‘Why should I hire a freelance writer? I can write everything myself/hire a writing team/use an agency/get AI to write for me.’
It’s important to ask these questions. You want to make the right choice for your business! Will the cost of hiring a freelance writer pay off? Would it be better than the other options?
This article will help you weigh up the benefits of hiring a freelance writer so you can make the best decision.
Table of Contents
Let’s start with the basics: why do companies hire freelancers?
Before we go into to nitty gritty of why companies use freelance writers, let’s talk a little about why companies hire freelancers whatsoever.
Companies are busy. There’s a lot that goes into running a business successfully. It takes time, money, perseverance, expertise and gallons upon gallons of coffee.
Hiring freelancers is a way for business owners to enlist help. Whatever the task at hand, there’s a freelancer for that!
For example, Upwork, one of the internet’s largest freelancing platforms, lists the following specialisms:
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- Development & IT
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- Design & Creative
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- Sales & Marketing
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- Writing & Translation
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- Admin & Customer Support
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- Finance & Accounting
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- HR & Training
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- Legal
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- Engineering & Architecture
That’s really just the beginning. Within each of these overarching disciplines, you’ll find freelancers with even more distinct niches, skills and specialisms. Basically, you can find the perfect person for the job.
Let’s take a look at why it’s beneficial to hire a freelance writer specifically.
11 reasons you should hire a freelance writer
1. Hiring a freelance writer is more cost-effective than hiring a full-time employee.
Freelance writers aren’t employees. They’re their own bosses, working either as a sole trader or limited company. Therefore, they organise their own insurance, taxes, benefits, holidays, office space and other overheads — and you don’t have to worry about any of these.
How much does this mean you could save in practice? Here are the costs of hiring an employee vs. a freelance writer.
The cost of hiring an employee
According to Nerd Wallet, the annual costs of having a UK-based employee are as follows:
| Expense | Annual cost |
|---|---|
| Salary | £32,084 |
| Office rent per desk | £15,600 |
| Recruitment | £6,416.80 |
| National Insurance | £3,171.79 |
| Business energy bill (for five-person office) | £3,103 |
| Training | £1,530 |
| Pension contributions | £775.32 |
| Work social function per head | £150 |
| Employers’ liability insurance (lowest estimate) | £66.72 |
| Total | £62,897.63 |
The cost of hiring a freelance writer
Compare the above to hiring a freelancer, where you only have to pay their quoted day rate, and you’ll see the savings are crazy.
The average freelance writer day rate in 2023 is £350–£500. Even paying the higher end of this, you could hire a total expert for 100 days of the year and still pay less than you would if you hired someone.
2. Hiring a freelance writer is more cost-effective than hiring an agency.
Another alternative to hiring a freelancer is working with an agency.
With an agency, you’re paying a specialist company to do the work for you, giving you access to their resources, teams and expertise.
There are agencies out there specialising in everything from web design to digital marketing to recruitment. And, of course, content writing and copywriting.
While having an agency team on board might sound great, proceed with caution. Agencies are expensive to work with and the agency business model is based on taking on as many clients as possible with the fewest expenses, including staff.
You may think you’re getting a whole expert team helping you out, but the reality is most agency workers are spread too thinly across multiple clients to give you the proper attention you desire (and think you’re paying for.)
On the other hand, freelancers price themselves at a fair rate for their time, experience and output. They’re not incentivised to spread themselves too thinly. In exchange for your money, you get their full attention, and for much less than an agency would charge:
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- Average UK freelancer writer day rate: £300–400
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- Average UK marketing agency day rate UK: £725
3. AI is far from being able to replace human writers.
Free AI tool Chat GPT has made headlines for revolutionising the way we approach tasks like writing, research and coding. It’s able to draft content in mere seconds, which may leave you wondering ‘Why should I hire a freelance writer when I could just use AI?’
For sure, AI and the crazy smart technology behind it is transforming the way we approach tasks. But, it’s far from taking over from humans. Here’s why:
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- AI writing tools can’t write like a human. They don’t have human creativity. They won’t capture your company’s tone of voice or write as imaginatively as a human, for example with personal anecdotes. This human touch is essential to make content engaging and persuasive, bringing it alive to connect with your audience.
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- Original and valuable content is a key component of SEO. If everyone starts churning out content created by AI, none of it will be original or as valuable, so it won’t perform well.
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- AI needs to be properly fact-checked to ensure the information is correct. You don’t want to be providing readers with false or unhelpful information, as this would look less than great for your brand.
Do I think AI should be dismissed entirely? Definitely not. AI is fantastic when viewed through the lens of being a personal assistant. It can help formulate ideas to guide writing, making processes speedier. But a human is always needed to proof and fact-check AI-generated content.
4. Hiring freelancers gives you the flexibility to access writing talent as and when you need support.
Freelance writers can be hired for specific projects and timespans. You can access freelance writing talent when you need it, for exactly what you need it for or however long your require it, without any of the commitment of a full-time employee. Easily scale up or down your content production depending on your needs.
Need something drafted last minute? Reach out to your freelance network to see their availability.
Got a big one-off project coming up? There’s a freelancer who’ll be happy to help.
Staff member going on maternity leave? A freelancer will be happy to fill in the gap for a few months.
Once the project ends, you’re not committed to collaborating any longer unless you want to. This flexibility allows you to attend to your business needs in the most cost-effective way.
5. Access specialised skills on an ad hoc basis.
Hiring a freelancer also gives you access to specialist skills when you need them.
For example, if you need an expert sales email copywriter for a one-off campaign, you can hire the best of the best as a freelancer.
This is especially helpful when you’re seeking hard-to-find skills. Freelance writers can bring unique expertise to the table, such as a specific industry or niche, writing style or technical writing skills.
Here are a few examples:
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- A nutrition writer who focuses purely on social media copywriting
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- A B2B legal writer specialising in the professional indemnity space
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- A technical SEO writer focusing on building traffic, visibility and backlinks for online businesses (that’s me!)
6. Access fresh perspectives.
Different voices and perspectives bring new ideas and creativity to your company. Two heads are better than one, so imagine what a whole team of expert voices can do!
If you build a team of freelancers from different disciplines, you’ll have access to a wealth of knowledge and insights from their collective decades of experience, including best practices and up-to-date trend insights to stay ahead of the competition.
Your crime-fighting freelancer dream team. Just kidding, I have no idea if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles work freelance.
7. Freelancers are speedy and efficient.
Freelance writers are often able to work to tight deadlines, allowing you to get projects completed quickly and efficiently. As specialists in their area, freelancer writers can get the job done both fast and to a high standard, avoiding any errors if there’s a last-minute rush.
If you’ve got a looming deadline, getting a freelancer on board can help maximise your output and ensure you meet the due date, without putting a strain on your in-house team.
Real life footage of a freelance writer at work.
8. Allow employees to focus on other tasks by reducing their workload.
Hiring a freelance writer takes some of the workload off employees, allowing them to focus on other tasks.
Let’s say you have a busy marketing team with important peak-season campaigns to work on. Hiring a freelance writer to create copy for marketing assets takes some of the work off your employee’s plates, so they can focus on other important tasks and ensure everything’s done on time and to a high standard.
9. Access a wider pool of talent.
Hybrid and remote working are the reality of the world we’re living in. Employees and contractors alike are enjoying flexible ways of working. The successful businesses of the future are those that accommodate this. Here’s why.
By hiring freelance writers, companies have access to a wider pool of talent from all over the world, instead of a limited local pool of employees. If scuba diving enthusiast copywriter Kenny from Quebec is the best man for the job when it comes to writing your snorkel e-commerce store copy, you can hire him, no trouble.
With the whole world of talent at your fingertips, you can hire the best of the best — the most appropriate and specialised person for the job, wherever they live. Companies that modernise to global remote ways of working will thrive because they’ve utilised the digital world to collaborate with the top dogs.
10. Freelancers offer access to excellent quality work.
Freelance writers are highly skilled specialists. They bring their experience, skills and training to each project, resulting in exceptional content for your company.
To have made it as a freelancer, these professionals are offering a number of years’ experience, often from a combination of agency and in-house work, before they went freelance. Basically, they know their shit. Hiring them gives you access to their cornucopia of expertise.
11. Hiring a freelancer will save you time.
By outsourcing writing tasks to freelance writers, companies save time and resources they would otherwise spend on recruiting, training and managing in-house writing staff.
When working with a freelancer, the process will look something like this:
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- You’ll have a discovery call. This is where you describe what you’re looking for, get to know the freelancer and learn how they can help.
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- The freelancer will send you a proposal for the project and its costs. You read this and confirm whether you’re happy to proceed.
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- You’ll then sign a contract and pay an initial down payment.
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- The freelancer does the work for you.
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- Done!
There may be little time spent communicating with the freelancer for each of these steps — for example, to send feedback and revisions — but in general, this is the process you can expect. Straightforward, right? It’s certainly way less time than hiring, training, managing and supporting an employee takes.
If you’re still unsure if you should hire a freelance writer, why not reach out for a chat?
A discovery call is a great way to learn more about why you should work with a freelance writer.
Click here to arrange a free introductory chat with me and learn how I can help your business through content writing, copywriting and content strategies.
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