I was doing an annual review on my freelancing and I was trying to find where I stand right now with my 4 years of freelancing.
The graph you see right now is my freelancing income graph over the years.
Here are my takeaways and analysis for each year. I thought this would help other people to raise their income on freelancing :
Year:2018
Number of clients:16
See income in the graph on the right side.
Analysis:
- I was focusing on getting more clients here. But at the same time, I was building my reputation as well. I was bidding really low to get projects(Big mistake). Remember more clients!= More money.
Take away:
- Don't bid on low price projects. Keep your rate high. You will earn more in the end.
Year:2019
Number of clients:13
See income in the graph on the right side- Income increased a bit compared to 2018.
What did I do differently:
- I increased my hourly rate
What was my mistake:
- I Increased my rate but I was still looking for lower rate fixed price projects than higher rate hourly projects. My mentality was I should be constantly getting new clients.
Year:2020
Number of clients:3
See income in the graph on the right side- Income increased significantly compared to 2019.
- I got 2 clients on an hourly project. One of them was very stressful.
- Both were hourly projects with an hourly rate of around $50.
Takeaway:
- Projects and clients take time to set up. For one of my clients, I have struggled for 2-3 months with the project but eventually, I picked it up.
- 2 Hourly client with good hourly rate brings more revenue than 7 times more clients ( compare to 2018 income)
- It is good to have higher budget projects than lower budget projects
Year:2021
Number of clients:4
See income in the graph on the right side- Income has increased even compared to 2020.
- It will feel like I haven't brought so many projects in 2021 but my total income is way more than what it used to be and 2021 is not over yet.
- There is one more project that is not included in the list.
- Even with 4 clients we have generated more money on upwork and this can be increased as well if we follow the hourly model.
What did I do differently:
- Only focused on hourly/high budget fixed-price projects. Stopped working with smaller budget clients.