7 Red Flags When Speaking to a Potential Client as a UX Writer

So you landed a prospect client—yay! As a freelancer, especially when you’re just starting out, it’s natural to want to say yes to every project that comes your way—to build up your network, boost your portfolio, and not be seen as the picky diva.

Freelancer, beware, though! Not all clients are cut from the same cloth… As a UX writer, here are seven things to look out for that may want to make you turn the other way. (Psst… here’s a not-so-secret secret: There are always more fish in the sea.)

1. They give you the heebie-jeebies.

This one’s so obvious, but I’m shocked that I still have to say it: If something about the client makes you feel icky, RUN! If the person you’re talking to seems pushy or mean during your discovery call, or the company seems shady, it will almost certainly only go downhill from here.

Take it from me: every time I’ve had bad vibes about a project but convinced myself to take it anyway, it’s come back to haunt me in the form of unbearable, impossible-to-please clients, projects that never end, or payments that I spend way too much time trying to chase down. Listen to your gut—if it tells you no, simply say you don’t think you’re a good fit or you’re not available, and move on.

2. They're looking for a proofreader.

Say it with me: UX writers are not proofreaders. Sure, you may have some tasks that look like proofreading, but that shouldn’t be the bulk of your work. If the client is looking for someone who can simply make sure all the apostrophes and commas are in the right place, a freelance UX writer probably isn’t the right choice.

UX writing is about understanding the user and the journey and crafting the words that best support both of them. Sometimes that means pushing back against product or design decisions in the interest of the best user experience. Proofreading is not that.

3. They’re looking for a designer.

With time, most UX writers develop a pretty good sense of design and which layouts make sense. We can usually tell you where users’ eyes are likely to land (and not land) and how to rearrange components to reduce cognitive overload. Some of us are even pretty good at manipulating Figma. That said, while design skills don’t hurt in UX writing, if a client is looking for you to be actively creating and rearranging screens, adjusting the padding and colors, and so on, they may need a refresher on what a UX writer is and does.

4. They want to pay by the minute.

A lot of freelancers try to move away from hourly work, which makes sense for a variety of reasons: there’s a cap to how many hours you can work; there’s a cap to how much people are willing to pay per hour; as you get better, you work faster, which means less money; and so on. That said, hourly work can make sense for freelance UX writing, especially when you’re just starting out and getting a sense of how long things take.

Hourly, though, means hourly. Not minutely. What do I mean by that? Recently, a prospect contacted me and mentioned that they don’t have a lot of work, so they’d like to pay me for the minutes worked every month. Guess what? That was a “No, thanks” from me, for two reasons: 1) Behind every minute that I work is more than a decade spent learning and honing my craft. Paying by minute doesn’t even begin to cover that; 2) Sometimes I work very fast. (Other times one sentence can take forever.) If at the end of the day, I can only charge for 14 minutes of work, it’s not worth it for me.

Yes, ultimately minutes turn into hours, but hourly work has to make sense for you—for example, a five- or ten-hour minimum per month. Not only does that give you consistency as a freelancer, but it also gives the client peace of mind that you’ll invest in learning and understanding their product, users, and voice and tone. That’s not something you can do if the client is monitoring every minute of work you do (or don’t do).

5. You’re going to be reporting to the marketing team.

Marketing copy and product copy are not the same thing. They have different goals, different formats, and often different tones. For example, UX writers will almost never prioritize cleverness over clarity, while marketers may in fact choose to play with that. Good copywriting focuses on benefits and aims to tell a story, whereas good UX copy tells it as it is. So even though content and copy often hand in hand with marketing, UX copy is typically the exception.

As a freelance UX writer, you’ll want to hear from and collaborate with the marketing team, but if they dictate the product copy, be prepared for some butting of heads over tone, messaging, and the like. Though this isn’t a dealbreaker, for successful, user-centric product copy, aim to work with Product rather than Marketing.

6. They don't have the bandwidth to incorporate your work.

Look, once you do a project for a client (and they’ve paid for it), they can do whatever they want with it—even dump it in the trash. But if the client is going into a project without the development capacity to implement your recommendations, it’s likely to be a frustrating relationship for everyone involved: you’ll feel like you’ve gotten nowhere, and they’ll feel like they wasted a lot of money on something that’s just collecting dust.

To avoid this, use your discovery call to suss out where the product stands and how the team is doing in terms of capacity. If it seems like they don’t have bandwidth to tackle this right now (aspirations aside), you can gently recommend that they get back in touch when things are more stable.

7. They’re going through a lot of organizational and/or product changes. 

One of the most exciting things about products is that they’re constantly evolving with new features, new findings from user research, changing budgetary priorities, and more. However, if no one can give you a clear answer on what stage the product is in or who’s working on what, back away before you get sucked into the vortex. Products or companies that are in turmoil are a nightmare and can result in a lot of frustration—and, well, very few results.

As a freelancer, you have the luxury of a discovery call to read the client and see if their project is a good fit. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t right. Don’t be afraid to say no and set your sights on the next prospect.

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