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"post_content": "a friend of mine just started freelancing and is making $1,200/day. My fiance scoffed at this amount and thinks it's absurd. He said \"actual problems can be solved with that kind of money.\" (cont.)",
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Your fiancé seems like kind of a dick in this situation. Does he expect your friend to work for free? Also that’s pretty reasonable for an ACD on the coasts. Also your friend has to pay a whole host of hidden taxes and costs that really make their take home pay much less. If you make that much is your fiancé going to cheer your achievements and confirm that you are valued in your field or are they going to mock you?
1. If your fiance wants to talk about all that good money 1.2k can do, what is he doing to help others? He sounds a little jealous but I may be wrong. 2. The freelancer may make 1.2k a day, but makes the agency way more than that for sure + the client. Plus, doesn’t mean he’s working the whole year. He may make $800 at a different gig and also not have work for 4 months + not get paid on time + pay for his own health insurance + still needs to put money aside for taxes. And also, you say he didn’t pay his dues, but you better believe if he’s a freelancer and he’s not pulling his weight, his ass is out the door in 2 heartbeats. And if he keeps getting hired, then guess what? That means he’s worth it. 3. Just Google what Martin Sorrell and other execs take home as a salary was when the only creative thing he ever did was cut costs and put them into his own pockets instead + winning Cannes lions for gun control projects while funding the NRA
I would tell your fiancé what the people at the top make then he’ll see that what freelancers, who are risking a lot in terms of job security and consistent paychecks make, then maybe he’ll understand that $1200 per day is a discount. In comparison to people in finance we are all poor. Just saying there are way bigger paychecks out there to judge that could make difference than our measly $1200 per day for a few months at a time if we are lucky. Keep this thought to yourself full-timer, they will look for any reason to short change freelancers.
The money pays for the ability for the agency to only use us for only a few weeks at a time then toss aside. That comes at a premium.
8%? Is that through an LLC? 1099?
Honestly, there are so many jobs out there that make so much more money than this that you could ask the same question about. It is a bit of a dick question because it implies that what we do is worthless. Capitalism being what it is, people are generally paid a lot of money when they provide a rare level of expertise that is of value. What does your fiancé do for a living? He sounds kind of jealous.
We are incredibly overpaid. It’s insane. Just look at the salary bowl. But happy to take it.
Yeah, your fiancée is right. Agencies should pay less still to creatives working 80 hour weeks, and pass the savings on to the billionaire holding company share holders.
Your friend probably has student loans and rent to pay. Your friend lives in a society where because they are freelance they aren’t guaranteed a healthcare plan by their government or their employee. Your friend lives in a society where the average cost of owning a home has...
zero loans. on wife's insurance.
We can take that approach to every expensive thing that we don’t appreciate. I don’t care about cars and hate driving. Even the cheapest Kia sounds like too much money to me. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to start virtue signaling and shaming drivers. “You’d save so much money with public transportation and donate to charities people care about,” stinks more of envy than philanthropy.
It’s quite simple actually: $1200 a day for a creative idea that will have 50m or more in media spent behind it? Sometimes much much more? To ultimately impact hundreds of millions in revenue? $1200 is pretty cheap in that context. It’s far less than the cheapest associate attorney bill rate at a top law firm. This is a market economy. “Should” has nothing to do with it.
Yeah I think your fiancé is a little bitter / jealous. In the grand scheme of things, paying an ACD 1200/day for 3 weeks is a small price to pay to develop a quality idea that will have tens of millions of dollars in media, product distribution and tactical marketing behind it. It’s not saving the world, but it is a critical piece of getting people to buy a product.
Tell him those Instagram sponsored posts don’t write themselves.
I think 1,200 a day is cheap. Especially in NYC. We got heavy rent and bills to pay. How much are you guys getting here in NYC per day / per hour?
(cont) It got me wondering if he's right and if we really are overpaid in the grand scheme of things. at least when it comes to freelance day rates...
Depends how you define it/what you’re comparing it to
On paper and in life it’s a staggering amount of money to make per day. But from an agency perspective, if this person is ACD level let’s conservatively say they’d be making $130k base salary, then add on the cost of technology, recruiting fees, benefits, and you’re hovering around $150k, potentially more. So you’re paying a premium, but for a shorter amount of time to someone who is paying those additional things on their own. It could also be a case a junior team who cost the agency $130k collectively per year isn’t nailing the brief. If it’s taken them a month that’s ~$11k. So having the freelancer in to nail the brief after a week means they’re providing more value than a full time team for roughly half the cost. Agencies also tend to Bill their client for the freelance they bring in, and that’s a drop in the bucket when compared to a multi-million or billion dollar marketing budget. In the global sense though, yeah, of course everyone in this industry is overpaid compared to other jobs. Or maybe other jobs are just underpaid. Teachers probably deserve to make as much as us. Emergency workers too. But in late state capitalism because we’re attempting to increase the bottom line of an increasingly small amount of global conglomerates we get to feast while others starve
I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I’m not sure if anyone has that day rate where I’m from. That’s worth a month’s salary of a mid-level/ACD.
Just wait until he finds out we’re paid more than most doctors
Whether or not it’s philosophically too much: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who knows? A lot of other creatives certainly don’t make that much and other professions make a ton more. I don’t think it’s socially productive to wonder whether our work is worth what our clients are willing to pay. As far as the real problems that can be solved with that money: why can’t it be your friend who uses the money to do it? I agree with other comments that an agency would probably bill as much or more for his hour so it only makes sense he should charge as much for his day. It’s unlikely he’ll have work 5days/week, 52weeks/year. Unless he does, then I think the rest of us are just doing this all wrong.
Its capitalism