This is one of my most requested topics EVER…
Everyone wants to know about the biggest invoice I ever sent to a single client…
Well in this video, I’m going to break that down for you – line by line.
So you can understand EXACTLY what goes into sending a copywriting invoice like this one…
What the actual deliverables were, the kind of work it involved from me, how many hours it took, and more.
Hey Posse, what’s up? It’s Alex.
This has been a highly requested blog ever since I first revealed my largest invoice EVER in 2021…
You had some QUESTIONS… and I got some answers. I hear from many of my students and other freelance copywriters that they feel like they “hit a wall” in their income earning potential somewhere between $10-15K/month…
And, oftentimes, in order to make that, copywriters need to work with multiple clients at a time…
Or work close to FULL-TIME with two or more clients…
Which means you usually end up putting in well over 40 hours a week, which kinda defeats the whole purpose of starting a freedom business right?
So… what does it take to be able to send a single invoice of over $40,000 in one month?
Well, I’ll tell you it wasn’t by putting in 40+ hours a week…
Or writing a million emails…
It was through growing my experience and skills over time…
Building a long-term and trusting relationship with a client…
Adding more and more high-level value to the business…
Intentionally and intelligently pricing my services so that I was no longer charging for time or deliverables, but the VALUE I was delivering…
And the real kicker…
Negotiating commission payments.
And if you’re wondering how YOU can do that too…
Then keep watching because I will break it all down for you.
But first – if you’re new to the crew… welcome!
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From copywriting tips to marketing strategies to social media tips, branding, and so SO much more…
So if you’re out there trying to build the online business of your dreams, I’m here to help!
Now…
Let’s get into it!
How EXACTLY did I structure and position my services to send an invoice that looks like this?
How To Make More Money As A Copywriter
Well first, let me just address the elephant in the room…
At the time of this invoice, I had been a freelance copywriter for 7 years.
AND I had been working with this particular client for… yup, 7 years…
This means that I had put in a lot of TIME.
Time to prove myself to this client and deliver consistent results…
Time to build mutual trust…
And, frankly, time to become a better copywriter and marketer.
Now that doesn’t mean it took me seven years to make great money… or that it only happened one time…
As you can see I was sending this client invoices upwards of $20K/month quite frequently.
Over the years, I took on more and more strategy and responsibility and eventually became indispensable to this client as their go-to copywriter…
I knew their audience, I knew their voice, I knew what offers worked to their list…
I know their brand better than anyone else.
And I know that If they didn’t have me on their team…
They’d have to spend a whole lot of time, money, and effort trying to find someone to replace me.
But let’s rewind a bit because you might wonder how I got there…
I didn’t start by sending invoices like this…
In fact, my first invoice I ever sent to this company was for $700 for a sales page re-write…
Which then turned into a $750/month retainer for ongoing email writing…
Which then turned into a $4250/month retainer when I started managing campaigns and promotions…
Which then turned into a $8000/month retainer when I was no longer just a copywriter, but a full-blown marketing strategist who also happened to be an awesome copywriter…
So let’s talk more about that and break down this invoice line by line…
Copywriter Invoice Breakdown
You can see here, I charged them $8,000 a month for my services which included:
- Marketing
- Copywriting
- Campaign management
Which is pretty vague – right?!
Haha, of course, my client and I knew what that meant… because it was negotiated in our contract together…
But here’s a breakdown of roughly what I’d do every month for this client around the time I was making $8K/month…
- I managed the email list schedule and planned email content
- I wrote all email content, which included weekly newsletters, affiliate emails and internal marketing campaigns (I would say at the busiest we’d send 5-6 emails a week).
- I would write and update sales pages anytime we did a new launch or promotion, which was usually about 5-6 times a year (definitely not every month).
- I had regular meetings with the content team to ensure consistent messaging.
- And I oversaw and managed the team during launches, which meant communicating with the dev team, the traffic team and the project manager.
- Basically, I had become like an in-house fractional CMO where I was managing all marketing promotions and messaging.
And while that may seem like a LOT, the best part was…
Never once did I track my hours…
And the vast majority of my time was spent in creative brainstorming and strategy mode – all that marketing stuff I absolutely love and talk so much about here on my blog.
And all of this usually took me about 15-20 hours a week… but some weeks were less, and some weeks were more…
And the longer I worked with the brand the easier everything got because I knew the brand and business like the back of my hand, which meant I was making more money per hour…
So there’s a rough idea of what a $8,000/month retainer might look like as a copywriter…
Of course, this number could go up or down – depending on your experience, the client’s budget or other payment structures you have in place…
Which brings me to the next part of the invoice…
The commission payment… often called a royalty fee.
Which, as you can see, is the lion’s share of this invoice at $37,375.27.
SO let’s talk about…
How Royalties Work As A Copywriter
What is a commission or royalty payment? Well, what that means is that you make a percentage of any sales you’re responsible for bringing in…
This is something I negotiated pretty early in my contract in lieu of a higher retainer…
And that’s what makes commission payments so great…
It’s a great option for clients who prefer to pay based on performance or have smaller budgets…
And it’s great for copywriters who want to be motivated and rewarded for the hard work they do…
Now, it’s very common to follow a hybrid payment structure where you’re paid a base retainer + a commission, like I did in this invoice.
Typically the higher the retainer, the lower the commission percentage and vice versa. It’s a sliding scale and it all depends on how much risk you and your client are willing to take.
With the right client, commission payments can mean a MAJOR upside for copywriters.
In fact, anyone earning upwards of $300K a year as a copywriter is doing this. I guarantee it.
BUT BUT BUT…
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The dark side of commission payments is that you only get paid if sales are made…
And you don’t have to be in this business very long to realize that as a copywriter, you actually have very little control over whether or not your campaign sees the light of day…
Nothing is worse than spending WEEKS on a campaign, only to have a client stop the project before it’s launched because they went in another direction, chose to prioritize another project, or ran out of budget.
That’s why I always recommend negotiating a hybrid payment structure where you are paid a base project fee or retainer in addition to commissions because 0% of $0 is $0…
And in a couple of minutes, I’ll share some really important tips on how to know if negotiating a commission payment is the right next step for you.
Now, to give an idea of how royalty fees work and what I did to cash-in a $37,000 commission payment, here is the breakdown…
That month, I ran a major launch for the client, where I wrote the emails and the sales page responsible for bringing in a lot of revenue…
I was paid a percentage of the sales directly attributed to THAT promotion within the date range in question.
So, it’s important to note that I did not ask for a commission on ALL revenue the company brought in during that period. Just the revenue that was directly attributed to the emails I wrote and the sales that came in as a result.
Now I’d say the typical percentage for commissions is between 2-5% but it can be as high as 10 or 15% if you’re working on a purely commission basis.
Like I said, it’s a sliding scale and you have to figure out what works best for you and your client…
And that is probably the most important takeaway here. You don’t just go in as the copywriter and say “boom pay me 10% commission on all sales forever.”
That’s a really fast way to lose a client.
This is a negotiation that usually involves some back and forth until you land on a number you both feel good about.
And let me tell ya, now as a business owner who HIRES copywriters, there is A LOT of expenses that happen behind the scenes that need to be taken into account that as a copywriter you just don’t see…
Like affiliate commissions, ad spend, merchant processing fees, refunds and the list goes on and on.
So, every time I earned a commission payment it was for a one-time promotional campaign or launch that had a start and an end date, which made it a lot easier to track…
AND it was on NET revenue after those expenses I just mentioned were deducted.
So now you’re probably thinking…
“Well, this sounds awesome, Alex. But HOW do I negotiate something like this?! Where do I even start? How do I know if I’m ready?
When & How To Negotiate Commission Payments
While “earning a commission” sounds simple enough, there are definitely some nuances to keep in mind…
Here are some things to consider to determine if negotiating a commission payment with your client is the right next step for you…
- Have you worked with the client already? The more rapport you already have the easier this will be.
- Is the client currently making money through email and other marketing initiatives? If yes, there’s proof that this structure could work. If they’ve never made any money before, that’s a big risk you’re taking as a copywriter to work on a commission basis.
- Is there an opportunity for you to make them more money? Do you see opportunities or low-hanging fruit in the business that you could really own and spearhead? Like list monetization or creating new offers, for example.
- Do you manage marketing campaigns that have a clear and distinct impact on the bottom line? Meaning, where does your work stop and someone else’s begin (you want to be able to isolate your impact on the bottom line as much as possible to make this an easier negotiation).
- Do they have robust tracking in place? Quite simply, if they can’t clearly track revenue and attribution, this can be a nightmare.
- Do you have mutual trust and the ability to have difficult conversations if need be? Being paid a commission requires trust and transparency when it comes to numbers.
- What exactly will you get paid commissions on? It is promotional revenue? Revenue from email marketing?
- Will you be paid on top-line revenue, net revenue or profit? What does that look like?
- How will it be tracked, reported and invoiced? Is it up to you to monitor and calculate your commission or does your client do this?
- What hybrid of retainer or project fee vs commission payment do you feel comfortable with? Map out different scenarios.
Whew. See what I mean. These are all questions you need to ask yourself and your client before signing on the dotted line to make sure both your asses are covered and please don’t forget the worst case scenario, which is…
What happens if no money is made? Make sure you’re thinking about all of this…
And at the end of the day… going back to what I said at the top of this blog, the biggest secret to becoming a successful and highly-paid copywriter is to deliver great results for your clients.
In copywriting – and all jobs really – you get OUT what you put IN.
How much you make is a direct reflection of the value you can deliver.
Then you HAVE to put in the work – you need to study, implement, test new things, and constantly be willing to tweak, change, and improve your skills and ask for feedback to deliver the best results as possible to your clients.
Yes, it takes time and trust to get there, but I know you can do it because I did it…
When I first started my freelancing business after quitting my job at Mindvalley and moving back to Canada, I lived in a friend’s tiny spare room and slept on an air mattress from Walmart and I could barely pay my friend’s-dad’s-discounted rent of $400 a month.
But after a few years of consistently proving my skills to my clients – time and time again…
I was able to easily negotiate higher monthly rates AND commission fees.
AND YOU CAN TOO.
My 8-week copywriter trainer program – the Copy Posse Launch Files – can help you fast-track the process and avoid a lot of painful mistakes that I made.
In the program, I teach you EVERYTHING you need to know to be a highly-paid copywriter…
You’ll learn how to craft entire marketing campaigns for your clients – from the ads to the landing page, emails, sales pages – and every touch point in between.
Knowing HOW TO WRITE great copy is only part of the equation…
If you want to become a highly-paid copywriter today you need to understand proven marketing principles and strategies…
And that is exactly what I teach you in the Launch Files.
And if you want to learn about MORE WAYS to make money copywriting – then check out more tutorials on my blog.
Until next time, I’m Alex. Ciao for now!
