2015 Pricing Survey Breakdown: Stats You Need To Know

Thanks to you, our recent 2015 Pricing Survey for Austin Area Communications Freelancers gained a tremendous surge of 247% more respondents this year. This new wealth of data confirms that freelancing is not only alive and well but thriving, and offering us considerable earning potential outside of the traditional 9-to-5 salary model.

Here’s a snapshot of how we’re courting and closing our business…

Out of our 226 Pricing Survey respondents:

– 42% (96)* of respondents freelance full-time, defined as 30+ hours per week, while slightly more of us, 46% (104), freelance part-time.

– 35% (79) of our respondents have been freelancing for 1 to 5 years, while a whopping 25% (57) have been at it for more than ten years.

– 27% (56) of respondents make less than $10,000 a year in freelancing, but 10.5% (24) are bringing in six figures a year. That’s pretty promising, given that nearly half of respondents only freelance part-time!

2015 Pricing Survey Breakdown: Stats You Need To Know
– The largest number of respondents, at 25% (49), charge $40 to $59 a hour, while 42.5% (84) of us charge between $40 to $79 an hour.

– Writers and editors comprise the largest group of respondents at 37% (80), while those in consulting and strategy follow at a close second with 28.5% (62).

– The Design group, 19.4% (44) of our total respondents, is split fairly evenly between the graphic design and Web design disciplines, and less than a handful identified themselves as illustrators.

– 87% (182) of us rely on referrals as our main source of income.
2015 Pricing Survey Breakdown: Stats You Need To Know
– 34.5% (68) quote set-price projects, 21% (42) quote projects with a price range, and 27% (54) bill at an hourly rate without a proposal. Only 8% (15) of respondents work on a retainer basis. Keep in mind that these numbers refer to just the usual method of pricing for each respondent, and may not be the only method used.

*Numbers in parentheses denote the number of respondents out of the total respondent pool of 226. For example, 42% of respondents correlate to 96 out of 226 respondents.

In an Austin-American Statesman article last year, Austin was hailed as the fourth best U.S. city for freelancers. Co-working spaces are popping up all over town, and you can certainly find some of us freelancing folks in most coffee shops in the Austin metro area. As more new residents flock to our city from all over the U.S. and the world, freelancers can expect to promote their skills and services to a growing number of businesses in our burgeoning Austin economy.Vocativ U.S. Census Top Five Cities

Stay tuned as we take a closer look at what the 2015 Pricing Survey results mean for us from different points of view and how we can take our freelancing businesses to the next level.

What parts of the survey are you most curious about? Let us know at freelanceaustin [at] gmail [dot] com.

Diana Ying