FAQ: Freelance rates for UK-based freelancers

It doesn’t matter how many years of freelancing you have under your belt. Chances are you’re still a bit uncertain about pricing.

Setting your prices is a complicated process and there are no easy answers. What’s right for someone else, or for one specific situation, may not be right all of the time.

So how do you decide how much to quote, or respond to a client asking for your rates?

Well we decided to put together an FAQ, to help you where we will answer some burning questions about freelance rates and pricing for UK-based freelancers.

We will keep updating this article with new questions regularly, so make sure to bookmark it and keep checking it whenever you feel lost in pricing.

And if you have a question that we haven’t answered, please leave it in a comment below and we will add it to the article!

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Q: What is the best way to price my freelance services?

There is no one best way to price your service because it depends on what exactly you’re offering, the type of project , and the direction you want to grow your business. 

There are three main pricing options that most freelancers use, and each of them are worth considering for your specific situation.

Let’s go through them so you can understand them:

1. Hourly pricing

This is when you form your pricing based on the amount of time it takes you to complete the work. 

For example, a client wants to hire you to update their website. You give them your hourly rate, and often a time estimate. Bingo, they have a rough cost estimate.

2. Project pricing 

In this method you give the client an estimate based on the final output. 

If we stick with the same example, the deliverable here is the updated client’s website. 

So by selling the deliverable, instead of your time, the client will pay a fixed sum at the end, whether it took you 3 hours to do it or 3 days.

3. Value-based pricing 

You create a price based not just on the output, but on the value that you have created for the client. 

So, in our example, if you update a client’s website and that leads to an 800% increase in sales for your client, you have provided a huge amount of value for them.

Blair Enns – who wrote The Win Without Pitching Manifesto – calls this ‘the extraordinary value’ – and you price based on the effect that your work has – not the time you put into doing it, or the deliverable itself.

How do you know which one to use?

Imagine a business owner comes to you saying they are struggling to generate sales through their website.

As a result, they are not hitting the revenue goals they need to in order to keep the business running.

In this situation, the business owner doesn’t want to buy five hours of your time, they want you to solve the problem their business is facing. 

In this situation, your focus is on getting that outcome for them, not on having to work for a defined number of hours, or just deliver something that may or may not bring them the results they need.

But, if a business owner comes to you saying they want you to write five articles for their blog to keep their audience engaged, you are simply selling the deliverables here (or the time it took you to write blogs), and therefore your price should be a project or hourly based. 

It’s important to understand the difference as it dictates what pricing approach you should take.

Q: How much do freelancers charge in the UK?

YunoJuno publishes a yearly report on freelancers’ day rates and project lengths, and according to their last report for 2019/2020, the average daily rate in the UK was £375.

Of course, you will find more details on rates for different categories, project lengths, so we recommend you download the report (it’s free).

Also, freelancers tend to be transparent with each other about the rates, and often give advice on how much they would charge for a certain type of project in online communities on Facebook, Reddit, the Dots.

So don’t hesitate to get involved, explain what services are you offering and ask your fellow freelancers at what price range do they offer similar services.

Action item: download yearly report by YunoJuno to set some benchmarks for your freelance rates.

Q: How to negotiate freelance rates?

Firstly, if you don’t feel confident about negotiating – you’re certainly not alone.

Many freelancers are insecure about negotiating, and frequently underprice rather than get into intense negotiations.

The good news is that this is something you can learn, and we have plenty of resources to help you.

You can start by checking out our article 5 Lessons from a Former FBI Negotiator, download our free eBook: 8 Lessons on Pricing & Negotiations and check out our Pricing & Negotiating Masterclass, which you can snatch at a fantastic promo price on AppSumo for a limited time.

We also recommend reading teh book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.

Finally, remember that this is something that will take some practice until you master it completely – so don’t get discouraged if your first attempts don’t turn out the way you imagine.

Instead, give yourself a pat on the back for not giving up and for not choosing the easy option of just accepting the first number on the table, or buckling under pushback from a client.

→ Action item: start learning how to negotiate your freelance rates and fees by reading our article and downloading our free eBook: 8 Lessons on Pricing & Negotiations

Q: How to calculate a quote for a project?

Being asked to quote for a project can be stressful, and extremely time consuming if you overthink it.

There are loads of different options online, but this is the method I’ve created and I use it all of the time to quickly price up projects without having to spend too long working out the details.

  1. Work out how much you want to get paid each hour. 
  2. Estimate how long the job will take you. 
  3. Double it.

(Hourly rate x estimated hours) x 2

This formula works well because we ALWAYS underestimate how long jobs will take, and it will also push you to quote more than you might feel comfortable with. It automatically builds in a bit of leeway to protect you from underestimations and overruns.

We also explain it in this video, so check it out:

Q: How do I find out a clients’ budget?

Simply ask about it.

We know this might sound ridiculously obvious, but there is no deeper philosophy or strategy to this than simply asking your client about their available budget.

What makes the difference, is the way you ask.

So here are some tips:

  • Get to the heart of the project first. Ask the right questions and listen to what your client is saying about the project to get a sense of what they are really looking for.
  • Don’t be pushy or intimidating. You don’t want to scare them off or give the wrong impression with this question. Take a subtle approach and can ask if they have a vague idea about how much they are looking to spend.
  • Explain why you want to know the budget. People are more likely to do something if you give them a reason. So you can say it would help you to tailor your services to fit their needs and their budget better.
  • Ask it in-person or over the phone. In an email, it’s much easier for your clients to avoid that question completely without giving you any information about it. Over the phone, even though they still might not tell you the available budget, they will usually give you some information that can help you when calculating the quote.

→ Action item: read more about this in our article How to Price Your Freelance Services Right

Q: I’m a beginner freelancer with no experience. Should I work for free first?

The discussion around offering free work is a bit of a hot potato in a freelancing world. Some will tell you that it’s a crime to ever work for free and that you are undervaluing the work of all freelancers if you do it.

But, we always advise freelancers to be a bit more flexible than that, especially if they are at the start of their career. So, if you ask us, we don’t see any harm in offering your service at a low price, or even for free, in exchange for something that is valuable to you and your business growth – like testimonials and referrals.

Here’s the thing – when you are starting your freelancing journey, the value of a testimonial is very high to you, simply because otherwise you don’t have any social proof that will make other potential clients hire you.

So, if you look at it like that, you are not working for free, you are working for an exchange that will help you attract more clients and grow your business.

Just be carefully to set some boundaries, and avoid attracting clients who just want to take advantage of you.

The bottom line is to remember that the value isn’t always monetary.

So if there is something non-monetary your client can give you as compensation, which can help your business grow, we encourage you to keep an open mind and think about it before impulsively rejecting it.

Q: Can I raise my freelance rates without losing my clients?

Yes, you can, but you need to be strategic and approach it carefully. 

Increasing your rates over time is something to be expected, as you are getting better at what you do and delivering higher quality work – so that should be reflected in your pricing.

Even though it’s logical thing to raise your pricing, if you don’t communicate it well, your clients might take it badly.

No need to worry though, we have written an entire article to assist you with this, so check it out.

Basically be open and transparent about it, give plenty of notice and don’t feel the need to over-explain.

Action item: read our article How to Tell Your Clients You Are Raising your Freelance Rates


We hope this article will answer your questions about pricing and setting your freelance rates on the right level.
If you have some questions that we haven’t answered, please leave them in the comment section and we will add them to this FAQ!