How to Invoice as a Freelance Writer
To invoice for writing: list each piece by its title with its word count, state the basis you were paid on (per piece, per word, or per hour), account for revision rounds against what the agreement included, and note usage terms once in the notes if they were part of the deal. The editor approving it should need nothing beyond the document.
Assemble the pieces first
- Each accepted piece: its working (or published) title and its final word count.
- The rate basis from your agreement — per article, per word, or hourly — and the figures it produces.
- Revision rounds used versus included, and any agreed fee for extras.
- The client's billing details, gathered before you started — including any reference or project code their system wants on the document.
Write the lines
- One line per piece, described by title and scope: “Article: ‘How small shops price delivery’, 1,450 words” — the pattern from our descriptions guide.
- Show the basis in the line or the rate column: “at $0.18/word” or “flat fee as agreed”. An approver should be able to recompute every line.
- Revisions: rounds inside the agreement get no line (they were included); an extra round with an agreed fee gets its own line naming the piece it belongs to.
- Usage or licensing, if the deal included it (extended usage, syndication, a buyout): one factual line or a notes entry — never a surprise paragraph of legal language after the fact.
Set the due date per your agreement, put your payment details on the document, and keep your copy filed by number. Open the maker — your From details and tax rate can be remembered in your browser, so the next writing invoice is lines and dates only.
Per word, per piece, per hour — showing your basis
Editors pay writers three ways, and each has a clean presentation. Per word: the line carries the final word count and the rate, and the product is checkable by anyone with the document open — “1,450 words at $0.18”. Use the *published* or *delivered* count, whichever the agreement names, and never a count the editor cannot reproduce. Per piece: a flat fee line with the title and scope (“feature article, approx. 1,500 words, incl. 2 revision rounds”) — the count becomes context, not arithmetic. Per hour: rare in writing, common in editing and content strategy; the line names the work the hours contained, per the descriptions guide. Whichever basis you work on, the rule is one: the editor must be able to recompute the total from the page without e-mailing you. An invoice that needs a follow-up question has failed at its only job.
One editor-specific courtesy: if the publication pays on a fixed monthly cycle, note the cycle in your records and time your paperwork to it — a document that lands just after a pay run waits a full cycle through nobody's fault but the calendar's. Ask once, at the start of the relationship, “when do invoices need to be in by?” — editors respect the question, and your cash flow will feel the answer every month after.