Pricing of technical writing?

Subject: Pricing of technical writing?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:53:18 -0500


Kathrin Schlipf wondered: <<What is the common pricing method in the technical writing business?>>

Pricing by the job (fixed-price) and by the hour or other time period are common, though clients prefer the budgetary comfort of a fixed-price bid. I've also seen "per topic" rates, and this is typically how you work when you submit a fixed-price bid: you count up the number of topics and details per topic, then estimate your cost by how long you expect to take producing this much verbiage.

Pricing by the word is semi-common, depending on how broadly you're defining techwhirling (e.g., writing white papers or technical newsletter articles) and whether you're including translation (where it is the standard). I haven't generally seen "cost plus percentage" used for techwhirling, but I'm sure it's out there. I have certainly seen editors quote based on "$X for the work plus $Y/hour for all research costs".

<<Would you say that customers are price sensitive which means they would react on price increases?>>

Some are extremely price sensitive, and will go with the lowest-cost bid irrespective of whether they'll be buying quality. Witness the offshoring furor that's become such a hot-button issue lately: it's not that you can't get good quality from Indian and other ESL writers, but rather that you have to include quality in the contract specs rather than deciding purely based on price. (The same problem occurs domestically with temp agencies that oversell the skills of their contractors; it's emphatically not just a domestic vs. offshore issue.)

Other customers are prepared to pay top dollar for the comfort of knowing that they'll be getting the quality they insist on. I have a few editing and translation clients who keep coming back to me, even though they could get the job done cheaper elsewhere, because I'm a known quantity and go out of my way to give them what they need. If you're a busy manager and your own performance appraisal depends on getting the job done right, paying a premium for peace of mind is easy to justify.

<<Do they expect technical writers to take substantial risk?>>

Again, this varies widely. Some clients seem to take pleasure only from putting the screws to you and squeezing out as much blood as possible--and this includes expecting you to take on all the risks. (For example, I've seen several cases where a company wanted a techwhirler to work for them "on spec", in the hope that the product would some day ship and there'd be money to pay the writer. Ditto for budding novelists working with editors.)

Most other clients are somewhat more human, and recognize that the client-contractor relationship should be symbiotic ("mutualism", technically) and mutually beneficial rather than a predator-prey relationship. There are enough of them out there that I've been able to avoid the other type.

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Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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