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Per word, per piece, per hour — one honest comparison.

Freelance writing pays in five different units. €0.50/word for one piece, a flat €1,200 for the next, an hourly rate for editing on Tuesdays. Ensaria converts every project to an effective hourly rate so you can see what's actually making you money.

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The problem

Where this usually breaks.

Three patterns repeat across most writing careers, and they're all invisible from the headline rate.

  1. Pitch-to-publication ratio.If 1 in 4 pitches lands and each pitch takes 90 minutes, you're investing 6 hours of unbilled prep per landed piece. Most writers never count this.
  2. Underestimated research.A 1,500-word feature that “should” take 6 hours often takes 11 by the time you've done sources, transcription, follow-up emails.
  3. Unpaid revisions.“Just a quick tweak to paragraph 4.” Three rounds in, you've given away an extra hour you weren't paid for.

Total revenue ÷ billable hours, this month — comparable across per-word, flat-fee, or hourly work.

What Ensaria does about it

Every project gets tracked hours, including the “non-billable” ones — research, revisions, the email chain about whether the lede should mention Q3 revenue. Your live effective rate divides total invoiced amount by total billable hours, across every project. The number tells the truth.

Once you can see it, the easiest decisions in your week become obvious. The publication that pays late but pays well shows up green. The blog that pays fast but underprices your time shows up at your lowest effective rate. You stop pitching the latter without feeling guilty.

In the product

Where this shows up.

A few other surfaces in Ensaria where the same idea lives — none of these are settings you opt into; they're how the product behaves by default.

Sunday Review's first line: pieces shipped, words landed, effective rate vs last week.

A per-piece project shows hours used vs the implicit budget (your flat fee ÷ target rate).

Today view holds your morning pages, the afternoon edit, and the Friday pitching block in one timeline.

Effective vs real rate, monthly target, days left — the chip on every screen.

Common questions

I get paid per word. How does Ensaria handle that?

Set the project to fixed-price and enter the agreed total (e.g., 'feature article — €0.50/word × 1,800 words = €900'). Ensaria tracks hours against that fixed amount and surfaces your effective rate per piece. Apples-to-apples comparison with flat-fee work, freelance journalism, and ghostwriting in one view.

What about revision rounds the client adds for free?

Each revision is a task with its own time. The project shows total revisions delivered vs included in the brief — when the third 'tiny tweak' lands, it's visible.

I pitch a lot of pieces that never get published. Can I track those?

Yes — pitches are tasks tagged as non-billable. Sunday Review surfaces your pitch-to-publication ratio and the average billable hours each landed pitch took. After three months you'll know your real cost-per-published-piece.

Does Ensaria work for ghostwriting / NDA-heavy work?

Yes. Client and project names are entirely yours to set — use codes, initials, anything. No public profile, no shared workspace. Your task descriptions stay in your account, on EU-hosted infrastructure.

Related

Read further.

Effective rate

Money earned per billable hour.

Real rate

Take-home per worked hour.

Project budgets

Per-piece burn lines.

Billable hour

The ratio that decides your month.

Free for one active project. No card.

Pro unlocks unlimited projects, all-time history, and pitch-to-publication tracking across all clients.

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