More of a rant than anything.

I’ve been freelance since 2019. Freelancing is good, but I’ve always wanted a full time.

So after so many ALMOST offers, rejections, and never hearing back…I think I’m done.

Going full force with freelance now and want to see what 2025 will bring.

How many of you have felt like this?

I am a fabricator and was referred to a job by a person I’ve worked on a few projects with. The client wants my hourly rate but I’m not sure if I should tell him my usual rate or quote him higher end rate which is $10 more per hour because this jobsite is over 100 miles away from where I live and I would have to go there basically every day for the next 2 or 3 months. And I live in Los Angeles, so traffic will add a lot of time to the daily commute.

Should I quote the higher rate or just my regular rate and tack on something extra for travel time and expense?

What questions should I ask potential clients? Here's what I think are the key rules:

1. Questions that prove you're the right fit:

• Frame yourself as the actual freelancer
• Tell them how you're interested in the same project and that it'll help you

2. Questions to check if they really understand their project:

• Have them explain their project as if they're telling a friend
• Ask what problem they're trying to solve
• Get them to describe their target audience/users
• Red flags:
  • If they can't explain the basic purpose
  • If they keep changing core requirements
  • If they can't define what success looks like

3. The workflow:

• Who are the decision makers?
• How do they prefer to communicate?
• What's their review/feedback process?
• Who else is involved in the project?
• How do they handle changes or new requirements?

Please, share questions or tips from any field of freelancing,, share them below - it'll help everyone level up their client screening process! I'm making a list of questions

Hi,

I’m newer to freelance writing. I’m a Nurse Practitioner in Women’s Health and got into this because I like writing and want to get out evidence based medical articles to women. I have been finding women's health/health based websites and blogs to pitch to. When there is an email listed on the site, that is where I send it. For websites that don't have an email listed, is it best to use the general "contact us" form (I feel like this is almost pointless) or try to find one of the editors on linkedin?
I wasn't sure how appropriate it would be to contact editors on linkedin.

I work in a clinic for my full time job, so this is all completely new to me - sorry if I sound naïve in asking these questions.

Thanks!

Hello - I run a photography & videography business, and was hired by a marketing agency to make content for a real estate company. the project began around April of 2024, and a 50% deposit was paid. That deposit covered hiring contractors to make the production happen. It's now been 3-4 months since our work has been fully completed and delivered, but we have not been paid. Company is dodging our emails and calls.

I'm not sure what to do and am wondering if I'm just going to never get our $30k, and nothing bad will happen to that company? What should I be looking into? Laywer? What kind?

Context that I can think of: There was a contract - it stated payment would be made within 30 days of work completed. No late fee in contract (One of our first contracts, won't happen again.). This company is NY based and we are in GA.

Small question. I am having a new project (found via Upwork but client wants to work outside, so far he's not giving red flags though) and he proposed to pay me upfront. Usually I am used to getting paid afterwards. Is it normal to pay upfront? 😅 Could it lead to any legal problems if he's trying to scam me?

I am in technical side. But I got an offer to Collab for work with freelance jobs based on digital marketing, advertisement, social media marketing like that. Web development is a part of a job. Can I collab and do a job for them or stick to a technical freelance jobs?

Share your thoughts so I will make better decision. Thank you.

I work in the film/TV industry as a freelancer, and honestly I struggle with the networking side of things. I understand you've to remember that the people you work with are colleagues/workmates and not actual friends (except for the odd few you genuinely get along with), but of course you can't just treat them like that. I also have Asperger's and because of that I struggle with maintaining friendships.

In the past I mainly got work through an agency or company I worked for, but I'm not with those people anymore.

My last job finished a month ago and I'm looking for my next one, but I don't know how to reach out. In the past it's always been a "hey hope you're keeping well, I'm available if you got something coming up" that would maybe be followed by a short but polite conversation, but usually I'd be left on read. In the back of my mind I know these people are probably aware I'm only texting them to try and get a job, and I can't help but feel like I'm pissing them off.

If anyone else freelances and has any good points I'd love to hear them. Thank you

In my industry, January is typically slow. I'm still doing better than I have in previous years, but I'm not fully booked. I'm working with a business coach and taking this time to refine my processes, update my portfolio/LinkedIn, get organized, and pitch to prospects.

I find when things are slow like this I tend to get anxious and wonder if I'm doing enough. I'm sure this is common. I'm also trying to tell myself that this is normal and that I am still doing work and taking action that will move my business forward in the future and help me reach new high value clients🤞🏼also maybe it's not the worst thing to rest in the slow times.

Idk, any advice?

So I'm 26, I live with my parents who are letting me save up. I have over 20k in savings but have usually made less than that per year. For perspective, I graduated in 2022.

Just recently (the last few months) I started making more money with higher paying gigs.

Basically what I'm asking is, is this normal for a young freelancer or is this a sign that this lifestyle is unsustainable for me? Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

Hey, so I could really use some advice because I’m starting to feel a bit frustrated and confused about a situation that’s been dragging on.

A while ago, someone (let’s call him Alex) approached me about a job opportunity. We had an initial discussion via email, followed by an online Teams meeting where he laid out a list of expectations for the role. Everything seemed clear and exciting at the start (my very first freelance role).

Since then, communication has been...less than great. I’ve had to reach out multiple times for updates. Each time, Alex responds with something like, “Let me get back to you” or “I’ll update you soon,” but he never follows through.

The most recent update was a week ago. He said he’d be back in the office in a couple of days and would let me know when we could set up a final meeting so I could get some work done. It’s now well past that, and I still haven’t heard anything. It’s frustrating because he came to me about the role, yet I feel like I’m the one begging for even a morsel of information.

It’s hard not to feel like my time and effort aren’t being respected, especially since I’ve put in the work to stay professional and follow up politely. At this point, I’m debating whether to reach out one last time or just walk away from the whole thing.

Have any of you dealt with something similar? Am I overreacting for feeling this way, or is it fair to expect better communication from someone who approached me in the first place?

Have just been burnt now a second time by a no-payer - cost of potential recovery will outweigh the sum owed, and doubt he will pay anyway, so looks like I'm going to have to write it off.

Am kicking myself here, as with a bit of online digging I would have realised this guy has a poor rep in the market and would have avoided, or at least insisted on a retainer upfront.

I'd appreciate people's experiences with this problem, and what red flags people would suggest to look out for.

My 2 cents:

. person has a string of companies that have failed/been struck off (check your local company register)

. any negative media reports e.g. involvement in scams/crimes etc.

. excessive number of negative online reviews

. the person comes across as untrustworthy, or is aggressive and disrespectful

. person has made it difficult to track their location

one day I ran an experiment and quoted my ideal price —

the one that delivers massive value, guarantees every success metric the client is solving for, and enabled me to hire specialized experts for each stage of the project.

Headed into the budget meeting, my instinct for the video project was $1,500... but the number I asked for on the call was $25,000... that would allow me to deliver the Holy Shit Package.

They went for it. I've quoted accordingly since.

START BIG and negotiate scope after, if needed.

Who's got tactics to pile on to this one?

Do you have an off boarding process when finishing up a job?

I always feel like the last email just sending the final files to a client seems a bit.. underwhelming! Would love to do things differently

They mentioned that I need to have a crypto wallet, any recommendations for which one I should use?

we sometimes have clients who are just too hands on. I want the client to be hands on but it's hard to explain to them why the design they want is bad, and then they almost tell you that's what they want, end of story.

I don't really want my company name on things like that. it's hard to understand, it doesn't flow very well and it feels clunky. I don't want to tell them to get lost but I've tried being firm in explaining it's a bad design and it will hurt their business/nonprofit.

Do you just do what they say and let them learn it doesnt work? or do you drop them as a client?

Hello, I just got hired by a company remotely. After giving me a set amount of pay per hour, and me replying I can do part-time or full-time work, they then said they want me as an independent contractor without discussing hours. They also want to introduce me to their time management software later this week after giving me a company email. The NDA and contract work agreement they sent doesn't appear to have anything terrible in it, such as non compete or taking ownership of everything I make during my time.

I'm aware that this can be a red flag, so I'm wondering on how to handle it. As a grad student doing many other things, I do want this job and to have it on my resume, and I'm desperate for money, which I'm sure they're aware.

What sort of things should I look out for? Should I pressure them to let me send my own invoices or wait and see how the job is?

As someone who gets some clients from my own portfolio website, I've tried to experiment with including prices for working with me on a monthly basis on my services section.

I haven't grown to the point where it's clear cut winner for me — but has anyone noticed whether including prices on your portfolio website encourages clients to reach out, or the opposite? My prices are quite competitive (I think).

I'm a freelance marketer, and in short, I really dislike Linkedin and the whole ecosystem of false positivity, ai generated posts etc. and would rather not deal with it.
I'm instead focusing on getting leads from my own website, but am I really messing up by not being active on Linkedin for client aquisition?
What's your experience?

A common thing in economic articles recently has been the "rise of the gig economy" or "The rise of freelancing". It's often treated as a relatively new thing that's commonplace, but is it really? When my old man came to America from Eastern Europe in the mid 1980s, he told me that there were plenty of construction cash jobs everywhere, cash work in restaurants washing dishes, and houses that needed to be cleaned. Although nothing was digitalized, it seems as though there was still an extremely active gig economy in its own form. Once they got enough money to establish themselves, buying and flipping houses apparently was also a lucrative industry that was relatively easy (compared to now) to get into. Is the gig economy really a new thing, or has it been around forever, just in a different way?

Long story short I've been freelancing with an agency in NY for about 4 months - been doing really great work, but it's incredibly demanding. Got a last minute request, completed it within an insanely short window and had the AD yet again go through my design and rip it apart. She was borderline yelling at me in the call.

This isn't the first time I felt underappreciated in a time of their need, so got together with the CEO and told them that they need to look for a new freelancer.

And honestly? It felt GOOD. I made a ton of money - but at some serious cost. So happy to be free of a shitty client.

/rant

So I want to start doing freelance as graphic designer, and I'm organizing stuff like client proposals, but I have a couple of questions.

- Are they always necesary? i know i should do them for big(ish) projects like brand design or logos, but should i also do them for quick small things like single products (a.k.a flyers, cards, social media posts) or illustrations? if not, what would you recommend instead?

- What to do for recurring clients? this also applies to contracts. If I have a client I've worked with before, how do I start new separate projects? The whole proposal slideshow seems too like too much for me, so I was thinking doing a separate one with just the information of the specific project without the stuff i've sent before, but i don't know if there is a more efficient method.

Also, should I make a new contract for every single new product a client wants to do?

I know they might be silly or kinda obvious for some people, but I just want to make sure to approach things well and do things right from the beggining. Thanks to whoever helps me out :D

Woot! Just made the decision.

Context: I recently got hired by a guy to (initially) teach him how his camera gear works. Apparently, he spent like $20,000 on equipment that he had no idea how to use. I'm a professional photographer, and so I thought my utility would mostly be limited to that.

Well, I was wrong. Turns out that he had a bunch of stuff he'd collected that he wanted sold. Stereo equipment, two motorscooters, an absolutely ludicrously expensive recumbent tricycle, a bunch of his "old" camera equipment that he got bored of, a bunch of ancient, unremarkable, furniture, all kinds of stuff. So he offered me a percentage of the sales as compensation, rather than a flat rate.

Like an idiot, I agreed. Of course, in the three weeks or so I've been trying to move stuff, I've sold, like, a handful of things. Listed everything everywhere I can think of. And that's where the problems started.

Here's a small list of snafus and problems I've had:

1. Endless no-shows and flakes. What the hell is up with that?

2. Despite being assured that everything was in absolutely mint condition, that was (Surprise!) not true. One set of floor-standing speakers I met a guy to sell had a paper clip stuck through one of the tweeters, which I didn't realize until meeting with the buyer because this client had insisted they remain wrapped in plastic until they were sold. Client blamed the moving company that had transported them just a week or so prior, except that the paper clip had been there so long it had rusted. Talk about a nasty surprise. Had to give the buyer, who drove 4 hours to meet me, like a 40% discount. Despite him swearing up and down that they were "impeccably serviced", one of the scooters wouldn't even start because, as it turns out, it had been kept in storage for almost 6 months with a full tank of gas, and would piss fuel from the tank any time the petcock was opened to try and start it.

3. All of this crap is not worth anywhere near as much on the used market as he thinks it is. The guy is absolutely loaded, and seems to think that everyone is willing to pay like 75% of new pricing on 15-year-old junk. When I told him that one of his stereo components was currently selling on eBay for like $50, the first thing he said was "But it was top of the line when I bought it!"

And that third thing brings me to the inflection point where I finally decided that I was done. The second scooter is a 2012 Suzuki Burgman 400 ABS. Great condition, only like 2400 miles on it. Only problem is that the tags are expired and he doesn't have a title. I found a buyer for it, we agreed on $3,200 (a touch low, but considering there was no paperwork, fair), and my client told the guy we would take a $500 deposit to hold it while we got the registration redone. My client would cover this. Handshake, done deal. Pulled all the listings down for it. That was Saturday.

Yesterday, my client went to pick up the other scooter from their mechanic, and told them about the sale. Apparently, they told him that they would've paid more for it, because it's in "high demand". He calls me, and tells me that, while holding $500 of the buyer's money, he wants to call him and ask him to cover the cost of getting it re-registered, because he was taking a hit by honoring the original deal when he could've gotten more. I was vehemently opposed to this. I explained that selling any vehicle with no paperwork would bring in less than one with, and that given that we wanted to move it quickly, we were always going to have to accept a lower price than someone that could afford to hold onto it indefinitely until someone agreed to pay an arbitrary price. I told him in no uncertain terms that I would be no part of conversation.

Fast-forward to this evening. I get a text from the buyer, basically saying the discussion was had and that he was absolutely not happy. I apologized, explained that I understood, that I was not part of that decision, and that I would fully understand him walking away.

I then get a call from the client. I mention that I'd sold a laptop he'd bought 3 months ago but that he decided against keeping, for $1,200. He tells me he wanted to get more, and I explained that while yes, he did pay $2,800 or whatever to buy it, it was currently selling at Best Buy for $2,000 brand-new, and $1,450 open-box. After my commission, he got just over $1,000. He was incredulous.

I mentioned the text I got from the scooter buyer, and this guy starts in about how "rude" this guy was, with "no reason" to be. He was "nasty", "unfriendly", and my client didn't want to do business with him anymore. I tried to get him to consider that if the roles were reversed, he probably wouldn't be too happy about agreeing to a transaction, putting down a deposit, and then having the seller want to reopen negotiation to get him to pay more. He wasn't having it. He kept talking about how he was "just asking", and that the buyer was being unreasonable. Then he says "Look at this from my perspective, I paid you X amount for your services before we started selling this stuff, I'm paying you a commission of sales, and now I'm $1,000 out of pocket even after your sales!" Then he went on the attack, basically telling me that I wasn't selling this stuff for enough money, that I had already lost him another $1,000 on this stupid scooter, and that this whole situation was my fault anyway and could've been avoided if I'd checked with the mechanic first before selling it on the open market. I told him that I would have, had he not told me beforehand that he had done that previously and they had said no.

And that was the moment I was done. I was not a person providing a service, I was a means for him to recoup all of the money he's wasted over the years. I'm talking tens of thousands of dollars' worth of crap that he wanted gone fast, cheap, and for a high price. And he apparently was not above scummy "sales tricks" in order to get what he wanted.

I'm going down to the storage unit first thing on Thursday, taking a video of myself putting back everything I have stored at my house, locking my set of keys inside, and then texting him telling him not to contact me again. I'm outtie.

I recently onboarded a new client who hired me to migrate his entire cloud infrastructure to in-house. One of these systems is a Samba server that the company uses for file storage.

I wasn't intentionally snooping around, but during the file transfers I started seeing some odd filenames for PDFs. I decided to open one and it was an entire ebook on achieving racial purity by "breeding out" other ethnicities. I thought this was a little weird, but there were dozens of other ebooks on similar topics in the same folder.

I looked around a little more and found a folder with pictures of my client wearing clothing with swastikas on it, one where he was doing a Sieg Heil salute. There were hundreds of pictures, but I didn't look at all of them. Frankly it wasn't that interesting.

I'm pretty sure my client is a Nazi. I'll be finishing up this job (I'm under contract) and moving on.

Edit: I'm in the US. It's not illegal to be a Nazi. Some of you also don't understand the concept of contracts and NDAs, and it shows. I've already consulted with my attorney and he has advised to finish the contract and move on.

I've been freelancing for a decade now... seems like a long time and that's because it is.

Recently I have been finding it very boring working from home and have tried working at cafes (I pay for food and drinks) but it gets expensive over time.

Today I'm trying out working at a library for the first time to see how it goes.

Does anyone else have any recommendations or how did you find taking your work to a library to get stuff done?

Here's a backstory: A friend recommended me to his friend to redesign and develop his website. He's an agency owner and has a pretty good LinkedIn presence (15k+ followers). I worked on the website for about a month on WordPress, did SEO on the website, written copy for the site.

Now, we've met a lot of times, and I want to work with him for a long term in the future. He shares a lot of business secrets, techniques, and insights with me in our meetings. I would really love to get mentorship from him (unofficial) and learn about industry and business in general.

So, with the website work, as said earlier, I've worked for the website for a month, daily 4-6 hrs+ (including weekends). And today he called me and said he'll pay me let's say X (which is at least 5X lesser than industry standards in my country).

So, what should I do in this situation? How to handle such clients? I want to build a long-term relationship with him. He's saying that he'll offer the next projects to me, but first thing, his main biz is making TV and digital commercials, and web dev, SEO, etc are secondary. Also, he said he's not getting many clients so there's a shortage of money at his end.

I’m a video editor and was hired on to create a music video (very small indie artist). We had multiple meetings, mood boards going over exactly what the client wanted. They were very persistent on the video being due in November because they were set on having the video posted on a certain date in November. Anyways I sent over the video when asked and never heard back for 3 weeks despite following up every single week. The video ended up never being posted.

They finally got back to me 2 weeks after when the video was supposed to be up and admitted they didn’t know how to tell me that they wanted revisions on the video. Now I was expecting revisions of course because often the first edit is never the one they go with however being ghosted for 5 weeks is just strange.

Anyways I essentially said that I wouldn’t be continuing any work until I was paid 50% of the project because it had been so long. However here we are another 4 weeks later and they still haven’t replied to me until today saying they want a brand new video despite doing everything they told me to do and using the exact materials they wanted. I had to take money out of my own pocket for certain effects in the video.

At this point I’m conflicted. I haven’t been paid at all, I have other projects now to prioritize, and the lack of communication is driving me crazy. There’s a part of me that wants to walk away but another part of me is worried that if I do then my reputation may be tarnished for a bit because of how harsh the music industry is. Also in life you will have to deal with conflicts and such. I’m not sure what to do as I feel this is a complete waste of time. Thoughts:

TLDR: struggling with a client that will not communicate their needs for weeks on end and have yet to be paid from a project from November

What is the most important key point to gain a client’s trust at any field in emails outreach?

When I provide data to a client we typically have to provide metadata telling the client the information about the files, column names, descriptions, etc.

I usually spend time making a PDF with all the information and clients often come back with questions and clarifications so I end up editing the PDF and re-sending 1 sometimes many times depending on the situation.

I like the idea around GitBooks (from GitHub) that serves as a simple web page we could update directly. I’m looking for a free way to do this to make sure our clients are the only ones with access to the metadata page.

I thought about doing it with Notion web pages, but wanted to see what others use for metadata or explainer delivery to clients.

Hi everyone,

I'm an SEO Freelancer, and the majority of my clients are other marketing agencies that also offer SEO, PPC etc. Often, the work I do will essentially be providing the SEO for one of these agencies' own clients, and part of this process will sometimes be me writing a proposal for what the work should be (as you do).

I wouldn't normally think of charging for proposals, however, I'm starting to feel like I'm not really being compensated for what is a very important piece of work. I've consulted with my agency client over a new client of theirs, which they have now (as far as I'm aware) won. They need me to put together a full-on proposal for SEO work, including Backlinks, Content Writing and Optimisation, Audits, etc. etc.

I'm happy to do this, as it means more work obviously that I haven't needed to be in the room for to win. But a proposal like this is easily going to take me 3-4 hours minimum to put together. Is it bad form and naive to be feeling like I should be paid for the time I'm putting in here? If I don't do this proposal, I'm not convinced they're capable of it, so I'm obviously doing something valuable for them, am I not? In doing this, I'm also going to lose 4 hours of my working day that I could be spending on other clients, other work, and sourcing more opportunities.

I'm quite shy(!) and hate rocking the boat, but would it be fair of me to bring up charging for the process of writing a longer proposal like this out?