just accepted your proposal!
