Topics covered: usability salary survey trends, salary surveys, pay per year of experience, compensation, compensation statistics, career growth.

Consultant rates often cause people to experience sticker-shock. This article contains tables and explanations that can help you better understand the value equation.

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Freelance writers and editors often find themselves doing projects that are billed by the hour. Sometimes these projects also involve expenses, like phone, travel, etc., that will be reimbursed. Keeping track of the hours worked and reimbursable expenses is absolutely necessary if we are to be paid the correct amount. As with all thing freelance, there is a wide variety of methods for keeping track of the time spent writing and, and of billable costs.

It's amazing how often inexperienced writers will begin a project without understanding its nature. There is a huge difference between, say, a 1,000 word essay based on your personal experience, and a 5,000 word interview with a politician, or a 60,000 ghostwritten book. Each command a different rate, and much of that rate depends on how and where it will be published.

Putting it all together for one price: determining number of projects, billable hours, and earnings.

There are at least six types of freelance writing rates: by the hour, by the day, by the word, by the project, flat fee, and on retainer.

Although some consider it the most difficult aspect of starting a desktop publishing business, the basic process involved in setting prices and estimating jobs is fairly straightforward.

If you're first starting out as a freelance Web Designer, you need to think about how much you're going to charge, and how exactly you'll charge. But before you quote a price, you need to take a few things into consideration.

To determine the price of a web project, you need to determine your expenses, the general aspects of the project, how much you want to earn over the year, the profit margin you want to aim for, and how many projects you expect to have annually. You combine that with your billable hours to get the hourly rate you should charge for a project.