Michael Elliott, a top-1% Upwork freelancer, explains why your first rate becomes a psychological ceiling and shows how to raise it. He walks through the timing (right after a win or contract renewal) and the script: anchor to a recent result, frame around future value, give notice. A developer named Ben jumped from $35 to $65 per hour using this method.
Last year I doubled my rate on a client that I'd been working with for 18 months, and I was terrified to send the message, and they said yes in 4 minutes. And that 4 minutes, it taught me something that most freelancers, they never learn, and it's quietly costing them tens of thousands of dollars per year. You are almost certainly undercharging right now, not by a little, by a lot. And the reason isn't your skill or your market or your clients. It's that nobody ever taught you how to raise your rate without blowing up the entire relationship, so you just never do it. You take a client at a number and that number becomes your ceiling. It becomes your prison. 1 year, 2 years later, you're doing better work than ever before. You're doing more work than ever before, but your rate, it's the same rate that you set when you barely knew what you was doing. So there's a way to fix that, and there's a way that torches a client relationship on the spot. By the end of this video, you'll know exactly how to do the first one and how to spot the second before you make it. One warning before we start here, I later on I'm going to tell you about the time that I raised my rate the wrong way and I lost a client that I'd had for 2 years. It was a great client, gone in one email. It's the most expensive lesson that I've learned on this platform. The balance is important, and almost nobody talks about it because it makes you look bad. Stay for it because it's the part that'll actually save you money. I'm Mike, a freelancer. I'm in the top 1% globally as a freelancer. Half a million dollars earned on Upwork freelancing, expert vetted. But the honest truth is this: I didn't earn that by finding more clients. I earned a huge chunk of it by charging the clients that I already had what the work was actually worth. So let's start with why you're undercharging, because you probably don't even realize that you actually are. When you land a client, you agree on a rate. It's a handshake, say $40 an hour. And from that second on, in that client's mind, you are a $40 an hour freelancer. That number becomes an anchor. It doesn't matter that 6 months later you're faster, sharper, you're delivering twice the value and spending more time on the project without charging them. The anchor, it holds. You've trained them to see you at $40 an hour. And this is the trap. Most freelancers wait to be given a like it's going to come out of the clouds. They think if they just keep going doing great work, eventually the client will offer more. That will never happen. No client in history has ever emailed a freelancer to say, you know what, you're too cheap, let me pay you more. It is entirely on you to move that number upwards. Nobody is coming to do it for you. A developer that I coach called Ben learned this. He'd been with the same client for over a year at $35 an hour. He was doing senior-level work at a junior rate and quietly resenting it inside. He was convinced that if he asked for more, he'd lose the client. So he said nothing, and every month he left money on the table. That resentment, by the way, is the real danger. Undercharging doesn't just cost you money, it slowly kills how much you care about the client. So when do you raise it? Because timing is the majority of the game. The worst time to ask is out of nowhere on a random Tuesday afternoon because you looked at your bank balance and panicked. That reeks of desperation, and clients smell it instantly. The best time is right after you've delivered a clear win. You just got them a result. You did something. The value that you provide is sitting right there in front of both of you, and it's undeniable. That is the moment that your rate should move— when the proof is the loudest, when it's screaming out in front of them. The other natural trigger is a new phase of work, a new project, a contract renewal, a new quarter, whatever it might be. Anytime the relationship resets, the number can reset with it. It's natural. You're not asking to change the deal midstream. You're setting the terms of the next chapter. And the framing underneath all of it is this: you never justify a raise by your costs. The client does not care that your rent went up. You justify it by their outcomes. Not, I need to charge you more. Instead, here's the value that I'm now delivering, and here's what that's worth. One is about you, the other, well, that is about them. And only one of them works. A quick one before I give you the actual words to use. Comment two things below. Your current rate, and how long it has been since you raised it. Just those two. I read them and I'll tell you straight whether you're due, overdue, or leaving serious money on the table. And I already know that for most of you, it's been way too long. Hit the subscribe button. So here's how you actually ask, and it's simpler than the pressure and the fear makes it feel. When Ben finally did it, we stuck to 3 moves. First, he anchored to a recent result. He reminded the client of the feature that he'd shipped that had measurably grown their signups. So it was tangible. Second, he framed the new rate around future value, not past hours. To keep delivering at this level and take on the bigger roadmap, my rate for the next month is 65, not 35. 65. That was nearly double his current rate. And third, he gave notice and a clean choice. From next month, no ultimatum, no apology, just a calm professional line in the sand that was drawn. The client said yes the same day because this is what freelancers never understand. When you ask for more calmly and with proof, you don't look greedy. You look like an expert who knows their worth, and experts are exactly who clients want to keep around. It's not rocket science. The freelancer terrified to charge $65 an hour looks less valuable than the one who states it like a fact. Ben went from $35 to $65 on an existing client, same work, in one conversation. That's not a small raise. That's a different life entirely on the exact same hours. Now raising rates on clients that you already have is one half, and the other half is never getting anchored too low in the first place. With every new client that you bring on, you position at the top of what you can defend, not at the bottom of what you're scared that they'll reject, but at the top. Because the rate that you start at is the rate that you'll fight to move for years. Start relatively high and you never have to have that hard conversation at all. The easiest raise is the one that you never needed. Now, the part that I warned you about, the client that I lost, the one that got away. A couple of years back, I had a great client. They'd been with me for nearly 2 years. Reliable, paid on time, easy to work with, and I had great experience as a freelancer. And I decided that I was underpaid, which I was. But this is where I got it wrong. I sprung it on them with no warning in the middle of an active project, and I justified it entirely by me. My rates have gone up. My new rate is X effective immediately. No anchor to the value that I delivered. No reference to the previous 2 years' results. No notice. No framing around their outcomes. Just the demand midstream that served me and said nothing about them. And they left because of it. Not because of the number. It wasn't the number that was, was off. It was fair, the number. But they left because of how it felt. I'd made a 2-year relationship feel like a transaction overnight. I made them feel cornered, and people don't reward being cornered. They walk away. That taught me the whole thing. I— it was never about the number. To the client, it was never about the number. Clients will happily pay more for somebody that they value, but what they don't tolerate is feeling ambushed or feeling like a line item. Raising your rate is not a demand that you make, it's a case that you make built on their results, delivered with notice, framed around where you're taking them next. So look at where we are now. You're not a freelancer hoping a client someday decides to pay you more money. You know that that number is yours to move. You know when to move it, and you know exactly how to make the case so that they say yes instead of walking. You're not a commodity that gets cheaper over time. You're an asset that appreciates. Go and look at your lowest paying long-term client right now. That's your first conversation. Use the free moves, pick your moment, and watch what happens. Like the video, subscribe. Go and check this video out here. It will help you with your Upwork applications. I'll catch you in the next one.
