Over the past six months, I’ve struggled to figure out whether a lot of the news stories are just hype or if ChatGPT and other writing tools are already taking over the world – or at least all the freelance writing jobs. I’ve also wondered how many of the changes we are seeing in our workload are related to AI compared to the economy and budget cuts. 

So I decided to ask the only people who can give us the real answers that we need about what is happening right now: other freelancers. I conducted a State of Freelancing survey at the end of May 2023 and I was happy that 364 freelancer writers filled out the survey. I wanted to capture the specific moment in time of what we are all seeing so that each of us can make the right (if any) changes to our businesses. 

In today’s post, I am mainly going to share the facts from the survey, with a few exceptions where I just can’t hold back my thoughts. However, later this week I will share a post about my overall thoughts about the survey and what actions we should be taking, both individually and as an industry. 

Let’s dive into what I learned from the survey. I was pretty (happily) surprised by the results. I think you are going to be breathing (at least a bit) easier by the end of this post.

How worried are freelancers? 

Over the past six months, I’ve wondered if I should be freaking out more than I am. So I asked how others are feeling right now. I fall somewhere between optimistic and a little concerned – depending on the dramatic tone of whatever article I just read last.  

I was happily surprised to find out that the vast majority of writers (82.4%) are either a little bit concerned or optimistic about the future of freelancing, with almost a third of respondents saying that they are optimistic.  From media and social media posts, I expected a higher percentage to be very concerned than the 15.4% or those who are changing careers (2.2%). 

How are freelance writers faring in 2023?

If you take one thing away from this survey, it should be the response to this question. This is very good news. 

Most writers (61.7%) who took my survey are earning the same or more in 2023 than at this point in 2022 with 38% percent earning more. I was especially relieved to see that almost 20% of respondents are earning significantly more money than in past years. 

Let’s let that sink in a minute. The sky is not falling. Yes, it’s changing. But most freelance writers are doing pretty well so far this year in terms of income compared to previous years. 

I expect that if I had been asking this question every year, the graph above would pretty similar. EVERY year there are some freelancers who earn less than the year before for a wide range of reasons, such as working less, changes in their niches, and losing an anchor client. 

However, my gut from working with writers for the past decade is that the 20% of writers earning significantly less than last year is a higher percentage in that category than in previous years, which feels right to me. Some freelancers are feeling a pretty significant impact of the changes this year. And if you are one of those, know that there is work out there – you may need to make some tweaks, such as ramping up your marketing, shifting niches, adding new services, or proactively asking for referrals.

How much are freelance writers actually making in 2023?

In addition to comparisons between years, I wanted to find out how much people are actually earning in 2023. Because there is a big difference in income potential if someone is working 15 hours and 40 as a freelancer, I broke it out into less than 25 hours and more than 25 hours. 

I first noticed that 15% were earning less than $1K a month and the biggest segment (33%) are earning $1 to $3K, which means $12K to $36K for the year. Then I realized that the respondents could be working just a few hours a week.  In hindsight, I should have asked more questions about the average number of hours for part-time writers because there is a big difference between a few hours a week and 25 hours. However, I am sure that there are many writers in this income range who are earning way too little for the hours that they are working.

However, I was happy to see that the majority were earning more than $36K a year, with 23.5% on track to earn $36K to $60K and 18% earning $5 to $9K, which is on track to earn $60K to $108K with part-time hours. I was also very impressed that 10% were earning $9K to more than $15K a month while working less than 25 hours a week. 

When I first looked at the results for writers working more than 25 hours, I was a bit disheartened to see that 22.4% of writers working more than 25 hours are earning less than $3K a month. However, the survey found that 63.2% of respondents are averaging more than $5K a month, which is on track to earn at least $60K. Additionally. 37.2% of respondents averaged more than $9K a month, which is on track to break $100K. I was happy to see that almost 14% of respondents are averaging more than $15K a month.  

These numbers are positive. Almost 2/3 of those surveyed are earning a solid income as a freelance writer, which is much higher than I typically see in these surveys. And over 1/3 are on track to break $100K.  That’s pretty darn amazing right now. Especially when you consider the economy and AI disruptions right now.

How are AI writing tools impacting freelance writers?

The responses to this question shocked me – in a very good way. I rescue weenie dogs and have two college kids so I’m not easily shocked. 

Yes, that graph is accurate from my survey. The vast majority (81.0%) of freelancers have not lost a single client due to clients moving to ChatGPT or other AI writing tools. Re-read that sentence again. That is a very high percentage. And the majority of writers who lost a client had only lost a single client.  

I was a bit shocked to realize that only 6.6% of respondents lost either 2, 3, or 4 clients, which was a raw total of 24 writers. Only 2 writers (.6%) indicated that they have lost 5 or more clients. Based on the news articles, I thought that everyone was losing clients left and right. 

I then asked those writers who have lost work to share what type of projects have been taken over by AI writing tools. I expected to find it was mainly SEO-style blogs, but was a bit concerned about what I learned. 

While I still think that SEO projects are the most at risk, this data shows that clients are trying it out in areas I didn’t expect, such as corporate blogs, long-form articles, and copywriting. I still expect that many using it for these projects won’t ultimately be happy with the results. For me, the takeaway is to continue to focus on topics that are not easily replicated by AI, such as innovations and thought leadership. 

How are budget cuts affecting freelance writers? 

I’ve had a gut feeling that much of the slowdown we’ve seen as writers has been more due to the economy than ChatGPT. And I was right. But even I was a bit surprised at the effect the economy has had compared to AI writers. 

Most writers have lost a client (or more) due to budget cuts. My survey found that only 1.2% have not lost a client due to the economy compared to 80.3% that have not lost a client due to AI writing tools, which backs up my suspicion that budget cuts are more of an issue than many of us realize. That’s a crazy difference. 

Of those that have lost a client due to the economy, the majority (24.5%) have lost one client and 12% have lost two clients. Only 2.2% (a total of 8 writers) indicated that they have lost more than 5 clients from budget cuts. 

My biggest takeaways

I hope that you are feeling better after reading this survey. I know that I am. Here are my two biggest takeaways:

• The majority (81%) of freelance writers have not lost a single client to AI writing tools between January 2023 and May 31, 2023. 
• The majority (61.7%) of freelancers are earning the same amount or more in 2023 compared to 2022. 
• With 98.9% of respondents having lost at least one client to budget cuts, the slowdown many of us are seeing is likely largely related to the economy.

I expect that much of the slowdown many of us are seeing is related to the economy with some related to AI writing tools. However, when I do another survey at the end of this year, I expect to find that a much higher percentage of us have lost clients to AI writing tools than in this survey. I think that the writers who are standing on the other side will be those who both learn how to use AI writing tools and evolve their services/skills to help their clients in ways that AI cannot. 

I’m working on a few more posts related to this survey that I hope to post this week, including one about what marketing strategies are currently working based on the survey and another rounding up the comments from respondents about the future of freelancing. I also am going to share my perspective on what is happening, my predictions, and my advice. Keep a look out for those posts this week. 

What are your thoughts on the survey? Any questions? Predictions? New concerns?