Why Is Copywriting SO Expensive? Anyone Can Write... Right?
If you were expecting a two-digit rate and almost had an anaphylactic shock when a writer sent you a custom quote with a few additional zeros, you’re probably still wondering, ‘why is copywriting so expensive?!’
Maybe it’s because you think anyone can write or because you’ve spotted some copywriters offering the same services for a fiver on an almost namesake platform.
But I’ll be brutally honest here:
“Questioning why copywriting is so expensive is like being surprised that a premium linen dress handmade by tailors paid fair wages costs a few hundred pounds. After all, you can find a polyester dress at a fast fashion shop with a shady supply chain for less than a tenner. Or you can easily make it yourself, can’t you?”
So, here’s the thing: professional copywriting is so expensive because there’s a lot more behind those few final words on a page.
And because you can expect actual results, of course.
What exactly is copywriting?
Copywriting is a marketing strategy that involves creating texts to advertise or promote a business in other ways.
The most common type of call to action in copywriting is obviously to buy, but there are many other options depending on the project or campaign. For example, convincing someone to sign up for a company’s newsletter, to follow them on social media, or even just to increase brand awareness.
There are also several types of copywriting: website pages, social media posts, emails, blog posts... and more traditional formats beyond digital marketing, like brochures and promotional posters.
Find out more about what a copywriter is and what we do.
How expensive is copywriting?
Because there are so many different types of copy, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how expensive copywriting is and how much a piece of copy should cost.
ProCopywriters calculated that, on average, copywriting costs £379 a day, but I don’t think that sets the right expectations.
After all, most professional copywriters I know (including yours truly) charge per project rather than per hour, day, or—worse!—word. I’ll tell you why soon.
Either way, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that copywriting is more expensive than what UpWork or Fiverr had you believe.
‘But I can write my own copy myself! I was good at English.’
I’m sure you can write some words, but… the right ones for your customers?
Those that are going to leverage their current pain point?
Activate their emotional triggers to convince them to buy?
The words that will allow you to show up on Google for the keywords that your audience is actually typing?
Well, I’m afraid that’s a whole different story.
“Plus, writing about your own business is tougher than you believe. You might think that you’re the best person to do it since you know it like the back of your hand, but that’s actually… the main problem.”
I can immediately tell when a company wrote its own website copy:
It’s always all about themselves rather than how they can benefit their target audience (‘we, we, we...’ instead of ‘you’)
It’s full of overused sentences and buzzwords that don’t actually mean anything (‘we offer cutting-edge business solutions’)
It’s not correctly (or at all) optimised for SEO
It takes too many things for granted, confusing readers who are reading about this company for the first time
Did you write your own copy? Or outsourced it through a cheap content mill? Here are 3 things that you can fix right now to start grabbing your target audience’s attention.
So, why is copywriting so expensive?
Copywriting is expensive because it involves several skills, experience, and much more work that goes beyond the final words.
Here’s why.
A professional copywriter brings years of experience & specific skills to the table
Copywriting is a serious craft. It’s not something you can learn in one day after reading a how-to blog post.
A professional copywriter has been doing this for years and knows exactly how to persuade customers to take a specific action.
Not only that: how to make a brand stand out instead of falling for the most overused buzzwords and cliches.
“Because copywriting isn’t just writing. It’s marketing. It’s psychology. It’s… much more, actually.”
In fact, several other skills are involved. SEO is a prime example.
If you want your website pages or blog posts to show up on Google, you need a copywriter who understands SEO and knows how to use the right keywords to facilitate this.
Once again, this takes a lot of learning and practising.
No way I’d do it for a fiver!
To dish out such effective copy, copywriters also invest in themselves and their business
Learning all this in the first place, keeping up with the best industry practices, staying up to date with everchanging algorithms… This is actually extremely time-consuming and, in some cases, expensive.
And that’s not billable time… not directly, at least. But we need it.
If a copywriter didn’t do that, they’d produce a text that could annoy your target audience by being tone-deaf (e.g. the ‘women belong to the kitchen’ campaign by Burger King) or rely on outdated practices like keyword stuffing.
Copywriters pay for their own stuff, unlike employees
If you think that working with a freelance copywriter is expensive, wait until you see the cost of hiring one full-time. We’re talking about a £20,000 to £90,000 average salary.
And there’s more to it: you’ll also have to pay for their computer, equipment, software, courses, holidays, sick days, etc.
A freelance copywriter covers all that. While it’s obviously reflected in their fees, you don’t personally have to pay extra whenever they need to use a specific SEO software for your project, for example.
It’s not about hours or words
Connect with a few copywriters on LinkedIn, and you’ll realise that one of our biggest pet peeves involves clients telling us how long our job should take and, consequently, how much we should charge for it.
‘Oh, it’s only a short website page. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour.’
‘It’s only a five-word ad. How can it cost over a hundred pounds?!’
But you need to drop the employer mentality when you’re working with a freelance copywriter.
“You’re not paying us per hour: you’re paying for the final project. ”
It doesn’t matter how long it took us to write it. Nor how many words it involves (actually, in many cases, fewer words might easily be more effective).
And, if we managed to write something in an afternoon while last year it used to take us two days, it’s simply because of practice and experience. I really don’t see why we should be paid less for it since the results will be the same (if not better) and it’s only thanks to our hard work that we got there.
But anyway, the main point is: as a business owner, it’s easy to look at the final words and think that they must have only taken us an hour or so. In reality, there’s a lot more happening behind the scenes.
Which takes us to the next point...
There’s a ton of work that takes place before a copywriter has even written the first word
Churning out one thousand words per hour is easy. Piece of cake. I could do that right now, if you want to bet.
But writing words with a strategy and a specific goal in mind? Not the same thing.
And we’re talking about hours or, in most cases, days.
For example, here’s what I do before writing your first draft:
After asking you to fill up my project planner, I spend time analysing your answers and familiarising myself with your brand
I look at the marketing materials that you’ve sent me, your website, and brand voice guidelines to ensure that I can match them
I understand your audience, what makes them tick, what objections they might have, and why they’d be looking for you in the first place (e.g. what problem of theirs can your products or services solve?)
I check your competitors’ websites to figure out how to make you stand out
In most cases, I research the right keywords to give you higher chances of showing up on Google and generating more leads
After aaaaaaaaaaaall this is out of the way, then I do some brainstorming and write the first draft.
Psst. That’s how copywriters call it when they send it to you, but here’s a little secret: what you get isn’t really a first draft. Before sending it to you, we’ve worked on it several times, edited it, tweaked it, and rewritten it. Again, a freakin’ lot goes into it.
In most cases, copywriters also include a couple of rounds of revisions in their services.
So, what you see is ‘just a five-hundred-word blog’ or a ‘short home page’, but now you know how much work there is behind them.
You’re paying for our expertise and the results we bring
Another difference between some copywriting bought on a content mill for a few dozen pounds and professional services including more zeros is this: results.
The former has been churned out in a rush to meet those platforms’ unrealistic deadlines.
You might even like it, you know? Especially if they’ve been written to stroke your ego (‘we’re a cutting-edge company with twenty years of experience and are passionate about computers’).
But, if you haven’t been asked to fill up a detailed brief and they’ve been written without a strategy behind them, that’s all they’ll ever be: pretty words on a page.
“A professional copywriter, on the other hand, writes words with your target audience in mind. Because they are the ones who need to discover your offer and be persuaded to invest in it. Simple as that.”
And, to convince them to do that, there’s a freakin’ lot of work going on behind the scene, as you now know.
But you’re not paying for the actual hours: you’re paying for the results that you’ll obtain with our professional copy.
To give you an example, my blogging strategy helped a company increase their organic lead generation from Google, with one of the articles reaching the top 5 of their most linked-to pages out of… over 20,300 (yes, you’ve read that correctly). Here’s the case study.
As for my website copywriting, I’ve allowed a brand new company to reach Google’s first page for over ten local keywords despite there being several more established competitors in the area. Another case study for ya.
How much I charge for my copywriting services for ambitious female entrepreneurs ✨
I’m not the cheapest copywriter out there, but I’m far from being the most expensive.
Because every project is different, I always prepare custom quotes for my clients.
However, you can find some helpful starting points in my website copywriting and blog writing service pages.
We started this article trying to answer your initial question—‘why is copywriting so expensive?’—but I hope you’ve now realised that… it’s unprofessional copywriting that will cost you much more money in the long run.
Need some spanking new words for your website or blog?
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