Do you enjoy giving up perfectly good money to someone who probably has more than you?

No? Then this is the blog post for you.

One of the lessons I’ve learnt the hard way in my 3 years as a freelance writer is that giving clients discounts seldom works in your favour.

If you’re new to this profession, you might be swayed into giving discounts so that you can land a writing gig. I know I did. But don’t make my mistake! It’s not a good idea.

Like many freelance bloggers, I started my writing career on a bidding site. I signed up, completed my profile, wrote a few sample articles, and sent applications for every job I felt I could handle. As is the norm with new users on bidding sites, most of my applications got rejected, but once in a while I got a response from a client who was willing to hire me.

After exchanging a few messages about the job and convincing the client of my competence, I would often get a message that went something like this:

Hi Eric. We really love your work and we’d like you to join our team. We have many more projects in store for you once this is completed so we would like you to send us your best rate. What’s your hourly rate for clients who offer continuous work?

There are two ways to handle this scenario and I’ve tried them both. Want to know which one works best? 

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