Freelancing involves several challenges, and when it comes to billing, setting the rate to charge your clients is a big challenge to most freelancers, including proofreaders and editors (Caulfield, 2024). Reading this article helps to get practical information and recommendations on how to set your rates properly. There is a significant difference in the pricing of proofreading services based on different aspects (such as experience and level of difficulty) while rough approximate median rates per word have been presented in the following table of freelancers and those who have contracted their services to professional dissertation writers that belong to well-established platforms. 

Cost of proofreading services in both variations:

Kind of work Mean wages per hour 

In working with a platform $20–$28 

Independent freelancer $36–$40 

Freelancing with the help of an online platform and freelancing outside of any platform

Some of the freelancers prefer to be a jack of all trades and undertake all the tasks they receive. Of course, nobody says that being a freelancer means you will work all the time completely on your own. Some of the services of proofreading and editing are provided through freelancers across the internet. The two strategies are equally effective for reaching customers, though they also have distinct strengths and weaknesses. 

Working with a platform 

Freelancers can now find clients under dissertation proofreading services uk sites but the freelancers don’t need to look for clients themselves all the time. As for liaising with such companies, it provides one with stability in terms of the approach that is taken, the rule of editing that is followed, and remunerations. 

When working with such a platform, your average takes usually lower per hour than a real freelancer because the company has its cut. But it’s important to recall the hours you don’t bill for when you work independently: 

• Finding clients 
• Similarly, one interaction involves answering the clients’ questions and making communications with them. 
• Accounting works such as invoicing and others 

These are the things that a platform will typically do for you- things you can free up for what you do best. Taking into account these “hidden” hours, the gap between the rates that independent freelancers and those you receive working with a platform is narrower. 

Working independently 

While freelance, you can charge more than if you are charged through a certain platform for professional proofreading and editing services. However, you will be on your own as far as getting clients is concerned communicating with your clients, and managing your affairs. These are volunteering hours, or, if you will, honorary hours. 

Depending on how you formulate your rates before fixing them, there are several questions you are going to have to answer. It is very common to get the rates per word, per page, or each hour that a writer spends on the assignment. 

Length of the deadline 

Though you may get the same amount of time in comparison to the other plan, a shorter time means that more pressure is put on one to start working immediately. That is why, independent proofreaders and editors usually provide their services at a higher rate if the deadline for paper correction is short. 

A clear example of such a strategy is presenting a set of fixed pricing about certain time options, like one day, three days, and seven days. The first is to inquire from the client whether or not they need the text the soonest and fixed the rate to correspond. The former is more direct and uniform. 

Of course, you can choose to have only one fixed deadline if you don’t want to think about this, but it can have a rather negative impact and discourage clients with its rigidness. 

Text type and quality 

We would like to recur to the textual content once more because it will partly dictate what kind of work you will be doing. In the context of academic editing, the following elements may be important to take into account: 

• Academic level (bachelor’s, master’s, PhD): The writing standards when it comes to higher levels are usually higher (although the quality of the text provided initially might also be higher depending on the writing abilities of the client). 
• • Document type: The type of document you create will determine if you need to use a certain method to attain a particular goal. A research paper for publication in the journal for instance will require more strict compliance to certain styles as compared to a paper given to a university student. 
• Subject matter: This means that, if one is handling several papers on various topics, it would be beneficial to check whether the particular text could present extra challenges (for example, where they are working with numbers or industry-specific terminology). Moreover, pricing might vary based on the kind of field. 

The quality of the content is also worthy to be included in the equation because a not-well-written content will require much more effort than a rather nice one (BAW, 2022). The former can be easily quantified if you can ask for a sample of the text before quoting the client and then adjust this according to the complexity of the content. 

Client expectations 

The other consideration is what the client expects of the work that is going to be produced. You always have to control the client’s expectations; a client who comes for editing and structure help will not be pleased with a simple spell check. 

In this respect, you can provide a range of different editing services that the client can choose from or touch on the client’s particular needs before beginning a particular job and set the rate correspondingly. 

Conclusion

Admittedly, engagements such as these can take an enormous amount of time, in and of themselves. It is also a viable strategy to provide just one exclusive service at a time as well as to compete against other service providers. You simply state what you can and can’t do, and then it is up to the client whether or not they want to engage your service.