This post may contain affiliate links (including amazon.com because we participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program). Full disclosure is here.
As a blogger, you want to make an income. But you might not know how to set your blogging rates. There are so many ways to price your products, books, courses and services, but they all rely on your knowledge of one thing – your hourly rate. Just use this free calculator to determine your minimum and desired hourly blogging rates to set you up for success!
Knowing your hourly rate will help you calculate how much to charge for everything. There’s no use charging $20 an hour when you need $30 an hour to survive, right?
So, let’s kick off the official Blogger Rates series with the easiest way to determine your minimum and desired hourly rates.
How much do bloggers make?
The short answer is: How long is a piece of string?
There’s no single answer to how much to charge for blogging services. This all depends on where you live, what you are willing to work for an hour, how many people you are supporting, how good and experienced you are, how long you’ve been in the business, what your goals are, if you want a higher income or just exposure, etc.
It also depends on whether you work for a company or as a freelancer.
How much do bloggers earn in a job?
Well, you can check out the ‘industry standard’ rates for bloggers at Payscale, which sits at around $14.92 an hour in the US.
The problem with this is that if you decide to take the traditional job route, you will earn $14.92 an hour for the next year. After a year you might be given a small raise, to keep you in line with inflation at around 1.6%.
Chances are that you’re here because you want to blog as a side hustle or maybe even for a full-time income. Great. Then you know that there’s much more flexibility in what you can earn as a freelancer.
How much do freelancers make per hour?
As a freelancer, you will be able to set your own rates. If you are only starting out then you might want to go as low as possible, to get clients and references. If this is you, then fill in the blog calculator and think about charging your Breakeven hourly rate to cover expenses. At least until you have gained some experience and clients.
If you do this, you will still be able to pay for running costs and living expenses, and you will be able to price yourself competitively in the market.
But if you already have a blog up and running and you want a firm basis for pricing things like your ebooks, courses etc, then you will work off the Hourly rate with desired profit.
Don’t worry, we will be going through pricing various things in this series, but today all you need to work out is your initial hourly rate to charge. Just fill in the details in the calculator below to find out…
Blogger Hourly Rate Calculator
Now that you know your minimum charge, you can say no to any work that pays less than this. And if you build a name for yourself and clients ask “How much do you charge per hour?”, then ask for your desired rate with profit.
Next time we’ll look at how to price products, taking your new rate per hour into account 🙂
Want to save this for later or share the love with others? Then save it to your favorite Pinterest board! ?
