How to Make Six Figures as a Freelance Writer (Start With These 3 Fixes)

Making $75k to $85k is a weird range in freelancing.

You’re making more than a lot of full-time employees. Friends and family probably think you’ve “made it,” and you can pay your bills, take vacations, and work from wherever you want.

So why does it feel like you’re running in place?

I know this feeling because I lived in it for longer than I’d like to admit.

When I finally broke $50k, then $60k, and hit $75k, it felt like a real accomplishment. I started really thinking that breaking into the magical $100k zone was real.

Then December would roll around, and I’d be right back at roughly the same number, bouncing around $85k, give or take a bit.

The problem wasn’t effort. I was working hard. The problem was that three things were quietly eating my income, and I couldn’t see them because I was too busy being grateful I wasn’t broke.

If you want to make six figures as a freelance writer, these are the three things most likely in your way.

1. You’re Charging Based on What Feels Safe

At $75k – $85k, you know how to land freelance writing clients, and you’ve probably raised your rates a few times. Maybe you started at $0.10/word and worked your way up to $0.50. That feels like real progress because it is.

But here’s what I’ve noticed in my own career and from talking to other freelancers: most of us set our rates based on what feels comfortable to say out loud, not on what the market will actually pay.

I remember the first time I quoted $1/word to a prospect. My heart was pounding, and I was literally sweating sitting on my couch. I was sure they’d laugh or just ghost me.

But they didn’t flinch. I got an email with a yes and a contract the next day.

That’s when I realized I’d been undercharging for years. I was pricing based on my comfort level, and my comfort level hadn’t kept up with my skills.

The reality is, at good rates you don’t need a million clients. You only need about 3-5 of them to give you a good lifestyle.

The $75k freelancer usually isn’t dramatically underpaid on any single project. It’s more subtle. You’re charging $400 for a post that should be $750. You’re quoting $1,500 for a whitepaper that competitors charge $3,000 for.

Each one feels “close enough” that you don’t question it.

But those gaps compound.

If you’re undercharging by 30-40% across your entire client roster, that’s the difference between $75k and $110k without taking on a single additional project.

What to do about it: Research what other writers in your niche actually charge. Not beginners, the writers at your experience level. Jennifer Gregory and Ed Gandia often do annual freelance writer surveys on LinkedIn, so that’s a good place to start.

Then, when you’re negotiating with your next potential client, quote what the market supports, even if your stomach drops when you say the number. You only need one yes to prove to yourself it works.

2. You’re Working With the Wrong Clients

This is the trap that got me.

At $75k – $85k, your calendar is probably full. You’re busy. You might even be turning down work. At first look, that feels like a good problem to have.

But look at who’s filling your time.

When I audited my client roster a few years ago, I realized that about 40% of my income came from clients I’d taken on when I was still figuring things out.

They paid decent rates for the time, but I’d outgrown them. The projects didn’t challenge me, didn’t lead anywhere, and honestly, I wasn’t doing my best work because I wasn’t engaged.

I was too busy to pursue better clients because my schedule was packed with “fine” clients.

This is the part that messes with your head. These aren’t bad clients. They pay on time, and they’re nice, or you love the topic or some portion of the work you do for them (like interviewing SMEs). Some of them gave you a shot early on. Letting them go feels ungrateful when you know plenty of freelancers would love to have them.

But gratitude and business strategy are different things. You can appreciate what a client meant to your career and still recognize you’ve outgrown the relationship.

So it may be time to fire a client and look to replace them with a higher-paying one.

What to do about it: Calculate your effective hourly rate for every client. Not what they pay per word or per project, but what you actually earn per hour when you factor in research, calls, revisions, and admin. The gaps will shock you.

I had two clients paying the same per-post rate, where one worked out to $350/hour, and the other was $75/hour. Once you see those numbers, the decisions get a lot clearer.

3. You’re a “Freelance Writer” and Nothing More Specific

If someone asks what you do and you say, “I’m a freelance writer,” you have a positioning problem.

That description puts you in the same bucket as every beginner on Upwork. It tells a potential client absolutely nothing about why you’re worth $1/word when they could find someone for $0.10.

When I made the shift from “freelance writer” to “content strategist for financial services companies,” everything changed. I stopped worrying about missing out on everyone and just focused on the niche I knew.

It didn’t happen overnight, but the quality of inbound leads shifted. Clients started finding me because they specifically needed someone who understood banking and insurance. And the rates I could command went up because I wasn’t competing against generalists anymore.

The $75k – $85k freelancer often has a niche in practice but doesn’t own it in their positioning. You might write mostly for SaaS companies, but your website says “freelance writer.” You might have three healthcare clients, but your LinkedIn headline is generic.

You have the expertise already, but nobody can see it.

And here’s what makes positioning even more powerful right now…AI can produce generic content in any niche. But, what AI can’t do is bring 10 years of industry relationships, a deep understanding of how your client’s customers think, and the judgment to know when a brief is asking for the wrong thing.

When you position yourself as a specialist, you’re making it obvious that you bring all of that to the table.

So look to see where you can upskill and add specialization. Maybe that’s focusing on being a B2B writer, maybe it’s adding video scriptwriting, being a social media ghostwriter, or killing it with interviewing experts and clients for case studies, etc.

It doesn’t matter what it is, but you have to find a way to stand out from what AI can do now.

What to do about it: Update your LinkedIn headline, your website, and your pitch emails to reflect the specific work you do for specific industries. You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start with LinkedIn since that’s where tons of potential clients will find you. Be specific about who you serve and what you help them do.

The Mindset That Keeps You There

Undercharging, wrong clients, weak positioning — those are the tactical problems. But underneath all three is something harder to fix: you’ve started to believe that $75k or $85k is who you are.

Ed Gandia said something that stuck with me. If you think of yourself as a $75k freelancer, that’s exactly where you’ll stay.

You’ll make decisions that keep you there. You’ll unconsciously sabotage the opportunities that could move you past it. You’ll turn down a prospect because the rate feels “too high for someone like me” before they’ve even had a chance to say yes.

I did this for years. I’d look at writers earning $150k or $200k and think they had something I didn’t. Better connections, better luck, some kind of head start. What they actually had was a different ceiling in their head.

And when I finally hit $100k, and then $150k myself, I realized that’s exactly what it was, a mindset issue.

The shift happens when you stop treating $75k as your identity and start treating it as one stop on the path. You earned your way here, and that same work ethic and skill will earn your way to six figures. But only if you believe the next level is actually available to you.

Here’s a practical way to start rewiring that mindset: every time you pitch a new client, ask for more than your current rate. Every single time. Even if it’s just $50-100 more per project.

If you have a client paying $900 a post right now, quote $1,100 to the next prospect. Worst case, they negotiate you back down to $900, and you’ve lost nothing. Better case, they come back at $1,000, and you have a new baseline. Best case, they just say yes.

Do this enough times and two things happen. Your rates creep up steadily, and you train yourself to stop flinching when you say bigger numbers out loud. That confidence compounds faster than you’d think.

It’s time to build that asking for what I deserve muscle.

The Real Reason You’re Stuck

These three problems are connected, and the mindset ties them all together.

You undercharge because you don’t feel like a specialist. You don’t feel like a specialist because you’re spread across too many types of clients. And you keep those clients because you’re afraid of what happens if you let them go, and the better work doesn’t show up fast enough. Underneath all of it is the belief that $75k might be your ceiling.

It’s not.

The only way to break the loop is to pick one thing and change it. Raise your rates for the next prospect. Let go of one client you’ve outgrown. Update your positioning to reflect the work you already do. Or just start quoting $100 more than your gut tells you to.

Learning how to make six figures as a freelance writer isn’t about working harder. Instead, you need to get honest about what’s keeping you where you are and making the uncomfortable decisions that move you forward.

I put those off for way too long. Don’t be me.

Liz Froment

Liz Froment is a full-time freelance writer and the one who keeps Location Rebel running like a well-oiled machine. If she's not writing something informative or witty for her clients, she can most likely be found reading a good book.