If you are looking for a healthcare writer, this may not be the first article you went looking for searching, “what to pay a healthcare writer” for their writing services or “writing rate” for freelancers.

When you are trying to figure out how much to pay your writers, you might be thinking, “What’s the going writing rate?” After searching and searching you might find out that the writing rate is as little as $35/hr and as much as $200+/hr.

How do you determine the rate your want to pay your writers when the numbers are all over the place? This article will help you tackle that very question.

Freelance Writing Rate for the Beginner Writer

Minimal Writing Rates

For small businesses just starting out, you might think that you should pay a nurse writer exactly what she makes at the bedside, which is around $35/hr. I would encourage you to add 50% to that because of taxes. However, how do you know if the writer will finish it in a set number of hours that you budgeted the project for?

This is when I’ll advise you to pay a project rate instead.

Project Pricing Shift

When determining a writing rate, take a look at what you allocated into your budget. 

Also, take a more in-depth look into the deliverables. Are you only wanting the writer to write? Or are you expecting them to enhance the SEO, publish it, find graphics, and research? It’s not uncommon for healthcare companies to think writers should take a broad topic and run with it. Most of the time, I don’t see that type of model, there are always some sort of added task beyond writing the article.

Therefore, come up with a rate per article instead of by the hour. It will save you and the writer time and money.

Subject Matter Expert? Change the rate.

You can go to many places to find a writer online. Marketplace website, a gig request on certain job boards, and even a Facebook group. However, it’s difficult to find a writer who specializes. At WriteRN.net, we have over 150+ Nurse writers. Our prices reflect that because we are subject matter experts, instead of a generalist.

Stop the per Word Rates

I have dealt with clients in the past that ask me for a writing rate per word. This is tough for me because I hate word-stuffing posts just to get more money. I have seen it in writers too. Utilizing the project rate can give you an easy solution to the per-word pricing because you can make a range for pricing.

Many writers, for example, create project rates as 300-500 words = $X 500-800 = $X 800-1000 = $X.

The Best Type of Client

Retainer clients are a freelancer’s best client. These clients understand your project fee, and you agree on a number of deliverables each month in exchange for a monthly retainer rate. As a writer, when you have a monthly retainer, you have guaranteed income that you don’t have to worry about, and you’re not creating proposals or talking to them every month for new rates. For companies, it’s a wonderful relationship and security to know they always have a writer for their site.

When deciding how to choose which pricing model, it’s really up to you. Freelancers, talk to your client. Companies talk to your freelancers freely about money. Be sure you have clear expectations of deliverables to make sure the writer is not doing too many admin types of tasks without getting paid.