Prepare and conduct the fee negotiation
Fee negotiation establishes a price and working terms that suit the freelance and the client. It involves preparation, an understanding of client value and concerns, discussion of disputed estimates, and agreement on changes when the work or an existing rate needs revisiting.
Preparation and delivery
One practitioner recommends leaving money out of the first interview and asking enough about the project to prepare an accurate estimate after time for reflection. Preparation and flexible thinking can build confidence and improve negotiating ability. The preparation should establish the following.
- Know the goals, priorities and possible concessions.
- Know the bargaining range and the reservation point beyond which negotiation will stop.
- Know the required deliverable and deadline.
The best alternative to a negotiated agreement is also part of preparation. Negotiating approaches can be competitive, seeking to win; accommodative, willing to give everything; avoiding, disliking conflict; compromising, seeking an intermediate position; or collaborative, seeking the greatest possible gain for both parties. Responses can include checking for hidden agendas, protecting against vulnerability, setting clear deadlines, using firm language, resisting concessions that lose more than they gain and avoiding giving more than is received.
Practitioner recommendations for confident delivery include the following.
- Identify personal interests and approach before negotiation begins.
- Avoid hesitation, hedging such as “kind of” or “sort of”, and intensifiers such as “really” or “very”.
- Think on the spot: a firm refusal may be needed, but “yes, and…” can be more effective.
- Balance intuition with reasoned analysis rather than acting impulsively.
- Recognise and prepare for gender stereotypes, cultural differences and time pressures that can create power imbalances.
- Know when to walk away, focus on personal interests and avoid taking the outcome personally.
Confidence can strengthen bargaining power when others perceive competence, organisation and efficiency, and it can be built through preparation, structure, knowledge and self-belief. That self-belief supports aiming high.
A role-play illustrates how different private positions can produce a compromise. The client began at five thousand dollars for a manuscript, with authority to offer six thousand, while a freelance with little current business wanted seven thousand five hundred to ten thousand dollars. After questions about deliverables, milestones and timing, they settled at six thousand dollars. The client wanted to stay within budget and recognised negotiating room in the writer’s target, while the freelance wanted the work; both wanted the relationship to proceed. Flexibility and an intention to find a deal can support negotiations that initially appear difficult.
Client value and concerns
A project’s broader strategic context can reveal opportunities to add value beyond its scientific content. For example, follow-up questions about an opioid video brief revealed that prescribers’ association of the medicine with a street drug was an obstacle beyond communicating efficacy and safety. Including historical and social themes alongside science in the proposal reassured the client that the work would support the business goals. Shared personal interests can also create a connection that helps price negotiation.
A writer can justify a higher fee by identifying and refining a distinctive capability, showing which client problem it solves and explaining the resulting benefit. Scarcity can come from deep therapeutic knowledge or from combining skills, such as high-quality writing in several languages or creative scriptwriting adapted to medical video. Knowledge that is both deep and broad can support this position.
Client concerns can include internal criticism of the hiring decision, doubts about value or fear that the writer will disappear during the project. Asking whether anything could prevent the project being awarded can bring objections into the open, allowing the writer to respond with reasoning or evidence. A suggested risk-sharing guarantee charges half the fee upfront and half on delivery, with the second half payable only if the client judges the value created to exceed the investment. That proposal is intended to help compete with a writer charging half the fee.
Challenged estimates and concessions
A disputed estimate can reflect an undisclosed budget, a genuine belief that the estimate is high or a habit of challenging every estimate to secure the lowest price. One practitioner distinguishes the lowest price from the best price, which balances client value with writer income, and describes quality, speed and cheapness as three qualities of which a client can choose only two. That writer avoids combining good work with low prices and refuses the combination of speed and cheapness without quality.
Where a budget was set in advance, asking whether a writer or an account person prepared it can open a discussion about having the writer estimate future work at the pitching stage. Where the estimate seems high, reviewing each task and deliverable can reveal either work the client overlooked or an excessive assumption by the writer, such as a larger document or reference procurement the client did not require. Where a client merely wants the cheapest service, a writer can explain that the work cannot be done well by that writer for less; one practitioner finds such clients particularly troublesome.
A detailed estimate can make it possible to negotiate the project parameters without simply lowering the fee. The writer can ask which parameter is wrong or, if none is wrong, which element the client can forgo. Scaling down the work then reduces the estimate while preserving the basis of the price. Openness about where the client thinks the estimate went wrong also lets a team check its own assumptions; one team leader reported reaching a mutually acceptable agreement in nine and a half cases out of ten.
An initial-project discount should be considered only when further business is reasonably likely and the reduced fee will not prejudice later fees. Reducing an hourly rate for guaranteed weekly hours over months or years can be reasonable, but the guarantee should be written. Some consultants vary fees by client type, allowing for smaller organisations’ resources and agencies’ need for a margin. Flexibility should still protect the writer: cutting a price simply to win the sale can leave the work insufficiently paid and may reduce its quality.
A writer should set a minimum acceptable rate and be prepared to walk away below it, using the time to market to clients who recognise the value. Developing an expert reputation and believing in the value of the service can help the writer defend that price. Lower-paid “heart” projects can nevertheless offer benefits such as experience in a new therapeutic area or work with an enjoyable client.
Changes in time, resources and scope
Negotiation can establish boundaries and fair treatment, while unfair terms can cause negativity and poor workmanship. Saying no can open a negotiation when demands become unreasonable, and compromise may improve the freelance’s position.
Time, resources and scope are negotiable, so an unfavourable demand can be answered by asking to review the timeline or discuss options. The discussion should reach the person with authority on the client’s side; when timing shifts, the person driving it may explain whether the reason is arbitrary, market-related or a change in priorities. A sudden request, such as materials needed for an impromptu meeting, requires identifying the actual need and considering less work, a different timeline or additional resources. Even when a client seems unwilling or too busy to negotiate, the writer should be ready to engage the responsible manager.
Discussion before a project can establish timeline expectations, communication during it can help handle changes, and a closing discussion can identify further work or finishing touches outside the original scope. One practitioner recommends prolonged engagement and face-to-face discussion to encourage concessions, with patience, questions, listening and refusal of unfair or disadvantageous terms. Offering a feasible compromise can help, and no agreement should be made without the information needed to judge the outcome.
Suggested responses to common timing problems are as follows.
| Situation | Possible response |
|---|---|
| An impending meeting | Reduce the project scope. |
| Late delivery of materials | Ask the client for other work to fill the time. |
| An emergency | Find help. |
A positive attitude can make the discussion friendlier, while recognising the need to negotiate, considering acceptable alternatives, preparing an offer and remaining patient can support a workable compromise.
Rate increases with existing clients
Practitioners differ about when to raise existing clients’ rates: some do so every few years, while others quote higher prices to new clients and phase out older low-paying relationships. Rates should be reassessed regularly, and clients who repeatedly resist increases can be replaced over time. Slightly lower fees while gaining experience can be acceptable if rates rise as skills and knowledge improve, but discounted fees can be difficult to raise with the same client.
One email approach specifies the new hourly fee, service and effective date, expresses enjoyment of the relationship and asks for confirmation. Another writer rarely raises long-standing clients’ fees, considers doing so after three years and introduces increases at the calendar year or contract renewal; no client had refused the writer’s request. That writer had not needed to justify increases, had used the AMWA salary survey when an initial rate was challenged and offered new clients a base hourly rate already accepted by existing clients, explaining politely that it was non-negotiable.
Another practice introduces new rates on invoices at the start of the year and warns cost-sensitive clients before the first assignment. New clients should start at the regular rate for the work, using professional surveys and conversations with peers to establish it, while early lower-paying clients may need to be phased out as experience grows.
One practitioner varies rates by project and client, raising them when they no longer compare reasonably with peers and sometimes lowering them. That practitioner suggests an increase of at least twenty-five percent to shed an unwanted client, or a frank request for ten to twenty percent more from a valued one. If a valued client cannot pay more, additional work or referrals to higher-paying work can be requested.
Economic disruption has produced different responses. In 2020 some experienced freelances regarded lower travel expenses and increased workloads as a reason to raise rates, and one reported a client asking whether the fee was high enough. In 2022 one writer reported freezing rates during the pandemic and again during recession to demonstrate understanding of clients’ circumstances, while another had kept rates unchanged initially but raised the base rate ten percent in 2022 without resistance. A third writer declined to freeze rates after regretting a freeze during the 2007–2008 financial crisis and planned increases reflecting inflation and greater experience, while helping clients through efficiency suggestions and assigning less specialised tasks to junior writers.