Freelance Copywriter: $0 to $200/hour in 1 Year

Daniel Throssell is a freelance copywriter from Australia 🇦🇺

In an interview a few years back he talked about learning copywriting from scratch and earning $200/hour within a year via clients he found on Upwork.

Daniel is also featured in the book $1000 100 Ways, where he describes how he landed his first freelance gigs…

I started copywriting on Upwork, which made finding work fairly easy. Because I had no experience, I just resolved to out-prepare my competition, and overdeliver on all my jobs. So whenever I applied to a job, I’d do as much research as I could on what the client was asking for. Then, I’d take the time to write a specific portfolio piece that was similar to the work the client was asking for . . . and present it as a “sample” of my work (which it was).

Almost without fail, clients were blown away that I just happened to have done something so similar—and they were eager to hire me over people who were either less expensive or more experienced than me!

You can see Daniel’s Upwork profile here 👈

Log into Upwork and you can go back through his history and see that his first job was…

• Nine 200 Word Product Descriptions – $120

So he wrote 1800 words for $120.

That’s pretty good pay for a first copywriting gig. But it sounds like Daniel put several hours into applying for that job and completing the work. I’m guessing his hourly rate worked out to be something like $20/hour.

IMO, his willingness to put in more work up front to win jobs and impress clients is the primary reason he was able to quickly raise his rate and start earning the big bucks 💰

Daniel has earned over $70k on Upwork and billed 280 hours = $250/hour average.

His rate is currently set to $999 per hour.

Daniel writes in his profile…

When it comes to copywriters on Upwork … I’m the best you can get 😎

I don’t care if you think I’m faking this, or if my attitude turns you off, because let’s be honest: you probably couldn’t afford me anyway.

Nowadays, most of Daniel’s clients probably find him via referral or his website.

More from him in that book I mentioned (links added)…

Two resources I recommend new copywriters check out are John Carlton’s Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel, and Sean D’Souza’s e-book The Brain Audit. Both are ridiculously cheap as of the time I’m writing this.