Q: Could you explain to me (or give me an example) how you create rates for a marketing project for a company? What’s included in the going rates for, say, a freelance marketing professional? I really need the monetary aspects of pitching to clients explained to me.

What a coincidence! So many of my friends are going through this same exact situation right now. A lot of freelancers tend to have a baseline hourly rate like $20-35 an hour if writing or editing. If the project goes over, you can charge a lot more per hour in overtime.

However, if you are completing a project from concept to completion, you will want to break the overall scope of work into Phases. (Phase 1: Research, Phase 2: Planning, etc . . .) This way, the client knows how much you charge per Phase and can choose to hire you for various elements of the work or the entire thing for a flat rate. This will also help you manage your schedule accordingly and figure out what times of the month you can take on more work, or need to outsource some work to others.

Katrina Priore is the owner of Minute Muse, a site for advertisers and marketers to get answers to the questions that ail them. She is also the Event Director for Create Chaos