4 Easy Ways to Make More Money as a Freelancer

Looking for a few easy ways to make more money as a freelancer? We’ve compiled a few tips to help you grow your business, increase your income, and reach your revenue goal this year.

Before we dive into the tips, take a second to establish where you are right now. What does your income look like? What are your most valuable products or services, both in terms of income and enjoyment? What do your expenses look like?

Once you’ve established where you are now, you can start to think about where you want to be. What’s your revenue goal this year? What products and services do you want to offer to achieve that goal? Do those align with your current most valuable products and services?

Note: Your current products and services may not match up with your ideal set, and that’s okay! Part of reaching your revenue goal is being conscious of how you want to get there.

Ready to increase your income and boost your revenue? Here are four easy ways to make more money as a freelancer.

1. Sell an eBook or Course

Whatever your freelance business is, I’ll bet you know a thing or two about what you’re doing and have a few tips that all of your clients could learn from. Take those life lessons and turn them into something that people can buy, like an ebook or video series. Online courses are all the rage right now, and they’re not too difficult to produce. By creating the assets and then selling them on your site, you’re creating an easy way for people to purchase from you, even when you’re client docket is full.

The goal is to create evergreen content that can be reused for quite some time. It’ll take a little effort up front, but once it lives on your website and people keep purchasing every month, you’ll be happy that you put the time in.

2. Turn a Side Project into a Side Business

Many people associate side projects with people who work full-time, but even as a freelancer, you’re allowed to have hobbies outside of your personal 9-5 (or whatever your custom schedule is!). If you’re creating something in your off-hours that others might be interested in, consider working it into your freelance business in some way.

Are you good at lettering? Consider creating clever prints to sell alongside your business. Ever made a WordPress plugin? Try selling it within the WordPress community. You’ll have to get a little creative, but if your side-hustle can benefit your main-hustle, how cool would that be, right?

3. Set up a Retainer Agreement With Your Best Clients

For services that can be ongoing, such as website maintenance or a set amount of blog posts per month, a retainer model is the way to go when pricing your services. Talk to your favorite clients and see what you can do for them on a regular basis. (I say favorite because you definitely don’t want to try a retainer model with clients who you don’t get along with – that’s a recipe for disaster.)

It’s a super easy way to create a little security in your freelance business and ensure you’re making income every single month. Then you don’t have to stress as much if you don’t book as many clients next month, but if you do, you’ll be ready to celebrate with all the extra income by the end of it!

4. Drop Your Low Paying Clients

If you have existing clients that you’re less than thrilled about, the first step is to identify why they’re not your favorite. Are they paying you a low rate? Do they only communicate by phone when you’d really rather email? Is their project different than the type of work you’d rather be doing? Once you identify the problem, you can start to figure out a possible solution that will result in a better experience for both you and your client, and more money coming your way.

If your problems are about money, raise their rate as soon as possible. If they accept it, yay, problem solved! If they can’t afford the new rate, then you have a choice to make – either you continue working with them but don’t get paid what you’re worth, or you break the news to them and open up your schedule to take on a new, higher-paying client. It may not feel the best to drop a client over money, but sometimes it’s necessary for your business to grow.

Regardless of why you need to drop a client, be sure to do it in a helpful, professional way. If you end things on good terms, often times the client will still respect your business and may even continue to refer their friends.