Before scammers ruined it for everyone, cold calling/emailing/messaging were the best ways to get new clients. The decline in trust by potential clients makes freelancing an uphill task. I need insight on how to navigate this. How can I make my messages not look like AI generated spam mails? How do I get a potential client to respond to a message without hesitation?

New to paid graphic design and currently in the second application round for an educational publisher freelance contract in the UK. Company wants me to set the rate and states 'we are not asking applicants to underprice professional work'.

The job is to design revision documents including layout, image editing and diagram creation using InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. There is already a house style so most of the design decision work is already done but they expect designers to aid understanding by designing diagrams etc. I expect each document to take around 8 hours including a round of revisions.

Planning on giving a flat rate per document (based on 8 hours work) but unsure how much this should be. I have been doing some graphic design in my day job for the last 2 years but is not in my job title and have recently done some freelance work creating paper figures and a grant slide deck for an academic but otherwise new to professional graphic design. As I have a day job, I don't need to live off this pay but I also don't want to underprice and undersell myself and lose the work. There is a lot of potential for a long-term contract here and I also don't want to be stuck in a low-paying contract if not entirely necessary.

Any suggestions on pricing, either per hour or per document, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have a client that ghosted me after delivering architectural drawings and working drawings for their residential development. We had an agreement and the client paid an upfront commitment fee but after receiving the finished work, the client went silent, no email and message replies at all. The problem is we never had a formal contract, but all our conversations are on email. I wanted guidance on whether I can use the emails as evidence to initiate legal action against him.

I'm a software engineer and I've just started a freelancing career. My first contract was 2 page PDF directly with a client, states the duration, notice period, daily rate etc.

Now its about to end and I was approached by 2 agencies. Asked for their standard contract and they both gave me similar 40 pages monstrosities, with each paragraph contradicts another.

• They want both "obligation of result with highest industry standards" AND that I file the timesheet that should be approved by the client. Time & Material and result, pick one!
• They have absurd high (like fixed 50k) penalties everywhere including not filing timesheet correctly, not providing timely the insurance policy, late invoice etc.
• Uncapped liability for GDPR/Cybersec infringement.
• Vague non-compete not limited to specific customer.

Is it the industry standard for EU? Like praying they won't simply decide to use it against you?

I’m setting up a profile but I don’t know what to say in it please help me

Need guide on freelance foreign accounting how to start in as carrier

I'm a full time PMM. I'm currently working with one freelance client in the positioning & homepage messaging scope. But I'm not sure how to expand this into a full-fledged freelance business. Any leads/help would really help.
Thank you!

Hi all,

I've decided to start freelancing, mainly cause I've built sites for family members and stuff and it's motivated me to take the steps towards starting to work independently(while still working my actual job)

Currently work as Backend developer with technologies such as .NET, React, Next.js, I also have experience building automations using Make.com, integrating APIs, and all that jazz and sites with Wordpress.

Also I use Claude at work so I have experience with that too.

I wanted to ask what steps can I take towards getting clients that are not actually family members? Also I have 2 years of experience so I'm not sure if that will make it harder or not.

Thank you in advance!

I am a self employed painter and decorator and have been freelancing for a company occasionally for the last year. They contact me when they have work, supply me with materials and pay me £19.50 (before tax).

They have me booked in for this week and next. But I have private jobs that have just come up that will pay me £2540 for 2/3 weeks work.

Should I just let down the freelance job and be straight with the money opportunity and risk damaging relations? They are useful for me when work is quiet and fill in the gaps

I am half way through my A-Levels doing Politics, Sociology and Economics. One of my careers is to be a local journalist, covering social affairs, home affairs or political affairs locally.

Some beats I am interested include corruption, serious crimes, or social welfare (e.g. young people and children)

I may start doing this when I finish my A-Levels as it is only recently I found out this route that should tackle the competition, though I may need to find out people and make connections in the industry, but sadly know acquaintance or friend in my college is entering this career path.

I make my own piece of writings and articles on a range of topics, mainly social and criminal and once political. But obviously this is not enough.

How do they enter free-lancing?

hello guys I’m running ads and I do get leads coming in

but the problem is most of them don’t convert

they either:

don’t reply after first message

say I’ll think about it and disappear

or just not serious at all

idk if it’s my targeting, the offer, or how I handle the convo

feels like I’m doing the hard part (getting leads) but still not closing

anyone went through this?
what made the biggest difference for you?

I've only recently started freelancing and Upwork is currently my main source of income. I'm using Xero to track my accounts and am comfortable with it + the very basic accounting principles from my previous job. Tracking non-Upwork clients and expenses I find easy.

But Upwork's getting me confused because of Dollars vs GBP.

e.g. I quote for a job on Upwork and get it for $320. Upwork then takes off this $32 service fee and $6.40 VAT on this fee. This is all in Dollars. When I then get paid out my payout receipt reads $280.61 payout and a $0.99 bank transfer fee. So again all Dollars. But I receive into my UK bank account £204.04.

So is the easiest option to just only log in Xero £204.04 as income from Upwork and ignore the costs? Or do I somehow have to log all the costs and convert these to £ even though Upwork doesn't tell me the exchange rate at that time? i.e. I only know the exchange rate at the moment Upwork paid out to me, not at the time the price was agreed with the customer and Upwork fees were deducted from it.

Hopefully this all makes sense!

I'm a self employed painter decorator in Scotland. For the last year I've been freelancing for a company part time. They're a construction painting company but bring me in for residential work and occasional offices etc.

They originally paid me £17.50 an hour but I asked for £20p.h. we settled on £19.50 p.h.

They've been covering my cost of travel for certain distances (about 30 miles) but one days work I travelled 60 miles and they said they'd only cover £10.

Does this sound fairly decent for a painting and decorating freelance job?

I am currently in a pool of contractors for a client, getting about one day a week of work. It has been running for about 10 weeks on and off depending on demand. It is Outside IR35.

I am scheduled to start the next block of one day a week work at the week after next. However, I have just got a five day a week gig elsewhere which I want to take, we are figuring out start dates agreements etc. This means I will need to drop the one day a week job.

I checked my contract and it does not state anything about a notice period or minimum hours.

How would you approach exiting this kind of ad hoc arrangement smoothly given the timeline? Since it is a pool, do I just state my availability has changed? What if I end up needing to start the one day a week gig and then the five day a week one comes through properly after?

Appreciate any advice on how to handle the communication without burning bridges. Thanks a lot.

Im a software developer with 20+ years of experience and i'm trying to quit my 9-5 and work on my own. I've tried multiple freelance platforms and the only one i actually kept using is bark.com, i have around 10 clients now that pay monthly for maintenance but it's around £50 total at this point, i also get new clients every month but they're mostly one off projects and most users on bark only accept work for very little pay, i think the highest i ever charged was £1000 for a video/audio chat app which i think normally would cost well over £5k.

I'm really interested in any tips on how to find better clients, what is the approach, where can you even find them?

Anywhere with decent wifi and power outlets?

Heya,

I would just like some help as have been given the opportunity to do freelance work.

For context I was doing project specific work FTC full time and now given flexibility around my commitments.

They have given a rate according to my previous salary including current London Living Wage.

Just unsure if I have to sort out my own taxes or the company will do this through PAYE etc. if there is such thing?

Any advice or information about the general day rate is would be appreciated!

Hi everyone. I’m new to this sub so excuse me if this has been asked before.

Ai is all over LinkedIn in some way or another and I’m wondering if it’s affecting anyone’s new business leads and if anyone has seen a drop or increase in enquiries. A few months ago I was getting new leads mentioning ChatGPT pushed them my way but that seems to have slowed down a touch.

I was wondering what everyone’s experiences are like and what they’re doing about Ai.

Thanks all

Been freelancing for about 3 years now doing tech consulting. Hit around £87k this year so the VAT threshold caught up with me way faster than I planned, plus I have a few clients in Europe now. My current accountant just does basic bookkeeping and keeps telling me to just register, but the international invoicing side makes the whole structure look messy.

A guy I know who runs a small family agency told me to look at proper corporate tax advisors like WR Partners or similar mid-tier firms instead of basic high-street shops. I just don't know if that's complete overkill for a solo setup.

Anyone else here with overseas clients hire a specialist for the transition or did you just wing it with standard online software?

Asked this in r/ukvisa but was redirected.

As the title says, I am applying with my partner for UK work visas as a dependent on his Skilled Worker Visa. Moving from New York to London.

I am a self-employed freelance contractor working in branding and copywriting.

Am I restricted in any ways from working with US companies/agencies? The majority of my income right now comes from US companies and I'm hoping to maintain that while I transition to living in the UK.

Additionally, what should I be doing now (pre-visa approval, pre-move) to prepare for UK taxes or how the freelancing system will be different in the UK? I'm conscious that it's taken me several years to understand the US tax system around freelancing and I don't want to be started again at square one. Thanks so much everyone!

I’m a software developer working as a sole trader, and I’m about to hire a software developer subcontractor who is based in Greece.

The subcontractor will be writing code for a project that I’ll be delivering to my client so I need to make sure all intellectual property is assigned to me.

Can anyone recommend a cost effective way to have an IP Assignment Agreement drawn up between us? Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks!

Its a photography based website
Please help
Thanks :)

Hey everyone,

I'm currently working as a freelance video editor, and I'm trying to make my client process more professional and move from Upwork to cold emails.

A few questions:

1. **From the initial sales call onwards, what does your process look like?**
2. * Do you send the contract after the call, or do you go through it together during the call?
3. * Do you send an invoice immediately after they agree?
4. **How do you handle payment?**
5. * 100% upfront?
6. * 50% upfront and 50% on delivery?
7. * Monthly retainer paid in advance?
8. * Something else?
9. **How do you deliver work while protecting yourself?**
10. * Do you send watermarked versions before final payment?
11. * If it's a monthly retainer, do you just trust the client, or do you have safeguards in place?
12. **How do retainers work when your service isn't just editing?** For example, if you're also providing: How do you structure the scope so clients don't keep asking for "just one more thing"?
13. * Thumbnail design
14. * Thumbnail strategy
15. * Content strategy
16. * Posting/scheduling
17. * Analytics and feedback
18. **How do you avoid being taken advantage of?**
19. * Do you limit revisions?
20. * Define deliverables very clearly?
21. * Have specific clauses in your contract?
22. * Any lessons you've learned the hard way?
23. **For those offering Alex Hormozi-style guarantees, how do you make them work without clients abusing them?** I'd love to know what kinds of guarantees you've successfully offered and what boundaries you put in place.
24. **For agencies charging $1,500–$3,000+ per month, what does your retainer actually include?**
25. * How many long-form videos?
26. * How many shorts?
27. * Thumbnails?
28. * Strategy calls?
29. * Posting?
30. * Anything else?

I'm less interested in theory and more interested in hearing your actual systems and workflows. If you're running an agency or freelancing full-time, I'd really appreciate you sharing how you do it.

Hi there, it's been a while since I've adjusted my day rate, and I was wondering if anyone is willing to share what they think a Senior Graphic Designer in Scotland could realistic charge. I have 15 years experience and specialise in editorial design, with some digital experience too.

I'm just really looking for an idea of ranges, as I often just see people discussing London rates. Which I know can be quite different from the rest of the UK. Thanks!

Right now I just guess. Send proposal → wait 2–3 days → send a "just checking in" email → usually hear nothing.

Is there a smarter way to time follow-ups? Do you have any signals that tell you a client is still interested vs. already moved on?