Freelance sales copywriting

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

Our collection for this scheme holds only 3 tweets¹. Two come from accounts large enough to quote under our naming rule. So this page rests mainly on how the method is promoted generally: on course pages, community listings and pricing guides. View counts are as collected on 6 October 2026. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

“I made a FULL guide on how you can make $10,000 per month with AI copywriting side hustle. Usually, I’d charge $200 for this, but today I’m giving it away for FREE. Like + Comment “Send” & I’ll DM it to you for FREE (Must be following me)”

@JafarNajafov, 25 June 2024, 46,609 views¹⁵¹

The second example makes no income claim. It shows how the method is taught, and it ends in a link¹.

“How To Write Copy [My System]:”

@ComedicBizman, 3 January 2023, 11,281 views¹⁵¹

The third tweet, from June 2026, comes from an account with 1,635 followers. That is below our threshold for naming, so we paraphrase it. Its full text was read through a mirror of X⁵¹. The author says five followers joined a paid community called ecomtalent, were also trained one-to-one in the author’s private Telegram group, and three months later each earned over 2,000 a month in profit (no currency is given), working on Upwork or inside the community. That is a fifth of the first tweet’s $10,000. It had 2,273 views¹. The tweet is about advert and video-editing work as much as copy. It also argues against the usual pitch: it says a beginner with no experience and no proof will not win clients by sending pitches in bulk⁵¹.

The first tweet gives a target, $10,000 a month, and a notional price for the guide, $200. None of the three tweets gives a price per project, a number of clients, hours worked, or how often a pitch turns into paid work¹⁵¹. We read the tweets as text only. Their images, videos, linked guides and threads were not viewed, so some of that may be in material we did not see.

What the scheme is

Copywriting is writing the words that sell things: adverts, sales pages, marketing emails. “Direct response” copy is the kind that asks the reader to act now (buy, sign up, book a call), so its results can be counted. A freelance copywriter sells this to businesses in one of three ways:

• Per project: a set fee for a sales page or a set of emails.
• On retainer: a fixed monthly fee for ongoing work.
• On commission: a share of the sales the copy brings in, sometimes called a royalty.

In the version promoted on X, an AI tool such as ChatGPT writes the first draft, which is said to let a beginner do the work quickly and on the side.

This is a real, long-established trade. In a 2026 survey of 573 copywriters, mostly in the UK, freelancers charged a median day rate of £440¹⁰. (“Median” means the middle person: half charge more, half less.) Project fees were used by 67% of freelancers, day or hourly rates by 62%, and retainers by 30%. Commission was not listed as a category¹⁰. So the question is not whether businesses pay for copy. It is what $10,000 a month requires, and who reaches it.

The arithmetic

$10,000 a month is $120,000 a year. To earn it, a freelancer needs a price, enough paid work at that price, and a way of winning that work. The tweets supply none of the three¹, so we take each from the best source we could open.

Step 1: prices at the entry level

Most beginners are told to start on freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr. A third-party tracker of live Upwork job posts read, on 10 October 2026: “Based on 857 job posts tracked over the last 7 days, the average fixed-price budget for Writing jobs is $455 (median $90), and the average stated hourly rate is $28/hr.”⁵ The page updates daily. Fixed-price posts were 45% of the total. Of those, about half (51%) had budgets under $100, one in ten had $1,000 to $5,000, and one in a hundred had $5,000 or more⁵.

These figures cover all writing, and most of it is not sales copy. Copywriting was tagged on 124 of the 857 posts, behind content writing (264), English (227) and creative writing (190)⁵. No source we found gives a median budget for copywriting posts alone. The tracker is run by a company that sells a tool for writing job proposals, and its figures are what clients offered, not what was paid⁵. Upwork’s own page on copywriter rates refused our agents⁶.

Beginners who do find copywriting clients report higher prices. The Copywriter Club, a business that trains and hosts copywriters, published what respondents with under one year of experience charged on average: $1,625 for a sales page, $663 for a sequence of emails, $467 for a landing page (a single web page built to get one action) and $106 for a single email⁶⁴. These are self-reported averages from 2022, before ChatGPT, from people still in the trade. People who never found a client are not in them.

Step 2: prices for established writers

The same business surveyed 942 people who write for a living in 2022; 656 of them chose the title copywriter⁷. The median price was $1,900 for a sales page, $935 for an email sequence, $500 for a landing page and $150 for a single email⁷. The average sales page was higher: $3,688 in the survey’s table and $3,752 in its text⁷. Only 45% of copywriters wrote a sales page at all that year⁷. The survey is self-selected and self-reported.

Other professional rates read today:

• The Editorial Freelancers Association’s members report $65 to $75 an hour for business and marketing writing done for hire, and $87.50 to $125 an hour for business ghostwriting, for 2025⁹. Its chart has no line called “copywriting”; these are the nearest categories.
• UK freelancers report a median day rate of £440 in 2026, up from £400 in 2023. The survey says rates have “barely kept pace with inflation”¹⁰.
• AWAI, a company that sells copywriting training, publishes a guide with sales-letter fees from $450 to $10,000 depending on length²⁰. It is a seller’s guide, not measured prices.

Step 3: the volume needed

Here is what $10,000 a month and $1,000 a month need at each price, before any fees. All the sums are our own, from the prices in the sources shown.

The first two rows are general writing budgets on one marketplace, not the price of sales copy. At those budgets $10,000 a month does not work as a side job: 357 paid hours a month is more than two full-time jobs (our sum: a full-time month is about 160 hours). At copywriters’ own prices the target is five or six sales pages, or eleven to fifteen email sequences, every month, or 80 to 154 paid hours. That is a full-time practice with a steady flow of clients.

$1,000 a month looks different: about 9 paid hours a week at $28 an hour (our sum), or one or two email sequences at copywriters’ own prices.

In UK terms, $120,000 a year is about £90,700 at $1.32 to the pound on 10 October 2026⁷¹. At £440 a day that is about 206 billed days a year (our sum). The UK survey collected incomes in bands, and the middle freelancer is in the £26,000 to £40,000 band¹⁰. At £440 a day that is roughly 60 to 90 billed days a year (our estimate). So for many freelancers the limit is the number of paid days, not the day rate. The survey does not separate freelancers who cannot find more paid days from those who choose fewer: a quarter of all respondents work part-time, including 43% of women freelancers and 21% of men¹⁰.

Step 4: winning the work

The tweets leave this step out, and it is the hard one.

On marketplaces. A tracker followed 4,583 Upwork job posts of every kind between 14 and 20 September 2026. Across all categories, about 3% of proposals won on fixed-price jobs (roughly 33 proposals per win) and about 1% on hourly jobs (roughly 85 per win)¹¹. It gives no per-proposal figure for writing alone. For writing it reports that 31.1% of fixed-price posts and 24.5% of hourly posts ended in a hire, and that the median fixed-price writing post drew 6 applicants, against 9 across all categories¹¹. So writing posts draw fewer bidders than average and are also filled less often.

Limits: this is one week of data from a company that sells a job-alert tool. It counts only posts visible without logging in, and says that as a result “the sample under-represents the expensive end”¹¹. It is an average over all freelancers, so an established profile will do better and a new one worse.

At the all-category rate of 33 proposals per win, five large jobs a month would take about 165 proposals. That is a rough sum of ours, because the rate is not specific to writing. Proposals cost money. Upwork charges for each one in “Connects”, a paid bidding credit: “Connects cost $0.15 (USD) each and are sold in bundles.”³ The number of Connects per job varies. Guides we saw only in search results put it at roughly 6 to 16, so 165 proposals would cost very roughly $150 to $400 a month (our estimate, on an unverified basis).

By cold email. Cold email means writing to businesses that have not asked to hear from you. It is the route most courses teach. Instantly, a company that sells cold-email software, reports from its own customers: “The overall average reply rate is 3.43%”¹². The top quarter reach 5.5% and the top tenth more than 10%¹². At the average, 1,000 emails bring about 34 replies (our sum). We found no measured figure for how many replies become sales calls. If about one reply in seven did, that would be about 5 calls per 1,000 emails, or roughly 200 emails per call (our estimate; the one-in-seven rate is our assumption, not a sourced figure). The reply figures cover all business senders, not copywriters, and replies include refusals. We also found no measured figure for how many sales calls turn into a paying copywriting client.

Step 5: fees and tax

• Upwork: “The fee ranges from 0% to 15% per contract”². Its fee agreement calls this “a variable fee” whose method “may change without notice”³⁵. Upwork’s own examples use 10%². To keep $10,000 at 10% a freelancer must bill $11,111; at 15%, $11,765 (our sums).
• Fiverr: “After an order is completed, freelancers receive 80% of the client’s cleared payment. Funds are subject to a 14-day clearing period before they become available for withdrawal.”⁴ To keep $10,000 a seller must sell $12,500 (our sum).
• Tax (United States): “The self-employment tax rate is 15.3%”, on top of income tax⁴⁸. A freelancer who bills $10,000 through Upwork at a 10% fee keeps roughly $7,600 to $7,700 after that tax, and roughly $6,800 to $6,900 through Fiverr at its 20%, before income tax (our estimate, a simplified sum that ignores expenses and deductions). Other countries were not checked.
• Tools: ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month, Claude Pro is $20 a month or $17 with annual billing, and Instantly’s entry plan is $47 a month¹³. A full tool set is roughly $40 to $90 a month (our estimate from¹³).

The money at risk is small. The real cost is unpaid time spent pitching.

Step 6: what the AI part changes

AI tools do help a beginner write. In a controlled experiment with 444 professionals, ChatGPT cut the time taken on writing tasks and raised quality, and it helped weaker writers most: “ChatGPT compresses the productivity distribution by benefiting low-ability workers more.”⁶⁸

The same tool is open to every other beginner and to every client. Two peer-reviewed studies of large freelance platforms measured what followed ChatGPT’s release:

• One found “a 21% decrease in the number of job posts for automation-prone jobs related to writing and coding” within eight months, with more competition for what was left. The remaining jobs were more complex and paid more¹⁴.
• The other found fewer contracts and lower earnings for freelancers in exposed writing work: about 2% fewer contracts and about 5% lower monthly earnings, in the authors’ own summary¹⁷. A strong track record did not protect people: “we find suggestive evidence that top freelancers are disproportionately affected by AI.”¹⁶

Both studies end in mid-2023. A job-data firm that tracks Upwork listings reported a longer view: “The # of writing jobs declined 33%” between November 2022 and February 2024, the largest fall of the categories it tracked²³.

The BBC reported in 2024 on work that replaced some writing jobs: editing AI drafts to sound human, at “one to five cents” a word against about 10 cents for writing, in one writer’s account²⁵.

So the AI in the pitch cuts both ways. It lowers the skill needed to produce passable copy, and it shrinks and cheapens the entry-level jobs where newcomers start.

What people who tried it report

No source we found measures what share of beginners ever land a paying client, how long it takes, or how many give up. Upwork and Fiverr publish no such figure that we could find. Everything below describes people who are still in the trade, which makes the picture rosier than the truth for all who try. All income figures are the respondents’ own statements.

UK freelancers, 2026. The ProCopywriters survey is the best current data we found. ProCopywriters is a UK copywriters’ network. It had “573 responses from copywriters across the UK and a handful of other markets”, and 299 freelancers gave their income¹⁰.

Incomes were collected in bands: “Our survey asked respondents to report their income as a banded figure, rather than a specific number.”¹⁰ The medians the survey reports are the midpoints of bands. The middle freelancer is in the £26,000 to £40,000 band, which the survey gives as £33,000; the average was £46,906¹⁰. Every other employment type sits one band higher, in £41,000 to £55,000, which the survey gives as £48,000: “The median puts pure freelancers £15,000 below every other employment type — a £33,000 versus £48,000 gap.”¹⁰

The tweet’s $120,000 is about £90,700, inside the £86,000 to £100,000 band⁷¹. So between 9% and 14% of UK freelancers, roughly one in eight, report the tweet’s figure or more (our sum from the table). Over £100,000, about $132,000, is 9%, or one in eleven. The same share, 9%, report under £10,000¹⁰.

Part of the gap to employed writers is hours. Freelancers’ median week is 35 hours, against 38 for employed copywriters, and the survey says the freedom to shape the week has “direct income implications”¹⁰. Among full-time workers of all employment types, the middle woman and the middle man are both in the £41,000 to £55,000 band¹⁰. The respondents have an average age of 42. They are not beginners, and not specifically sales copywriters¹⁰.

The Copywriter Club, 2022. Among the 656 copywriters in this survey, mostly English-speaking, 603 are in the income table⁷:

The median side hustler made about $417 a month, which is 24 times less than the tweet’s figure (our sum). That group is 63 people; their average was $10,856 and the highest reported $150,000⁷. 19 of the 656 copywriters reported no income at all in the past 12 months⁷. At the other end: “42 of 353 female copywriters and 62 of 247 male copywriters reported earning at least six figures.”⁷ That is 104 of 600, or 17%. Since $10,000 a month is $120,000 a year, the share at the tweet’s level is somewhat below 17%.

Freelance writers more widely. A 2025 survey of 350 freelance writers in the US and Europe, run by a working freelance writer and weighted towards technology content, found 48.6% earning under $2,000 a month, 19.4% over $5,000 and 3% over $10,000²¹. A 2025 survey of 2,080 freelance content writers by an Indian content agency reported that “one in five content writers earns less than $10 per hour”²². Its published shares add up to more than 100%, so treat it as rough. It describes the worldwide pool a newcomer meets on marketplaces.

The three surveys put the share at or above $10,000 a month at 3%, between 9% and 14%, and somewhat under 17%. They sample different people in different years, and none is a random sample. The honest range for working freelancers is “a small minority, somewhere between one in thirty and one in six”.

Salaried writers, United States. Government data: “The median annual wage for writers and authors was $76,910 in May 2025”, and the top tenth earned more than $139,870⁸. That is about $6,400 a month at the median and about $11,700 at the top tenth (our sums). Projected growth in jobs from 2025 to 2035 is 0%⁸. The same page says 65% of writers and authors are self-employed⁸. The wage figure shows what a writing job pays. It does not measure freelancers’ incomes.

What the work is like. In the UK survey, 51% of freelancers had at least one late-paying client in the past year, and 70% had a client go silent on them at least once¹⁰. In a 2022 survey of New York freelancers of all kinds, run by groups campaigning for a payment law, 62% said a client had at some point refused to pay them⁴⁹.

Effect of AI, as reported by working copywriters. In the UK survey: “27% reported a meaningful or significant decrease in workload. 35% reported no change. 23% reported a slight increase. 15% reported a meaningful or significant increase.”¹⁰ 74% now use generative AI, mostly for research (61%) and ideas (52%); 28% use it for first drafts¹⁰. People who left the trade do not answer a survey of copywriters, so the 27% understates the losses.

A journalist, Brian Merchant, collected about a dozen first-person accounts from copywriters who said AI had cost them most of their work²⁴. He asked for stories from people harmed by AI, so it is a sample of bad outcomes by design.

Forums. Reddit refused our agents, so forum threads from people who tried are missing from this page. The one account we saw was second-hand: a news summary of a forum post by a freelancer, field not stated, who reported sending 102 Upwork proposals without winning a client³⁴.

What the rules allow now

Freelance copywriting is legal and needs no licence. AI-assisted copy is allowed on both main marketplaces. The risks lie in platform rules and in the law on what the copy says and how clients are approached.

AI use on the marketplaces. Fiverr: “Fiverr permits the use of AI across all service categories”, but “Generic, unmodified, or reused AI output does not meet Fiverr’s quality standards.” For “misrepresentation of AI usage”, “the freelancer’s account may be permanently suspended.”³⁷ Upwork’s terms treat it as misrepresentation to use “generative AI or other tools to substantially bolster your job proposals or work product if such use is restricted by your client or violates any third-party’s rights”³⁵. We found no Upwork rule that requires disclosing AI use in every case.

Moving a client off the marketplace. A common tip is to find a client on Upwork and then move them to a direct retainer. Upwork’s user agreement bars this for two years unless a “Conversion Fee” is paid: “13.5% of the estimated earnings over a twelve (12) month period”, worked out as the hourly rate times 2,080 hours, with a $1,000 minimum³⁵. At $50 an hour that is about $14,040 before discounts (our sum). Upwork says violations “may result in permanent suspension of your Account”³⁵. Its report for 2024 says: “We removed 827,265 job posts and suspended 184,914 accounts”, without saying why or whose³⁶.

Who owns the copy. Under Upwork’s default terms, once the client has paid, the work “will be the sole and exclusive property of Client”³⁵. Selling the same AI-written sales page to several clients conflicts with that. The US Copyright Office concluded in January 2025 that AI output is protected “only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements”, “but not the mere provision of prompts”⁴⁶. So unedited AI copy may leave the client with nothing they can stop a competitor from copying.

What the copy claims. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the consumer protection regulator, says: “In addition to the advertiser, the advertising agency also may be held legally responsible for misleading claims in ads.”³⁸ The text names agencies; we did not establish whether a solo freelancer has been pursued under it. An FTC rule announced in August 2024 covers testimonials “that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist”, and “prohibits businesses from creating or selling such reviews or testimonials”³⁹. A copywriter asked to invent customer stories would be asked to break it. We did not check whether the rule has been amended. An FTC order against one AI writing tool, Rytr, over generated reviews was set aside by the FTC itself on 22 December 2025; that concerned only that company⁴⁰. Meta’s advertising standards say “ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes”⁵⁰, which limits some classic openings, such as copy that tells readers they are in debt. The EU AI Act’s Article 50 requires disclosure of AI-generated text “published with the purpose of informing the public on matters of public interest”⁴⁷; on our reading, not a regulator’s, ordinary sales copy falls outside it.

Cold email. The US law on commercial email is the CAN-SPAM Act. The FTC’s guide says: “The law makes no exception for business-to-business email”, and “Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $53,088”⁴³. Compliant email needs honest sender details, a postal address and a working way to opt out⁴³. In the UK, “sole traders and other types of partnerships are classed as “individual subscribers"", so consent rules apply to cold email sent to them⁴⁴. Gmail asks senders to “Keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.30%”, or mail may be marked as spam; Postmaster Tools is Google’s dashboard for bulk senders⁴⁵. Rules elsewhere were not checked.

Rules on earnings claims by course sellers. We found no regulator or court action about a copywriting course. Nearby cases show the standard applied to income claims. Each concerns only the company named in it. The three US cases were settlements of allegations, not court findings; the UK one is a regulator’s ruling.

• Lurn (US, 2023), a seller of business coaching. The FTC alleged that “very few, if any consumers actually made money with the programs”; the company agreed to pay $2.5 million for refunds⁶¹.
• Publishing.com (US, April 2026), a seller of a self-publishing course costing up to $1,995. Under a proposed settlement it “will pay $1.5 million and be required to substantiate earnings claims in the future”⁴¹. The FTC alleged that most buyers “never achieved the income the company promised in its advertising”⁴¹. We did not check whether the order became final.
• Growth Cave (US, January 2026), a seller of business opportunities. The defendants were “permanently banned from marketing and selling business opportunities” as part of a settlement “to resolve allegations”, with a judgment of $48,597,538, partly suspended⁶².
• Self Made Girl Boss Ltd (UK, 15 October 2025). The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint about a paid Instagram advert for a digital-marketing course. The advert gave income figures (“making £20-30k a month”) and invited readers to “COMMENT ‘Ready’ and I’ll send you my free beginners [sic] guide”³³. The ruling says: “We therefore concluded that the ad misleadingly implied that the stated lifestyle and earnings were typical.”³³ The advertiser said its disclaimer, which included the words “These results aren’t typical”, made clear the figures were personal, and that it had removed the ad³³. That was a paid advert, not an ordinary post. A law firm’s summary says it was one of five such rulings that day, none about a copywriting course³².

We did not find a reply from any of the three US companies. In January 2025 the FTC proposed a rule under which sellers of money-making opportunities “would be required to have written substantiation to back up any earnings claims”⁶³. We did not find what became of the proposal. In 2021 it sent warning notices about earnings claims to more than 1,100 businesses that pitch money-making ventures⁴².

Who makes money from it

The accounts in our collection. Three tweets is a thin sample. None links straight to a checkout⁵¹.

• The most-viewed account’s profile links to a page on Passionfroot, a booking site for sponsorships. It offers advertisers “1x full newsletter $900” and “1x Single Sponsored tweet $400”, to a stated audience of about 144,000 newsletter readers⁵³. Those audience figures are the account’s own. We did not check whether any slot has been bought. A store under the same name on Gumroad, a site for selling digital files, lists an “Ultimate AI Copywriting Course” on a pay-what-you-want basis starting at $0, showing 3,143 sales⁵². The store is not linked from the profile as far as we saw. At a $0 minimum, “sales” includes free downloads. We could not confirm this is the guide the tweet offers.
• The second account’s bio links to copyskool.com⁵¹. Today that site’s front page is headed “Start Making Money Online In Just 5 Steps” and is an email sign-up for a “FREE 5-step protocol”⁵⁴. We saw no price for a paid product on it and could not open its inner pages.
• The third tweet promotes ecomtalent, which describes itself as the “#1 Place On Whop To Learn How To Scale Ecom Brands With Ads”⁵⁵. Whop is a platform for paid communities. So this community teaches adverts for online shops, not sales copy as such. Its Whop page lists a product at $97 a month with the unlabelled number 1,081 beside it, shows “1.1K members” on that product’s page and “5,666 joined” in the header; the community’s own site says “Join 200+ Users”⁵⁵. None of these is stated to be the number who pay now. The Whop page describes a programme called Ad Bounties, in which a member makes an advert for a shop in the community and, “if it generates sales - you earn a percentage of every sale it makes”⁵⁵. It publishes no figures on how many members earn anything. The tweet says the community makes affiliate payouts through Whop to beginners earning 500 to 1,000 a month; it does not say what those payouts are for⁵¹. We did not check whether the tweeting account is paid by the community.

Course and community sellers. A search for “copywriting” on Skool, another platform for paid communities, returned 170 communities today²⁷. Of the first 30, 17 show a price and 13 are free. Prices run from $7 to $199 a month, or $8 to $2,000 once²⁷. The order of results can change between visits. One community, at $39 a month with 200 members shown, reads: “Get copywriting client #1 in 90 days or your money back. 90-day course, templates, outreach scripts, daily support. Make $10k/month for $1.30/day.”²⁷²⁸ The refund conditions were not visible on the public page²⁸. The largest group in the results is free and shows 65,707 members; its page asks newcomers to sign up by email²⁹.

Established courses cost more:

• AWAI’s “Accelerated Program for Seven-Figure Copywriting” is $497 with a 30-day refund. The one concrete paid outcome on its page is: “At least one $10,000 contract is awarded each year to an AWAI-trained writer”⁵⁸.
• Copyhackers’ Copy School is $597 then $100 a month, or $2,997 once, with a 7-day refund. Its disclaimer says: “you may see incredible results – but none are promised or guaranteed”³¹.

General money-making memberships make the same promise. The Real World charges $99 a month, says it has “155,000+” students, and advertises “Scale from Zero to $10k/month as fast as possible” while stating it “doesn’t guarantee any profits or financial success”⁵⁹. Its home page does not mention copywriting today; it is here only as an example of the $10,000-a-month promise⁵⁹.

No seller we read publishes the share of students who earn anything.

Platforms. They earn on every sale or application, whether or not the buyer ever wins a client. Whop charges “2.7% + $0.30 per successful transaction”, and its general documentation says a listed product can be promoted by affiliates “for a default 30% commission”⁵⁷⁵⁶. Skool charges community owners $9 a month plus 10%, or $99 a month plus 2.9%; Gumroad takes 10% plus 50 cents on direct sales⁵⁷. Upwork earns when a newcomer applies³ and again when they are paid².

Tool sellers. Jasper charges $59 to $69 a month per user, and Copy.ai’s entry plan is $24 to $29 a month⁶⁰. The same tools are sold directly to the businesses a newcomer would pitch.

Working copywriters. They earn too, as the next section shows. They are mostly not the people posting about it: in the UK survey, 11% named a social media following as something that sets them apart¹⁰.

The upside

Success in this trade is real and documented, though every individual income figure we found is the person’s own statement. We found no income report from a freelance sales copywriter backed by payment records.

The top tier. In the UK survey, 9% of freelancers report over £100,000 and a further 5% report £86,000 to £100,000¹⁰. In the Copywriter Club survey, 17% reported six figures in dollars, and the full-time freelance average was $83,858⁷. Among salaried US writers and authors the top tenth earn more than $139,870⁸.

Agency founders. This is the one group in the UK survey where the tweet’s figure is common. Among 33 copywriters who founded an agency, a third report over £100,000; the median is in the £56,000 to £70,000 band (given as £63,000) and the average is £74,788¹⁰. It is a small group, and it means employing or subcontracting other writers, not solo side work.

Fast starts happen, rarely. A second Copywriter Club page, drawing on the same 942 respondents, says one copywriter with under a year of experience reported over $100,000, and: “15 copywriters with just 1-2 years of experience reported earning between $100,000 and $250,000.”⁶⁴ That is 16 people in a survey of 942 respondents of all experience levels. The page does not say how many had under two years of experience, so the share of newcomers this represents cannot be worked out. It is a small number set against the first-year and second-year averages below. The page says prior careers and specialisms matter as well as experience⁶⁴.

The usual path is years. The same page gives average income by experience⁶⁴:

These are averages, so the middle person earns less: for all copywriters the average was $62,672 and the median $36,228⁷. The data is from 2022, comes from a business that trains copywriters, and counts only people still in the trade. On it, the average writer approaches $120,000 only after about ten years.

Individual stories, all self-reported.

• A healthcare writer who describes herself as “a freelance copywriter, SEO, and first-time business owner” reported a projected $103,000 for 2024 from the whole business: “It took a little over two years since I committed to freelance healthcare writing and marketing as a full-time career.” She began on Upwork and cold pitching, then moved mostly to referrals. We saw this in a second-hand copy of a blog post³⁰.
• A former barista who specialised in copy for coffee and food-technology firms had a first $1,000 month in December 2016 and, by a podcast’s account, earned $70,000 before tax in 2019. Most clients came through LinkedIn⁷⁰.
• The founder of Copyhackers says her first freelance year was six figures, which she puts down to “the books I launched” and to “the seven years I spent working in-house before going freelance”⁷⁰. She now sells copywriting training³¹.
• The owner of the $39-a-month Skool community above writes in his newsletter: “I was stuck at under $1,000/month for the first 6 months”, and reports “landing a client in 6 weeks” and “hitting $9,000/month by month 12”, with no proof shown²⁶. So even this seller’s own story has six months under $1,000 a month, with a first client at six weeks.
• CNBC ran a 2021 profile titled “How this 28-year-old went from $36,000 a year to $378,000 a year on Fiverr”⁶⁹. The work was ghostwriting, not sales copy. CNBC refused our agents, so we saw only the title.

Three of the five predate generative AI, and most involve a specialism, full-time work and two years or more.

Commission deals. These are the source of the largest incomes in US direct-response publishing, where a writer is paid a fee plus a share of sales. The only description we found is from AWAI, the training seller, in articles from 2011 and 2018. The 2011 one says: “2% to 5% is a common range of royalties, with a few top copywriters demanding a higher percentage.” It also says some clients will not pay royalties at all⁶⁶. We found no independent record of how often such deals pay.

Retainers. A May 2026 agency blog puts monthly retainers at $1,000 to $3,000 for basic work and $3,000 to $7,000 for mid-level work, citing another company’s blog post (Nutshell), which we did not open⁶⁷. On those second-hand figures, two or three mid-level retainers reach $10,000 a month (our sum).

A good result in the first years (our estimate). The first two rows of the table are what the average survivor reported in 2022, before AI tools: about $1,100 to $1,400 a month in the first year and $2,600 to $2,800 in the second (our sums from⁶⁴). The middle person earned less, people who gave up are not counted, and the data predates the 33% fall in Upwork writing posts²³. So for someone starting in 2026, $1,000 to $3,000 a month within 12 to 24 months would be a good result, not a typical one. After three to five years of full-time work with a specialism, $5,000 to $6,000 a month is in line with the full-time median of $60,000⁷ and the three-to-five-year average⁶⁴. $10,000 a month is a result reported by roughly one in thirty to one in six working freelancers, depending on the survey, usually after many years⁷¹⁰²¹. Most people who try as a side job will land well below these figures: the side-job median was $5,000 a year⁷.

What it takes to compete

The surveys show fairly clearly what separates those who earn from those who do not.

People who already know you. “Referrals and word of mouth dominate freelance client acquisition: 86% of respondents named this as a source.”¹⁰ LinkedIn was named by 59%, networking by 31%, their own website by 30%, and outreach by 18%¹⁰. The survey adds: “Paid acquisition channels – Fiverr, paid ads, Twitter, Facebook – barely register.”¹⁰ In the 2025 survey of 350 freelance writers, cold pitching was the main channel for 4.5%²¹. Courses on X mostly teach cold outreach and marketplaces. A newcomer has no past clients to refer them, and this is the main barrier.

Learning on real work. “Asked how they learned the craft, 85% of respondents named on-the-job experience as a primary source.”¹⁰ 37% named a course. “Three-quarters of respondents spend less than £500 a year on their own training and development.”¹⁰ The survey does not say how many were employed as writers before freelancing. The individual stories above mostly involve earlier in-house or industry experience³⁰⁷⁰.

A specialism and a record. Asked what sets them apart, UK freelancers named reliability (56%), professionalism (51%), a niche (44%), a record of results (29%) and big-brand experience (28%)¹⁰. The individual success stories above are in healthcare, coffee and food technology³⁰⁷⁰.

Confidence in pricing and running it as a business. Freelancers who rate their pricing confidence at 7 or more out of 10 sit one income band higher: “Their median annual income is £48,000 versus £33,000.”¹⁰ The survey says this is a correlation, not proof of cause. 43% feel they do not charge enough¹⁰.

Other people’s work. The group most likely to report over £100,000 is agency founders, who sell other writers’ time as well as their own¹⁰.

Something AI does not supply. 74% of working copywriters already use AI¹⁰, so the tool is not an edge. It makes competent copy cheap for everyone⁶⁸. Our inference is that what stays scarce is knowledge of an industry, relationships with clients and measurable results. The survey itself ranks reliability and professionalism above a record of results¹⁰.

Time and a cash cushion. The survey averages show a first year at about $1,100 to $1,400 a month (our sums from⁶⁴), and one seller’s own story has six months under $1,000 a month²⁶. Clients pay late¹⁰. Fiverr holds money for 14 days⁴.

What it costs. Very little in money: roughly $40 to $90 a month in tools (our estimate from¹³), Connects at $0.15 each³, and a course if one is bought, from $7 a month to $2,997²⁷³¹. The real cost is hundreds of unpaid hours of pitching and practice.

How to tell early which side you are on. These are our own suggestions, drawn from the evidence above.

• Can you name five businesses or people who might hire or recommend you? If so, you have what 86% of working freelancers rely on¹⁰. If not, you start from the channel that 18% use¹⁰.
• Do you know one industry well enough to write about its products without research?
• After 100 well-aimed pitches, has anyone replied at all? At the average reply rate of 3.43%¹², the chance of no reply from 100 emails is about 3% (our sum), so silence points to the pitch or the offer. A first call takes longer: on our rough assumption in Step 4 it is about 200 emails, so judge calls after 300 to 500 pitches, not 100.
• After three months, has anyone paid you, and has anyone come back or passed your name on? Repeat work and referrals are how this trade is sustained¹⁰.
• Can you show a result your copy produced, such as sales, sign-ups or replies? That is what lets a writer charge copywriters’ prices and stay out of the marketplace posts where half the fixed budgets are under $100⁵⁷.

What we did not verify

• The tweets. We read them from our collection and, in full, through a mirror site, because X refused our agents¹⁵¹. We did not see the guide the first tweet offers, the link in the second, or any images, videos or threads. Whether the third tweet’s author is paid by the community it promotes was not checked.
• Beginners’ outcomes and verified incomes. No source gives the share of beginners who win a client, the time to first income, or the dropout rate. Every survey here covers people still working as writers, and every income figure is self-reported.
• Sales copy specifically. All survey data covers commercial or content writing in general. Nothing isolates direct-response copy, commission deals, or people using AI to deliver copy as a side business. No source gives budgets for copywriting posts alone on a marketplace⁵.
• Commission and retainers. No measured data on how often commission deals pay or on typical retainers. The royalty range comes from a training seller’s 2011 article⁶⁶. The retainer range is a blog’s figure taken from another company’s blog post, which we did not open⁶⁷.
• Replies, calls and close rates. No figure for how many cold-email replies become calls or how many calls become paying copywriting clients. Our one-in-seven assumption in Step 4 has no source. The reply rates cover all senders on one vendor’s platform¹².
• Proposal win rates for writing. The per-proposal rates are for all Upwork categories in one week, from posts visible without a login¹¹.
• Upwork and Fiverr. Upwork’s live pages refused our agents. Its help pages were read through a reader service and its legal terms through an archive copy dated 1 October 2026²³³⁵. The number of Connects per proposal and Upwork’s own copywriter rates⁶ were not read at source. Fiverr’s binding terms refused our agents; its figures come from its help centre⁴³⁷.
• The UK survey. The PDF’s text was scrambled, so it was read by character recognition and from page images, and not every page was checked by eye¹⁰. Its incomes are bands, so every median from it is a band midpoint.
• Extracted quotes. Figures from⁹,²⁰,²¹,²⁴ and⁶⁵ came through a fetch tool’s summary, not raw page text, so the wording quoted may not be exact to the character.
• The studies. Only the abstracts of the two platform studies were read¹⁴¹⁶. The 2% and 5% figures are from the authors’ own summary¹⁷. Press coverage gave a fall of about 30% for writing jobs alone and a sample of 92,547 writers; we did not record the articles’ addresses, so we do not use those figures¹⁵¹⁸.
• Older and weaker sources. A 2020 blog analysis of 2 million Upwork profiles estimated that about 1 in 800 earned $1,000 a month or more; we saw only a truncated second-hand copy and give it little weight¹⁹. The Copywriter Club data is from 2022, and we found no later edition⁷⁶⁴. A 2023 UK figure of £322 a day for freelancers with up to two years of experience rests on 25 people⁶⁵.
• Wage data and tax. Whether the US wage percentiles leave out the self-employed is from memory, not checked today⁸. Tax was checked for the US only, and our sum is simplified⁴⁸.
• Regulators. Searches covered the FTC and the UK’s ASA. Other regulators, court dockets and private lawsuits were not searched. FTC press releases were read, not the complaints or orders. FTC penalty amounts are adjusted yearly and may be higher now⁴³.
• Sellers. Only the first 30 of 170 Skool results were read²⁷. Member counts may include people who do not pay²⁸²⁹⁵⁵. Several well-known copywriting courses were not opened. What the second account’s site sells after its free sign-up was not found⁵⁴. How the Gumroad store relates to the first account, beyond the shared name, was not established⁵².

Sources

1. Does It Pay collection of 3 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06. Read from the project’s file on 2026-10-10.
2. Upwork Help, “Freelancer Service Fee”. https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062538-Freelancer-Service-Fee Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai (direct fetch refused); archive copy of 2025-12-07 also read.
3. Upwork Help, “Understanding and using Connects”. https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062898-Understanding-and-using-Connects Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
4. Fiverr Help Center, “How Fiverr works for freelancers” and “Your earnings page”. https://help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/34069565843985-How-Fiverr-works-for-freelancers Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
5. SnipeWork, “Upwork Writing Rates — October 2026 (Live Data)”. https://snipework.com/market/rates/writing Rolling 7-day figures, computed 2026-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
6. Upwork, copywriter cost page. https://www.upwork.com/hire/copywriters/cost/ Undated. Secondary: page refused our agents; seen only in a search-result summary on 2026-10-10.
7. The Copywriter Club, “How much copywriters are paid”. https://thecopywriterclub.com/how-much-copywriters-paid/ Published 2022-09-16, modified 2024-12-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
8. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, “Writers and Authors”. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/writers-and-authors.htm Last modified 2026-08-27; wage data May 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
9. Editorial Freelancers Association, “Editorial Rates”. https://www.the-efa.org/rates/ Dated 2026-05-04; survey November 2025 to January 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through a fetch tool’s extraction).
10. ProCopywriters, “Copywriter Survey 2026”, landing page and full report (PDF). https://www.procopywriters.co.uk/survey/2026/ and https://www.procopywriters.co.uk/mp-files/copywriter-survey-2026.pdf PDF dated 2026-07-09; announced 2026-07-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (PDF read by character recognition and from page images).
11. UpHunt, “Upwork hourly vs fixed-price jobs 2026”. https://uphunt.io/blog/upwork-hourly-vs-fixed-price-jobs-2026 About 2026-09-21; sample 14 to 20 September 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
12. Instantly, “Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026”. https://instantly.ai/cold-email-benchmark-report-2026 Updated 2026-01-12. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
13. Pricing pages: OpenAI https://openai.com/chatgpt/pricing/ , Claude https://claude.com/pricing , Instantly https://instantly.ai/pricing Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (OpenAI through r.jina.ai).
14. Demirci, Hannane and Zhu, “Who Is AI Replacing? The Impact of Generative AI on Online Freelancing Platforms”, Management Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.05420 Published October 2025. Abstract read at source on 2026-10-10 (through api.crossref.org and Imperial College’s repository; publisher page refused).
15. The Decoder, coverage of the Demirci study. https://the-decoder.com 2024-11-13. Secondary; the article’s own address was not recorded, so no figure on this page rests on it.
16. Hui, Reshef and Zhou, “The Short-Term Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Employment”, Organization Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.18441 Published November 2024. Abstract read at source on 2026-10-10 (through api.crossref.org).
17. Brookings, “Is generative AI a job killer? Evidence from the freelance market” (by two of the study’s authors). https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-generative-ai-a-job-killer-evidence-from-the-freelance-market/ 2025-07-08. Also Washington University release, 2023-08-24. Read at source on 2026-10-10; secondary as to the paper itself.
18. TheWrap, coverage of the Hui study. https://www.thewrap.com 2023-11-10. Secondary; the article’s own address was not recorded, so no figure on this page rests on it.
19. Niall Doherty, “We analyzed 2 million freelancer profiles”, syndicated copy. https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/19409769-we-analyzed-2-million-freelancer-profiles-here-s-who-earns-the-most-mon 2020-02-03. Secondary (truncated copy).
20. AWAI, “Copywriting Pricing Guide”. https://www.awai.com/web-marketing/pricing-guide/ Undated; footer 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through a fetch tool’s extraction).
21. Jack Limebear, “State of Freelance Writing Report”. https://www.jacklimebear.com/post/state-of-freelance-writing-report 2025-07-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through a fetch tool’s summary).
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23. Bloomberry, analysis of Upwork job listings. https://bloomberry.com/blog/?p=332 2024-02-16, updated 2026-01-23. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
24. Brian Merchant, Blood in the Machine, “AI Killed My Job” instalment on copywriters. https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was-forced-to-use-ai-until-the 2025-12-12. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through a fetch tool’s summary).
25. BBC Future, “The people making AI sound more human”. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240612-the-people-making-ai-sound-more-human 2024-06-16. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai (direct fetch refused).
26. Storey Copywriting newsletter, “6 reasons you’re under $1k/month” and course launch page. https://www.storeycopywriting.com/p/6-reasons-you-re-under-1k-month 2026-02-05 and 2025-03-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
27. Skool, community search for “copywriting”. https://www.skool.com/discovery?q=copywriting Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (170 results; the order of results can change between visits).
28. Skool, Six-Figure Copywriting Academy, about page. https://www.skool.com/sixfigurecopyacademy/about Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
29. Skool, The 4D Copywriting Community, about page. https://www.skool.com/the-4d-copywriting-community-4828/about Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
30. Syndicated copy of a blog post, “$103,000 last year from her simple service business”. https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/25693292-103-000-last-year-from-her-simple-service-business 2025-04-21. Secondary.
31. Copyhackers, Copy School page and workshop disclaimer. https://copyhackers.com/copy-school/ and https://copyhackers.com/workshop-opt-in-2 Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
32. Osborne Clarke, “Earnings promises meet the CAP Code reality check”. https://marketinglaw.osborneclarke.com/advertising-regulation/earnings-promises-meet-the-cap-code-reality-check-asa-bans-typical-income-claims/ 2025-12-19. Secondary.
33. Advertising Standards Authority, ruling on Self Made Girl Boss Ltd. https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/self-made-girl-boss-ltd-a25-1293166-self-made-girl-boss-ltd.html 2025-10-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
34. SnipeWork News, “Freelancer Reports 102 Proposals, 1,000 Connects, and No Clients on Upwork”. https://snipework.com/news/upwork-proposal-views-decline 2026-07-29. Secondary (summary of a forum post).
35. Upwork Legal Center: User Agreement v8.2, Fee and ACH Authorization Agreement v12.8, Terms of Use v4.12. https://web.archive.org/web/20261001191256/https://www.upwork.com/legal Effective 2026-07-20; archive copy 2026-10-01. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through the Wayback Machine; live page refused).
36. Upwork, transparency report covering 2024 (PDF). https://web.archive.org/web/20260615090130/https://support.upwork.com/hc/article_attachments/49240416097939 Archive copy 2026-06-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
37. Fiverr Help Center, “Using AI on Fiverr: Guidelines for freelancers and clients”. https://help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/34998793899665-Using-AI-on-Fiverr-Guidelines-for-freelancers-and-clients Versions dated 2025-05-06 and 2025-07-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
38. FTC, “Advertising FAQ’s: A Guide for Small Business”. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business Page metadata 2001-04-04, penalty figure since updated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
39. FTC, “Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials”. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials 2024-08-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
40. FTC, “FTC Reopens and Sets Aside Rytr Final Order”. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/12/ftc-reopens-sets-aside-rytr-final-order-response-trump-administrations-ai-action-plan 2025-12-22. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
41. FTC, press release on Publishing.com. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/04/publishingcom-pay-15-million-misleading-consumers-about-how-much-income-they-could-earn-using 2026-04-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
42. FTC, “FTC Puts Businesses on Notice that False Money-Making Claims Could Lead to Big Penalties”. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-puts-businesses-notice-false-money-making-claims-could-lead-big-penalties 2021-10-26. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
43. FTC, “CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business”. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business Published 2023-08-09, edited January 2024. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
44. UK Information Commissioner’s Office, “Business-to-business marketing”. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/business-to-business-marketing/ Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
45. Google Workspace Admin Help, “Email sender guidelines”. https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126?hl=en Rules effective 2024-02-01. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
46. US Copyright Office, announcement of Part 2 of its report on copyright and artificial intelligence. https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1060.html 2025-01-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
47. EU AI Act, Article 50, unofficial consolidated text. https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/ Page dated 2026-09-01. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (not the Official Journal).
48. US Internal Revenue Service, “Self-employment tax” and “Understanding your Form 1099-K”. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employment-tax-social-security-and-medicare-taxes Updated 2026-06-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
49. Authors Guild, “Survey Finds 62 Percent of NY Freelance Workers Have Lost Wages Due to Nonpayment”. https://authorsguild.org/news/survey-finds-62-percent-of-ny-freelance-workers-have-lost-wages-due-to-nonpayment 2022-05-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
50. Meta Transparency Center, “Advertising Standards”. https://transparency.meta.com/policies/ad-standards/ Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
51. Full tweet texts and profile bios read through a mirror of X. https://api.fxtwitter.com/status/1805465826067452045 , https://api.fxtwitter.com/status/1610352090886590465 and https://api.fxtwitter.com/status/2064026959076569177 Tweets dated 2024-06-25, 2023-01-03 and 2026-06-08. Read on 2026-10-10 (x.com itself refused our agents).
52. Gumroad, “Ultimate AI Copywriting Course” listing. https://jafarnajaf.gumroad.com/l/copywritingwithai Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
53. Passionfroot, sponsorship page linked from the first account’s profile. https://www.passionfroot.me/nextool Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
54. Copyskool, front page. https://www.copyskool.com/ Page header dated 2026-04-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai (direct fetch refused).
55. Whop, ecomtalent product pages, and the community’s own site. https://whop.com/ecomtalent/products , https://whop.com/ecomtalent/products/ecomtalent/ and https://ecomtalent.io/ Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
56. Whop documentation, affiliates. https://docs.whop.com/affiliates/setup-global.md Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
57. Platform fee pages: Whop https://docs.whop.com/fees , Skool https://www.skool.com/pricing , Gumroad https://gumroad.com/pricing Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (Skool and Gumroad through r.jina.ai).
58. AWAI, “The Accelerated Program for Seven-Figure Copywriting”. https://www.awai.com/copywriting/p/ Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
59. The Real World, home page. https://www.jointherealworld.com/ Footer 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
60. Pricing pages: Jasper https://www.jasper.ai/pricing , Copy.ai https://www.copy.ai/prices Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
61. FTC, press release on Lurn. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-acts-stop-online-business-coaching-scheme-lurn-deceiving-consumers-about-money-making-potential Dated 2023-09-28 on the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
62. FTC, press release on the Growth Cave settlement. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/01/ftc-secures-settlement-banning-growth-cave-defendants-marketing-selling-business-opportunities 2026-01-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
63. FTC, press release on proposed earnings-claim rules. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-proposes-rule-changes-new-rule-deter-deceptive-earnings-claims-multilevel-marketers-money-making 2025-01-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
64. The Copywriter Club, “Do you need a degree to be a copywriter?”. https://thecopywriterclub.com/need-degree-copywriter/ Published 2022-09-16, modified 2024-12-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
65. ProCopywriters, 2023 survey results. https://procopywriters.co.uk/?p=24071 2023-07-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through a fetch tool’s summary).
66. AWAI, “How Copywriting Royalties Work” and “Copywriting Royalties: How to Get Them”. https://www.awai.com/2018/09/how-copywriting-royalties-work/ and https://www.awai.com/2011/02/copywriting-royalties-how-to-get-them/ 2018-09-03 and 2011-02-04. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
67. GTM 80/20, “Copywriter cost”. https://www.gtm8020.com/blog/copywriter-cost.md 2026-05-22. Read at source on 2026-10-10; secondary as to the retainer figures, which it takes from another company’s blog post.
68. Noy and Zhang, “Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence”, working paper. https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Noy_Zhang_1.pdf 2023-03-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
69. CNBC Make It, video profile of a Fiverr freelance writer. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/10/378k-a-year-fiverr-freelancer-alex-fasulo.html 2021-03-10. Secondary (page refused our agents; title and search description only).
70. Side Hustle School, episode 1165, and Copyhackers, founder’s page. https://www.sidehustleschool.com/episode/1165/ and https://copyhackers.com/joanna-wiebe/ Episode dated 2020-03-10; founder’s page undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
71. ExchangeRate-API, open exchange-rate feed for the pound. https://open.er-api.com/v6/latest/GBP Updated 2026-10-10 00:02 UTC. Read at source on 2026-10-10.

Corrections

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