How to Start Freelancing: My Experience, First Clients and Rates

Freelancing means working for yourself, for clients you find on your own, usually over the internet. I have worked this way since 2018, from a village near Bačka Topola in Serbia, for clients around the world. This is my story and everything I learned along the way: how to find your first clients, how much to charge and what nobody tells you in advance.

How I became a freelancer

I spent 24 years in Belgrade. I worked as a programmer at the Institute for Student Health Protection, and then as a system administrator and IT manager at a private company. Over time the company became unstable and salaries started arriving late, and just then I met the woman I wanted to build a life with.

We decided to leave Belgrade for my home village of Tomislavci, near Bačka Topola, to live with my parents. I rented a van, packed everything we owned (the van was full to the roof), and my girlfriend, now my wife, and I set off. After 24 years in the city, a new start in the countryside.

When we arrived, I had no work at all. I started looking at websites with freelance job offers, first Freelancer and then Upwork. At the same time I started building this website, programiranje.co.rs, to present myself online. The first jobs were small, but they were a start.

Then I came across a man from Australia. First I built him a Windows service, and then he hired me to build a SaaS application together for security companies. I worked for him for about two years, and that is what we lived on. Along the way I also took smaller jobs on Upwork, and later I opened an account on Fiverr, where I also had a few jobs. A maintenance contract with the Institute for Student Health Protection, which I kept from the day I left until last year, helped too.

All in all, I have managed to survive as a freelancer all these years. So this article is written from experience, not from some platform's brochure.

What kind of work does a freelancer do?

A freelancer has no permanent job with a single employer. They find and agree on work themselves, whatever comes along: sometimes a project of a few days, sometimes a collaboration lasting several years. That is why my list of jobs is so varied. My portfolio contains about 70% of the projects I have done so far, including:

• custom Windows programs and business automation software (C# and VB.NET);
• add-ins for Excel, Word and Outlook (VSTO), including an Excel add-in that sends e-invoices through Serbia's SEF system;
• business web applications and websites on WordPress and on my own NoEmStilOK system;
• integrations with other systems through APIs, and payments (Stripe, Xero);
• database optimization and migration;
• device control software connected to EZCAD;
• browser automation and collecting data from websites (web scraping);
• AI assistants, for example processing a Word document with ChatGPT, paragraph by paragraph.

You can see all these projects, with descriptions, in my portfolio.

What is good about freelancing?

• Freedom. You choose your projects, your clients and your working hours. Want to work in your pyjamas? Go ahead. Need a free afternoon? You answer only to yourself and your clients.
• You can work from anywhere. The internet let me live in a village and work for clients in Australia and other countries. Without it we could never have left Belgrade.
• New people. This is the advantage people least expect. Through projects I have met many people from different countries, and I am still in touch with many of them.
• Earnings. Your income is not capped by a salary. It depends on how much work you find and, as you will see below, how much you charge for it.
• Variety. A Windows service today, a website tomorrow, a database the day after. You keep learning something new.

What is hard?

• Uncertainty. This is the biggest downside and it should be said openly. Sometimes there is work from morning till night, and sometimes there is none at all. Even as I write this, I am going through such a period.
• Nobody plans your work for you. Finding clients, correspondence, quotes and invoicing are also your job, except nobody pays you for them.
• Time zones. When a client is on the other side of the world, calls often happen early in the morning or late in the evening.
• No colleagues next to you. There is nobody to have coffee with and talk a problem over. Developer communities, forums and former colleagues help here.

Where to find your first clients

Freelance platforms are the easiest place to start, because clients there are already looking for someone. The biggest ones are:

Platforms charge fees and their rules change often, so check them before you start. Do not forget old contacts either: former employers, colleagues and clients. My maintenance contract with my former employer is a good example that an old employer can become a client.

And finally, your own website. A profile on a platform belongs to the platform, while your website belongs to you. That is why I built this site at the very start, and why your own website matters for anyone working on the web is explained well in Jens Oliver Meiert's essay How Running Your Own Website Is Much Better for You Than You Think (meiert.com).

How to write a profile and a job proposal

On platforms, a single job post often receives dozens of proposals. The client reads the first two sentences and decides whether to read on. Here is what helps:

1. No templates. Write every proposal for that specific job. Clients recognize copied text instantly.
2. Start with their problem, not with yourself. Show in the first sentence that you understood what they need.
3. Mention a similar job you have done and briefly how you would approach this one.
4. Answer every question in the job post. Clients often ask them precisely to see who read the post to the end.
5. End with a question or a proposed next step, such as a short call.

Keep your profile up to date, with work samples (with previous clients' permission) and a clear description of what you do. It is better to be excellent at three things than average at twenty. Reply to messages quickly, within a day at the latest, and after every finished job ask the client for a rating and a review. On platforms, ratings are your currency.

How much should you charge?

This is where I made the most mistakes. I was always cheap. There was work from morning till night and I did not complain, but today I regret not charging more, because this way I did not manage to save much. And savings are exactly what a freelancer needs when the months without work come.

So do not set your rate by what others on the platform ask, but by doing the maths:

• Add up what you need per month, including tax, insurance and savings.
• Estimate how many hours a month you can actually bill. A large part of your time goes on finding work, correspondence and learning.
• Divide the first number by the second. That is the lowest hourly rate below which you are working at a loss.

For example, if you need 1,500 euros a month and can realistically bill 100 hours, your hourly rate cannot be lower than 15 euros, and tax, insurance and savings still have to be added on top. Raise your rate with every new client and every good review. A low price does not only bring low earnings, it often brings the most difficult clients too. Why some clients still will not pay what you are worth, I wrote about in freelance developer: why clients don't pay what you're worth.

How to keep clients

Finding a new client is much harder than keeping an existing one. My client from Australia started with one Windows service and ended up with two years of working together. What helps:

• Clarify expectations at the start. You cannot deliver what you have not understood. If something is unclear, ask before you begin.
• Report regularly, even when there are no problems. A client who knows where the project stands is a calm client.
• Be proactive. Suggest solutions, warn about a problem before it happens, give your professional opinion.
• Agree on time zones: when the client is available for questions and when you are.
• Follow up after the job is done. Say thank you, ask whether everything works and suggest what could come next.

Taxes and a safety net

I registered as a sole trader with the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR) while I was still employed, because even then I had some work on the side. When I became a freelancer, I chose to keep full accounting books, because that way I can set my own entrepreneur\'s salary, and taxes and contributions stay at the minimum. Which form suits you best depends on your country, income and clients, so talk to an accountant before you start.

Besides taxes, set aside a reserve for months without work, ideally enough for several months of expenses. And if you are going to spend money on anything at the start, make it a good chair and a decent desk, because you will spend thousands of hours at them.

Would I do it again?

Yes. Freelancing let us live where we wanted, let me work on interesting projects and meet people I would otherwise never have met. But I would charge more from day one and start building a reserve from day one.

If you are thinking about starting, do not wait for the perfect moment. Create a profile, send your first proposal and build your own website. The first client is the hardest, and after that everything gets easier.