This article is focused solely on the cost of developmental editing. If you are looking for general information, I suggest you check out this complete expert guide to developmental editing. The aim of this article is to give you a clear picture of how much you should expect to pay for editing and help you understand how the prices are calculated.
What is developmental editing?
If you are going to understand the cost of developmental editing, you must start by understanding what the process entails.
Developmental editing is big-picture editing. Your editor will read your book twice and formulate a list of problems and solutions. On the first read, they will look for areas of the book that create negative feelings. If the book feels slow or they become confused, they will record this point in the manuscript. On the second read, they will look for evidence to support their ideas about why the problems exist. They will then create a map of local and global issues, bringing everything together in one editor’s report.
This process requires the editor to have not only a deep understanding of story and writing craft but also knowledge of genre and the market. This is not something you pick up overnight.
This was just a brief outline. Check out this article for a deep dive into what developmental editing is.
How long developmental editing takes
Professional developmental editing takes longer than you might think. The editor will read your book twice—and some sections more than twice—while looking for evidence, completing a report, writing emails, reviewing your revisions and meeting with you to keep everything on track.
Reading for pleasure and reading to edit are not the same. When you are reading to edit, you go slowly, monitor how you feel, look out for issues and make notes. It’s a stop-and-start process. There’s no way around this, and there is no shortcut.
It is impossible to say accurately how much an editor can edit in a day, but I think that 5,000 words is probably at the top end of the scale. Some days, it can be much less.
That means that, for a 60,000-word novel, the first read is going to take twelve days. The second read will take about the same amount of time. You then need to add time for the report, administration, meetings and revisions.
I think it is fair to say that a 60,000-word novel will take about a month to edit.
A quick personal note: I am a full-time developmental editor; it is my only job. You will find that many of the freelance editors you come across are part-time editors. This means that the timescales might be stretched.
Before we get on to how much all this is going to cost, let’s first look at the different pricing structures.
Pricing structures
There is no single industry standard for pricing a developmental edit, so let’s examine the options.
- Per word — Total manuscript word count × the editor’s rate. This is common for novels and other book-length manuscripts because the cost is predictable.
- Per 1,000 words — Total manuscript word count × the editor’s rate / 1,000. This is easier to calculate than a per-word rate.
- Per page — Usually based on a standardised manuscript page, often 250 words, rather than the document’s actual page count.
- Per hour — You pay for the editor’s time. This suits consultation, partial reviews, or manuscripts whose condition makes the workload hard to estimate.
- Flat project fee — One agreed price for a defined scope, such as one editorial pass plus an editorial letter. Editors often calculate this internally from word count and expected hours.
- Per chapter — Useful for serialised work, sample edits or authors who want to proceed in stages. Chapter lengths should be considered.
- Package pricing — A bundled fee for services such as manuscript assessment, developmental edit, follow-up consultation, and review of revisions.
- Retainer — A recurring monthly fee for ongoing access or a set number of editing hours. More common for authors producing work continuously.
- Percentage or royalty arrangement — The editor receives a share of future revenue. This is uncommon and carries more contractual risk than a fixed fee.
I wanted to say something here about my own career. When I started BubbleCow in 2007, self-publishing was on the rise. However, the editing industry was used to basing prices on the time an edit took. This worked fine for editors working with publishers who were looking for repeat business, but it seemed unfair to authors. Authors were expected to wait until a book had been edited to discover the cost. At BubbleCow, I introduced the *price per 1,000 words. This allowed authors to understand the costs upfront. I was the first person to do this, and I am still proud of the fact that it has become an industry standard.*
Editor experience
One last thing to consider is the experience of the editor you are about to hire.
I am going to assume that you are not hiring a scammy editor; these tend to be cheap and nasty. If you think you might have found one of these bad boys, check out this article about [spotting red flags when hiring an editor].
Going from least experienced to most experienced, these are the three levels of editor you are likely to encounter.
The first is new editors. These editors will be new to the industry. They may have had some training but are likely to be very inexperienced. They will be looking to learn on the job and build their portfolios. This is not to say they are bad, just that the feedback you receive is more likely to be inconsistent and less effective. The good news is that you will be able to hire these editors at the lowest price.
The second is mid-range editors. These are the bulk of the editors you will come across. They will often have some training, several years of experience and a growing portfolio. They will tend to focus on one or two genres and counter their relative lack of experience with detailed genre knowledge. These editors will be priced at a mid-range level.
The third is high-end editors. This is where I fall. These editors will have years of experience, a large portfolio and a high degree of confidence in the value they can add to a book. They may focus on a small range of genres, but you are also likely to find generalists who have developed broad industry knowledge over the years. These editors will be the most expensive to hire.
How much editing costs
So, we finally get on to cost.
The single biggest factor in the cost of a developmental edit is the size of the book. Obviously, the bigger the book, the longer it takes to edit and the higher the cost.
I am going to use a book of 60,000 words for the examples in this section.
As we saw above, a 60,000-word book with a two-pass edit will take about a month. This includes not only the two reads but also note-taking, report writing and pre- and post-edit meetings.
The next thing to consider is the editor’s experience. We have already discussed this in detail, but it is the second-biggest factor in the overall cost. In short, the more experienced the editor, the more expensive the edit. That said, on the whole, you get what you pay for.
Finding a single price for developmental editing is impossible, but I have examined several sources to work out a reasonable ballpark figure.
I wanted to start with The Editorial Freelancers Association. This is an organisation that represents freelance editors. It is worth noting that its figures are aimed more at what publishers should pay editors than at authors hiring editors directly.
| Material | Per word | Per hour | Per page (250 words) | Pages/hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academic, humanities (student) | 4.0–6.0¢ | $55.00–75.00 | $10.00–15.00 | 5.0–8.0 |
| Academic, humanities (faculty, publication) | 5.0–7.3¢ | $60.00–82.50 | $12.50–18.13 | 4.0–7.0 |
| Academic, STEM (student) | 5.0–7.5¢ | $50.00–75.00 | $12.50–18.75 | 5.0–10.0 |
| Academic, STEM (faculty, publication) | 5.0–7.3¢ | $60.00–80.00 | $12.50–18.13 | 4.0–7.0 |
| Academic, other | 5.8–7.8¢ | $60.00–85.00 | $14.38–19.38 | 4.0–7.0 |
| Business/marketing | 4.5–6.0¢ | $60.00–75.00 | $11.25–15.00 | 5.0–10.0 |
| Children’s Board Book | 3.2–4.0¢ | $55.00–65.00 | $8.00–10.00 | 4.0–6.5 |
| Children’s Middle-Grade Book | 3.0–3.8¢ | $55.00–70.00 | $7.50–9.38 | 5.0–10.0 |
| Children’s Picture Book | 3.6–4.5¢ | $60.00–65.00 | $9.00–11.25 | 10.0–13.5 |
| Children’s YA Book | 3.0–3.5¢ | $60.00–75.00 | $7.50–8.75 | 5.0–11.0 |
| Fiction | 3.0–3.5¢ | $52.50–70.00 | $7.50–8.75 | 5.5–10.0 |
| Graphic novels | 4.0–9.0¢ | $50.00–67.50 | $10.00–22.50 | 6.0–12.0 |
| Legal | n/a | $62.50–77.50 | $0.00–0.00 | 3.0–6.0 |
| Medical | 5.3–6.8¢ | $75.00–95.00 | $13.13–16.88 | 3.0–5.5 |
| Medicolegal | n/a | $65.00–82.50 | $0.00–0.00 | n/a |
| Memoirs | 3.5–4.5¢ | $60.00–75.00 | $8.75–11.25 | 5.0–8.0 |
| Nonfiction | 4.0–5.0¢ | $57.50–70.00 | $10.00–12.50 | 4.0–8.0 |
| Technical | 2.8–3.8¢ | $62.50–80.00 | $6.88–9.38 | 3.5–6.5 |
| Other | 3.5–5.0¢ | $57.50–70.00 | $8.75–12.50 | 4.0–7.0 |
If you are interested in working out the cost they suggest for your book, they have a cost calculator on their site.
They quote a median cost for fiction of $33 per 1,000 words.
Now, let’s consider Reedsy.
This is a marketplace for editors. They take about 20% of each transaction on their website. Therefore, it is in their best interest to push the price of editing as high as possible.
In this recent article, Reedsy suggested that the cost of a developmental edit varied from $26 per 1,000 words to $53 per 1,000 words. They say that genre affects the cost and even state that you need to be ‘prepared to pay for experience and skill’.
This gives a midpoint of $39.50 per 1,000 words.
I recently carried out my own experiment to investigate the cost of hiring a Reedsy editor. I submitted a 68,000-word novel and received quotes from four experienced editors.
- $2,410
- $2,150
- $2,597
- $2,100
This produced an average cost of $2,314.25, which is approximately $34 per 1,000 words.
One thing to note is that the site’s layout makes it very difficult to see what the editors are really offering. It was not easy to determine whether the pricing included line editing, how many revisions were allowed or what post-edit support was provided. I also saw that three of the four editors changed their prices about a week after the initial quote.
If you are thinking about using Reedsy, I have an article about [how to use Reedsy to hire an editor].
Finally, we need to talk about Fiverr.
This is a generalist freelance site. You can hire freelancers to do just about anything, but it does have a section dedicated to developmental editing. I would urge any author considering Fiverr to approach it with caution. The site has a reputation for being home to some of the more scammy editors and freelancers. There are some gems on there, but you need to look carefully to find them amongst the trash.
Fiverr has a costs page where it quotes the price of developmental editing.
This is what it says:
- Per word: $0.04 to $0.08 per word
- Per hour: $48 to $84 per hour
- Per page: $12 to $24 per page
That’s a midpoint of $60 per 1,000 words (which seems very high).
If you are thinking about using Fiverr, I have an article about [how to use Fiverr to hire an editor].
Clearly, getting an accurate cost for developmental editing is not straightforward.
If you are interested in what I charge for a two-pass edit combining developmental and line editing, here’s my price calculator:
COST CALC