I have been freelancing for about 6 months now and have had a pretty steady income. Of course there's months that are better and worse but I haven't had a month yet in which I couldn't cover my expenses and save some on the side.

I can budget for one time expenses, but am having a hard time letting myself make long term financial commitments, because I am constantly thinking 'well what if I suddenly get no work anymore'. Things like maybe moving to a bigger appartment or getting a first car are really difficult for me to justify.

How long did it take for you to feel secure in your income and to not feel so... stuck in an imaginary low salary.

I have a potential client who is giving me a lot of red flags. She’s all over the place with what she wants, can’t seem to prioritize the work she needs done (which is way more work than I can offer within her time frame), and she wants a lower rate because they are a nonprofit (fair). I am expensive ($150/hr) because I have spent over a decade in this exact field and have worked my way up to senior level positions. Also her primary project is developing a one-year strategy and plan for them. That isn’t cheap work. It’s senior-level work. She also needs some ongoing work done that isn’t so senior-level.

However, I do feel for her — she’s running a tiny nonprofit that does good work and she needs help. I am a great fit for this project (we work in a tiny industry and there aren’t a ton of freelancers doing what I do in our field). I’m trying to figure out if I should give her a discount on my rate (despite the red flags), or offer fewer hours and a smaller scope to keep the cost down, which would unfortunately result in lower quality work. She’s also telling me she is desperate for someone to do some manager-level tasks which I can do but isn’t worth my rate, and she wants me to include that in the scope somehow. I tried to, but it’s impossible to do it all within her budget. What do you all think? What do I do?

Edit: I ended up declining the project. I just can’t see a way for me to do everything she needs, and I know it’ll snowball and my boundaries will get crossed. Thank you so much, you all really helped me come to this decision!

Do you have some useful advice, maybe you can recommend some articles, books? I am not talking about portfolio site just looking good, but UX stuff, which content to display, and so on.

Hi everyone,

I’m dealing with a frustrating issue with an agency I trusted. I was hired to write and structure a book for the agency's client, and had plenty of meetings with said client to agree on a specific outline, length, and focus to “lock down” the structure. This was supposed to prevent any major changes later on, especially since the project was quite extensive and, frankly, very badly paid.

I wrote the entire book and handled about 70 pages of edits from the client, until they suddenly demanded a full structural rewrite. I told the agency this was outside our agreed scope, and they initially seemed to agree. From what I understood, they tried to get additional budget from the client to cover the rewrite, which the client refused, so they (the client) completed the changes in-house.

Now, the agency wants to cut 30% from my pay, claiming I “left the project unfinished.” They even hinted that I’d “refused” to do my job and almost cost them the client (first time I heard, they honestly just told me the client was working on their edit when I asked). I worked within the agreed scope, and their last-minute demands feel unreasonable. The pay was already low. I genuinely thought I could trust them, but now I feel taken advantage of.

Is this typical with agencies? I am very new to freelance and this was my first big project. Do I keep trying to explain that they agreed, and I didn't refuse (though they probably know that) through screenshots and the like? Is it better to just send the invoice with the 30% pay cut and walk away for good? I know there's legal options, but I don't feel like I can afford to do that (small agency world in my city).

I have been doing assistant and social media work for a client for about 3 years now and they were my first ever client so my rate was very low ($25/ hour) and I haven’t increased since because they have been so consistent and don’t take too much of my time.

I would say I don’t do more than 5 hours a week for them and it’s super low key.

Recently the client has been kinda rude and unappreciative of my work and effort. this behavior has been going on for at least a year I would say. and I’m just kind of getting fed up with their behavior and expectations of so much time and energy when they specifically told me they don’t want me to go over a certain threshold of hours. Essentially, they are asking for more work being done without increasing pay.

it comes out to about an extra $300/ month which helps with bills and groceries but I am debating if it’s time to let them go.

When do you know it’s time to stop working with a client?

TLDR: Client expects more work for same pay and has attitude. When do you know it’s time to leave a client and what factors do you consider when making that decision?

Inspired by THIS post, I wanted to share some ideas on boundary setting with characters in our lives. For those of us who are generally nice people who want everyone to be happy, boundary-setting can be like a sort of second language. It's hard to do because it feels like we're being mean, short, or unfeeling with people and we simply don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

But at the same time if we DON'T get this skill handled, then we just end up resenting everyone and ourselves, we get excessively busy, and we feel like we're not in control of our lives.

So let's take a minute to discuss boundary setting.

Boundary Setting

The key to the discussion really isn't how because we already know how. It's just politely saying 'no' - not much else to it. The difficulty is in actually feeling alright about saying 'no'.

So here are the main insights:

1) It's not mean to say 'no'!
Can we agree on this? It's truly okay to say 'no'. We should agree on this now because if there are people in your life who know how to get you to say 'yes' to things that you're not really interested in, then they will accuse you of being not nice. But this is just manipulation, and this is just you not wanting to be manipulated anymore.

2) It's okay for people to get upset, for them to get their feelings hurt.
Yes, including your best friend. Yes, including your Mom. The trick to remember is that it's not your job to maintain people's feelings even if what's being asked of you feels relatively small. Because we'll want to justify it like "ah! She's asking for so little, I may as well just do it. I don't mind. It's okay. It's not a big deal." Of course it's not a big deal. ... But also it is. Because if you have to betray yourself in order to protect them from an unpleasant emotional experience - then YOU'RE the one who ends up feeling shitty. Even if you're in denial about how shitty it feels.

3) Setting boundaries is scary at first, and then it gets easier the more you do it.
It took me a long time to learn this, and it was very unnatural for me in the beginning. But now everyone in my life knows that I won't do something unless I want to.

It wasn't always this way though. When you're in relationship with someone and they can intimidate you into getting their way, then they're sort of like a bully to you. Even if only in subtle ways. But it's enough that it feels a little scary to do it, and you'll feel a little funny, maybe a little intimidated about doing this. It blows up the relationship a little bit because you're re-establishing the order of things.

Even if it goes badly (which is unlikely) you'll be glad you did it. Eventually dishonoring yourself becomes too high a price to pay. And it's not really serving the other person either, ultimately.

Try it out then! If you're not feeling respected, speak up! You may as well.

Brent

Because I work from home as a freelancer friends assume I can drop whatever I am working with just because they are in the neighbourhood and want me to come out and deink coffe/eat an icecream. No I am working? I can’t. I honestly cant make impulsive descisions during work days just because I don’t have a boss over my head. I am 36 years old and have been freelancing for 15 years. My workdays are very stressfull with deadlines and always have been. I can't just drop whatever I am doing because a friend decided to unexpectedly eat an ice cream.

Am I the asshole?

Just what the title says. I create a podcast, manage a youtube channel, and create social content for a client who has decided they'd like to do it themselves. Before the contract ends on 10/31, they'd ike me to edit a new episode and screenshare (obviously they will be screen recording) my entire process...in an hour! LOL.

Gut check: It feels yucky.

posted in frelancers

So a client of mine also works with a marketing agency. We occasionally communicate to share assets. They just sent me an email with an instructions describing a task, I could only assume it’s being assigned to me for some reason as nothing has been communicated outside of that. My client is on the lowest rung of my services which certainly doesn’t consist of whatever this is. How should I go about declining or addressing this?

I (22f) am trying to get some experience and have been writing two example email newsletters that I wanted to propose to a local animal shelter. I’m not looking for money but I’d like to build my experience. My concern however is that I’m wasting my time. They don’t currently do email newsletters and are very active on social media. I’m wondering if this is a project that’s unlikely to receive a yes? Should I still go for it? Thoughts?

Hi, I'm a one-person outsourced development and outsourced PO role working remotely from Korea. As I've been involved in various projects, doing A to Z development and collaborating with internal teams, I've found that understanding the client's needs and their domain is the most important factor for successful outsourcing.

However, when I outsourced a solution that I hadn't used before, or a B2B solution product that I wasn't familiar with (for example, when I was developing an advertising solution for Amazon, I couldn't understand Amazon's ads properly because they were so complex. There were too many contexts that weren't available on Google. ) It's a lot of work.

I'm curious to know how you guys bridge the gap in these situations. Do you have any effective methodologies or solutions?

I am 35. I’ve been working as a freelance photographer, retoucher, digital tech, assistant and production assistant for the last 12 years. It’s going okay, I’ve always managed to have enough to pay bills and find my retirement account. I was able to buy an investment property as well in my hometown. But I haven’t “made it”. I am not getting consistent enough work shooting to stop assisting and the other side hustles, and the last two years have really been especially meh, true for a lot of folks I know.

It has made me really question whether this is the career for me long term. I also met a really amazing person who I truly love and they/our future have in many ways become my number one priority.

I’ve been exploring other possibilities and applying to some full time jobs, thinking this may be something worth considering. After about a year of not getting any offers I finally got a job offer to work with a major tech company as an onsite digital tech and retoucher. The pay is almost double what I am probably making now, but my girlfriend and I live in New York and the job is in California. We are not stoked on relocating. We are true New Yorkers in the sense that the lifestyle here just works for us. We fell in love here and I feel that living here is somehow integral to how we function together. I don’t see us being happy in any other city.

This job is a home run on paper—$200,000 per year, great benefits and possibilities for growth. And yet I kind of want to turn it down. It feels like giving up. My girlfriend has seen the ups and downs of my current career path, and seen some real lows, and understandably has expressed she would be disappointed if I didn’t take it.

I really don’t know what to do. Can anyone relate to this?

Tl;DR: struggling freelancer got offered cushy full time job but can’t detach from current lifestyle enough to accept it.

When I send out a deal memo with a kill fee in place but the client still hasn’t signed the deal memo and it’s now within the kill fee window and then they say oh we’ve found someone else or the job has been cancelled - what do I do?

I want to mention that I do let them know ahead of time that until they sign it, I cannot hold the date. I typically request that they sign the deal memo by a certain date in order to secure my services but I can’t force them to sign it on time so is there a better way I could be going about this to ensure that the deal memo is signed prior to kill fee window or am I going about this the right way?

I might be overthinking the whole thing.

Hello! I need some advice since this is my first time as a freelancer, and honestly, I don't know if I might have messed up my work-life balance, lmao.

I'm 22 years old, and I currently have a "regular" 8-hour, 5-day-a-week job in a home office, where I make enough to live simply on my own for now, but I would like to earn more, so I recently started looking for a second job.

In my search, I found a freelance position where the pay rate is almost double what I currently earn. When I heard that during the interview, I was really excited about the pay, and when they asked how many hours I would like to work, I said 30 hours, haha.

With that said, now I need to organize myself with my 40-hour job and this 30-hour one simultaniulsy, being my first time as a freelancer, so I would like to get some guidance.

• What are the best strategies for managing time effectively between a full-time job and freelancing? Do you guys use any apps or something?
• What are some common challenges new freelancers face, and how can I prepare for them?
• How do you maintain work-life balance while juggling multiple jobs?

By the way, I have worked 12-hour shifts before, so I am not scared of getting burned out, but I am worried about my time-management abilities, as this is my first time as a freelancer, so any tips would be appreciated :)

I've been freelancing for almost 10 years as a motion designer. The past couple of months my demand has increased to the point where I constantly have a task from 3 different clients on my plate. My most long-term and consistent client who makes up about 50-60% of my income tends to have lots of short-term, almost instant demands and the timelines are more often than not, just barely enough time.

The others are better about timeline but it's just so much to handle. Sure, it's just a 15-30 minute revision (they always need it NOW) but every time I interrupt a project it just destroys my productivity. It's hard enough to focus in the modern age as is. Then when I finally feel like I have a day to focus on one project, I realize I forgot to send a link to another client on some small thing which ends up hurting my credibility. I've always been the guy that gets things done on time. I need to be more diligent about making lists on the fly but sometimes you're scrambling so much that things slip through the cracks. But gotta get it while the gettin's good and I'm trying to not turn down things because in reality I need to be growing. But time management with these people is just not working for me.

I can't really turn away a revision a lot of the time because I risk losing too many hours to a backup resource. Once they send it off to someone else, that person is going to finish it.

Anyway, what I think I need to do here is attempt to consolidate my scheduling into day or half-day blocks. It would be so much easier if I could just concentrate without being interrupted with other things. I've been better about this lately e.g. "I'm booked Mon-Thurs" but Main Client will ping me anyway. They're too juicy to let go but I need to try and push them into booking me for specific days.

Anyone have any advice in this department? How to phrase it to them when approaching them with this issue and how to make it still sound like they're important to you while also emphasizing your demand has increased and therefore you can no longer offer the same level of attentiveness they have grown used to during my slower seasons? (btw I've tried increasing my hourly with them but they refuse even though it's been the same since Jan 2022).

For what it's worth, I once rage quit on them entirely out of nowhere before a deadline for these reasons. I had had enough and just said, this isn't working out and I'm no longer working for you. Then they kinda talked me down from the cliff with vague promises of a better system and better pay (potentially a sort of retainer deal) which never really materialized.

I have a long-time client who gives me repeat web design work (once or twice a year), but he's very controlling and insists on phone calls instead of emails, which I find much easier for communication and referencing. He often rambles on without giving clear answers, like when I ask for details on how a feature should work.

He also doesn’t provide any documentation before starting projects and I feel like he doesn't respect the way I like to do things. I also do copywriting and he thinks that means I have to come up with everything, even though I have to understand how things work before creating the copy.

How would you handle this type of client? As I said, the pay is Ok, but not great for the stress and amount of revisions I have to do.

I’m working with a company and long story short, they are asking me to fill out a I9 and W4 because they “temporarily hire” all contractors as employees and pay them as W2/W4 workers.

Now I’ve asked them multiple times about this and stated that I think a W9 would be more appropriate for the work, and they just keep saying it’s only possible to pay as a W2 employee. What’s even worse is they want me to sign the employment papers that outline things like working hours, benefits, expected behavior in the office (none of which applies to me)

When I brought up this info they stated to ignore stuff like working hours, etc and that I’m only technically an employee of their company for the dates I was doing the freelancing with them.

The said the only other possible option is that if I had a LLC I could invoice them. I don’t have a LLC but I don’t see why I can’t still just invoice them as I have for countless other companies.

What do i do in this position?

I just landed a massive client yesterday (giant architecture firm, I'm a photographer,) only for them to cancel at the last second.

This is after getting shit, bottom of the barrel clients for the past 8 months.

Create a custom resume/cover letter, go in, get interviewed against other candidates, get hired, email back and forth, agree to a rate, then send me the details on the first job.

Accept, draft a contract, and send over an invoice for the amount we agreed on. Add all this time up, and that's hours of work.

Suddenly an email comes in- "Sorry, the project isn't going to work out, we don't need your services. We'll be in contact for future projects."

No other explanation. Back at square one. Who knows if they'll ever hit me up again.

FUCK. This shit is so frustrating. So many clients where it feels like you're in the home stretch, only for them to fall through at the last minute. Drives me absolutely fucking nuts.

When to suppress feelings and just brute force work through and when to really say, nope this isn’t my cup of beer because the clients seems to lie?

Product designer / CAD modeler here.

My client wants to build a new walker for old people. A close friend from him (engineer) will work out the frame, but they need some nice design elements for a good feel and look.

Project is funded by gov. He asks for a fix price so he can specify it in the funding blank. Any overtime would be bad, as he needs to pay it from his own pockets.

How can I even estimate as the basic frame isn’t still built/ no prototype whatsoever at the moment.

I get that he wants to get free work with the funding money. Just does smell fishy.

Any terms and conditions tips for me ? Or is he a huge red flag?

I run a production company and recently worked with a client who was introduced to me via email by a well-respected indie actress in my community that I've collaborated with before. Her and I have maintained great respect for each other since our collaboration. She was great, talented, and very professional. The client is a friend of hers.

I offered the client a discounted "friends and family" kind of rate. After our initial conversation I saw they were operating on a frequency that wasn't quite to my liking but it was an easy job so we moved forward. Immediately they had me redo the contract multiple times, nitpicking on every detail. We finally agreed on terms for the 3 day job, including payment to be made for any extra days within 7 days of completion. Payment for the initial 3 days was made immediately. However, on the extra (4th) day, the client verbally changed the payment terms to Net 15. I agreed, but the payment is now overdue, and they're ignoring all my attempts to follow up (email, text, calls). Another freelancer on the same project told me they had the same issue with this client, eventually getting paid but after constant chasing.

I'm considering my next steps:

1. Should I inform the actress about this to let her know how her friend is conducting business?

2. Should I CC the client on this email to the actress?

3. Should I just keep trying to reach the client?

4. Should I go straight to legal action?

Would appreciate any advice!

I have a client in central European time zone and I'm in American central time zone, and the 7 hour difference is killing me. Sending me a link for a meeting isn't bad, I'll hop on any time, it's when they schedule out meetings. I save the time slot in my calendar but it registers it as central time zone, and even when I go to save it, it saves it under their time zone and not mine, and there are time zone converters but for some reason I'm still missing the mark. Any ideas on overcoming this?

Pet peeve: I do contractor work as an IC for several different companies. Often they ask me to use their email domain, so it looks like a “united front” of employees email domain names (even though I am 1099 and not their employee).

Now the client has dictated to me and all other 1099 and w2 employees, when writing an email through their domain “we must only use “Dear..” so and so to begin an email, and end with “Sincerely, …” so and so, to end it. No variation. No interpretation.

On the one hand, this person is my client (since I am an IC for them), so I follow along, but on the other hand I am not their employee, and can author an email however the heck I want.

But my gosh is that annoying.

Hello everyone!

I've been doing freelance in my spare time for about 1.5 years. I haven't had many clients, but the ones I had were from pretty different fields and the projects I worked on varied quite a lot. I haven't worked on super big projects yet (months long projects with six figures budgets I mean). At the same time, I've been working as a 3D artist for a small company for the last 5 years, mainly focusing on product visualization and animation. It's about the same thing I do as a freelancer as well, but I focus much more on animation in freelancing.

From my little experience I couldn't help but notice one thing: the clients I've had as a freelancer are 1000 better than some of the clients I dealt with as an employee (and I do to this day), both as clients and as actual people. Somehow the company I work at managed to bind itself to some of the most arrogant, ignorant and cheap clients in the industry. I think my job also caused me some mild trauma where I feel my work is never good enough, because I haven't had one client as an employee that didn't demand extensive changes on the work provided. I'm always full of self doubt as an artist. It doesn't help my boss is a sort of micromanager, but I digress.

As a freelancer I had some of the smoothest work experiences in my life. Very few rounds of revisions if any, feedback is always sensible and on point. Never got asked to make a 180 on a project. I never felt the client I am speaking to is an arrogant know-it-all. It's gotten to the point I started thinking the client is withholding criticism for some reason. Some of the best clients I have are also the ones that never haggle for the price.

One thing I love most is the creative freedom I have been given as a freelancer. Most clients have been upfront with me on this, "We don't need you to do the manual work, we need your creativity". Whereas at my job I am treaded as a machine that gets a prompt and gives an output, very few clients have been open to creative input and suggestions, most of them have a "clear" idea of what they want and they only need your hands to make it.

I don't do freelancing full time, as I don't have a constant stream of projects yet, but If I did I would be making 5x my current salary simply because I price my work better than my company does (the issue with my workplace is in itself a whole other rabbit hole).

Has anyone else felt the same or am I just biased / had good experiences till now?

I am a 3D artist, and trying to start cold email strategy. I have a separate gmail.com email id for my business. I searched all Reddit and everyone suggests it looks very spammy and low efforts, and it's an instant reject for almost everyone.

I am not sure about this, as I am just an individual freelancer looking to collaborate with SMBs and agencies.

What are your opinions? Thanks!

Howdy, I’ve been working via LLC for years, no issues. Lately firms seem pretty insistent on only wanting to pay via W2.

Anyone else seeing this and if so, why?

Hello, I did my first freelancing project and I never felt so unqualified. I quite the project today but man I felt like a failure. I don't know what in the hell I'm doing with my life.

Now I know what I can and can't do but holy cow. How am I gonna make money.... This is scary and just me getting one client was... Difficult as fuck...

Is this what life is like cause if so then my depression is gonna woop my ass every single day.

I'mma do food delivery for now. Thats my plan.

Hello there, kindly help. I have been working with cloud workers for several months, i received a warning email that i have failed to report an agent who gave offsite contact. Now my account says wrong username or password. Have they fired me?

As the title states, is it good or bad to "give free advice" on the client's "next steps"? eg. Your intentions might be good and that it shows you are genuinely interested in the project, but it could also be a bit pushy for the client. [for client retention]

Example in a project for a product – If the team is primarily made up of contract workers, freelancers, or remote workers. Once your part is done in the production cycle, and they've moved to the next phase that isn't involving you (eg. designer-engineer relationship).

Should you tell them on ways to improve the project during their next product cycle? (eg. that they should keep track on specific metrics that would help either you or the person that would do the same work in your position next?)

I'm just starting out as a freelancer after being a salaried employee for a majority of my career. I created a website for my services, but wondering how I display my work or project samples since the last 10 years I've worked for one company. Most of my big "wins" or projects were with the company and don't have multiple clients to list. Should I leave that page hidden for now?