Freelancer price vs Company price

Hi all, Just wondering if anyone might have some thoughts on this:

For a while, I`ve been going to essay companies to get some work edited. Through one of the companies, I was fortunate enough to meet a good editor who I then continued working with and paying for his services. I then found him on freelancer.com (by the way, is it unethical for a freelancer to let a client contact him directly, even if they actually met through a middle agent? Normally, is he expected to have some kind of loyalty or contract to the agent, stating that he is not to approach clients directly and thereby steal away potential revenue?)

So now, I pay him directly, but more or less (sometimes less it seems) than what I paid him through the company.

I would like to know, if anyone has the experience to shed some light on this - what is the normal mark up percentage a company puts on a writer`s work, or rather, what percentage do they pay them from what they charge the customer?

Also, for short notice work, does the writer make any money from that?? Or just the agency? (He did not make any extra when I paid quite a bit extra for a same day needed revision)

Finally, I wish I had contacted my writer outside of the agency sooner, because now I realize from the forums that it seems like a lot of money is actually kept away from good writers by management by way of "shoddy work", "plagiarism" accusations and "you`ve earned too much, now go away so we don`t have to pay you what you`ve been accumulating for months".

So my next question is, why on earth do writers not just go solo and collect 100% of the profit instead of go through an agency?? Surely when they bid on work, they are not able to bid what they would normally charge and feel is fair to themselves, because they are trying to "win" work by being cheaper than normal, right?

I am curious and a little confused by the whole thing. Any replies of value would be most appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. one last question - if some of you could give me a range of prices one would normally expect to pay a FREELANCER that is not with a company vs. what you would expect to pay a company per page for good work, I would find that really helpful for future comparisons! (Been burnt by the $7.50 a page claims so now I need to do my research dammit - you get what you pay for, but how much SHOULD you be paying for it?) Ample time vs. 24 hour turnaround, freelancers vs. company

Thanks in advance for helping me out with the millions of badly organized questions! :)

In my experience, almost every company cheated its writers in the end, often blatantly so. It's a very corrupt and unstable business, so if you find a company that isn't crooked then stick with it.

Most of them on here are just telling the truth about each other.

Even in the best of circumstances, the writer is only getting one-third or so of what the company charges its customers and sometimes much less than that.

Exactly!! I`ve totally gathered that they don`t make very much out of it - why on earth don`t they freelance? I read in the forums that you used to work for companies, so might I ask - why didn`t you just freelance? It does boggle the mind from a non-writer`s perspective! Thanks for taking the time to reply by the way! Appreciate it!

I only freelance, and have never worked for a company. The going rate for freelancers is $30 per page. I don't know what companies pay. On this forum, I have read that the standard cut for a freelancer when working for a reputable American company is 55 to 70 percent of the total price.

As to why more people don't go solo, several factors play in:

-They don't know how to find clients.
-They don't like marketing.
-They don't like dealing directly with clients.
-They get so busy working for companies, they don't find time to do their own marketing.

Working for companies is the path of least resistance. The qualities that make a person a good writer are not the same as the ones that make a good businessperson. In fact, quite the opposite.

For the rare person who is good at both marketing and writing, there is a lot of money to be made.

Wallflower, you are assuming that writers have to choose one or the other. Most of the writers I know work for companies and also try to do as much freelance work as possible. Everything else being equal, writers prefer work that pays more rather than less without other concern for which of those two avenues it comes from. By the time you've been doing this seriously for a few years, you may sometimes have more company work and you may have more private work at other times. More often than not, we have some pending work of boths kinds simultaneously.

Some writers may use a similar sliding price scale based on due date, but others have a "flatter" price curve beyond the base price, typically charging the same or slightly more than companies for longer deadlines but not increasing as steeply (or as high) for shorter deadlines; it depends on each writer. Obviously, it isn't worth paying more for one of the least experienced or talented writers whose work you might also be able to get through a company; but it probably is worth it if you happen to identify one of the better ones privately, since you can't demand a specific writer at any company. You have to keep in mind that writers might be more inclined to take the same type of project privately if they keep 100% doing it privately but only 50-70% through a company, even though the price on your end might be the same either way.

However, once you're already a company customer, you shouldn't ask to do a side deal with their writers and they shouldn't accept it if you do. Similarly, legitimate writers who compete against other legitimate writers respectfully and fairly don't steal one another's clients either, such as where a writer refers an established customer to a colleague for a specific project. It's not exactly the same situation, but it's the same idea: we don't take subsequent work from those clients without asking whether they already tried the first writer and we don't take private work from clients who are already customers of the companies we write for.

Yes, and I should clarify, I am not against company work. My time to work on essays right now is limited, so I only work on private projects. In the future, I will probably try to take on company work, too.

if you need to fill 300 plus days a year with work it's almost impossible to do it completely with freelance clients.

In the busy season it's quite easy.

maybe i'm going to have to step up my marketing. you use sites like elance and freelancer?

Wow, thanks everyone! That certainly opens my eyes slightly more and I shall be well aware of these factors and ethical considerations when next hiring writers.

To be honest, I was rather hesitant in starting a thread, terrified of being shot down for asking "stupid" questions while having my grammar and spelling humiliatingly corrected in the process, as seems to be quite the trend in this forum, if one were to glance through it quickly.

You have all provided a very different experience from what I initially expected, so I thank you guys for that! :):)

Michael, I don't want to say too much publicly. We can discuss over email or PM.

wise move, sad-sack. why don't you two charmers go chase an ambulance into traffic?

poachers. this is an anti-scam site. this isn't a marketplace.

Someone asked a legitimate question, editor75, and two active members of the industry are discussing it. If writers cannot even identify themselves and provide input derived form their own knowledge and experience, this forum would be pretty pointless: everyone would be stuck making useless conjectures and vague insults like you and th63.

yeah i agree. i respect this site and i am against people posting blatant advertisements, but constructive conversation is necessary for an active forum.

Here is how I see the problem. Companies survive because their target audience is HUGE! They take everything, history, marketing, finances, religion, odd balls orders, you name it. Thus they have a lot of orders at any given time. Now a freelance writer is somewhat limited in topics he or she can take, unless this person is a rare genius. So not only a freelance writer has to reach wide audience, he or she has to reach very specialized audience according the topics he is proficient in. This could be a huge challenge.

Freelance writers have to realize that they cannot "compete" with large companies. The companies live on Google searches, and it takes a lot of money to land on the first search page. Even if a freelancer could land there, there would be no way to handle the volume generated. You must find other ways to carve off a small hunk of the cheese. There is plenty of business for every reliable company and qualified writer -- probably more than enough. The problem is the scam and incompetent companies competing unfairly, muddying the waters, and generally wreaking havoc.

I do not know, do you really think students just google search for essay companies? There is so much scam out there, it seems to be a REALLY bad idea. I was under the impression it has been always word of mouth, although I can be mistaken. It can be very risky to just pick some random site on google search, especially for urgent or serious projects or dissertations.

I am curious how one can "carve off a small hunk of the cheese." in such chaotic place, where no one trusts anyone, work is seasonal, and volume is uneven and often unpredictable. I get tons of orders at times and cannot take them all. But sometimes I just sit around with zero orders. The main problem with a freelance writer you can only write so much, you cannot physically write more. Plus it burns your brains and you have to get out of this business sooner or later.

You have to establish trust with your own client base -- repeat customers. The fact that it's seasonal is neither here nor there -- a lot of businesses are. It is a predictable cycle. Make as much money as you can in the high season, plan for less in the low season. Everybody needs a vacation at some point. Plus, more experienced writers are telling me that it's not nearly as seasonal as it used to be, because of online courses.

I recently helped some students with undergraduate work, then helped them with graduate school admissions essays, and I imagine that when the time is right, I'll be helping them with theses, too.

I have seen discussions going on forums showing students getting confused whether to use a freelance service or a company services....

Well I will be very fair to you and not talk like a company representative. Lets put it straight...if the freelancer you know is near your place and you can meet him..then there's nothing like a freelance service......the only point is ..you need to be 100% confident about his credentials.

A freelance service will always be a bit cheaper on your pockets and if the guy / gal is great then nothing like it.
On the other hand if you are not able to find this trusted freelancer and you have to take help of a company then going for a company help is not a bad idea...but ya you need to have a good method to check for the services.....You can read my other posts to know what you must check before giving order to a company....

Hope this post was helpful
Thanks
David
Assignment help

Since freelance writers do not have binding employment contracts with academic writing companies, they are free to contact a client directly. Just not on the official platform of the writing company. Since you managed to come across this writer using independent means, not related to his service agreement with the writing company, then there is no problem regarding your employing his services directly. Now, if the two of you were openly discussing direct services using the communication platform of the writing company, then that, would be considered unethical and downright disrespectful of the company that acted as the middle man.

This is true:


Large companies may book dozens of projects per day, which is a volume of work that no independent writer could possibly match.

This is not true:


While I'm not a genius, I can write almost any project much better than almost any college undergraduate can write the same project, and in almost any subject area. The topic range of even the best writer will narrow at higher levels of education; but a good writer with a lot of experience doing this can still produce a better project than most graduate students in many fields of study, if not most fields of study.

This is not true, either:


What I said above does not apply to most writers at essay companies. When you hire a really good freelance writer, you're paying for the fact that your results aren't substantially determined by which writer (of hundreds) happens to take your project.

Students running on a tight budget will definitely find that the price of hiring a writer directly is far more affordable than if they hired a writing service. The freelancers can offer a lower price because there is less for them to consider when it comes to running their company. They do not act as middlemen who find the clients, then mark up the writer price so that they can make their own income. The writing company is basically nothing more than a client source for the writers. It is the increased charges that the company puts on the writer price that often bloats the costing. Something that freelancers do not have to do since they get every penny of the payment for themselves. There is no profit sharing between the company and the writer when it comes to freelancer services.