The 2025 EFA Rate Survey is similar to the rate survey launched in 2023 with some minor adjustments based on member feedback. Below are important instructions and information about taking the 2025 survey.

Your Individual Invite Link

Each member of the EFA will receive an individualized invitation link to take the survey. This link will come from Zoho, the platform hosting the rate survey. This individual link will allow you to access the survey and save your progress, returning later if you are unable to finish in your first sitting.

Anonymity

The individual link is generated by the system and no identifying information accompanies the record of your participation. That is, we can only tell that an EFA member has responded to the survey but we cannot tell who has done so. All your answers are confidential.

A Tailored Approach

The survey is as long or as short as is appropriate to your experience. You will have to answer questions only for editorial services that you provide. At the beginning of the survey, you’ll be given a list of editorial service categories and you’ll select from among those the services relevant to your work.

Once you have done that, you’ll be asked about only those categories you selected. During that process, you’ll have the opportunity to offer greater specificity as to the particular kinds of service you provide. For example, if you provide copyediting, line editing, and work-for-hire writing services, you will select “Editing” and “Writing” at first; the next step will be questions about the types of editing and writing you do, at which point you will indicate copyediting, line editing, and work-for-hire writing. Lastly, you will specify the genres and industries you provide these services for.

If you’re not sure about how to define any kind of editorial service, consult our list of editorial service definitions.

Entering the Data

All rate data is submitted in terms of U.S. dollars (USD). That means, that a rate of 3¢ per word will be entered as 0.03; a rate of 1.5 cents per word will be entered as 0.015. Please be mindful of your decimal places when entering rates.

Please be mindful, too, of the different rate categories. Most entries offer the opportunity to enter per-word, per-page, per-hour, and per-project rates. Be sure to enter per-hour rates only in the per-hour column, and so on. Not doing so can throw off our averages a great deal.

In order to offer you the maximum level of flexibility in entering your rates, we do not impose a data-entry format or restrict your entries to dropdown lists. However, this makes it easier to mis-enter data, so please be mindful of your entries.

Other Types of Work

In each section, if there are services that you provide that are not accounted for on our form, you can select “Other [Editing] service” and you’ll be given the opportunity to enter information for that kind of work. If there are entire categories of work that you provide not accounted for, you can enter those at the end of the survey.

Comments and Clarification

At the end of the survey, you’ll have the opportunity to provide some clarifying information. If your rates vary depending on the type of client you have, you can enter that information there. If there are other services that you provide outside of “traditional” editorial services, you can indicate that as well. And you can provide any other clarifying comments you like.

Demographics

At the conclusion of the survey are some demographic questions designed to help us understand not only how questions like geography and experience affect rates but ensure that our survey population is representative of the EFA overall. Please be candid with these answers; no identifying information is collected and all answers are confidential.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the survey, visit our Discord forum or send an email to membershipcoordinator@the-efa.org.

Thank you for being a part of the EFA and helping us to collect this important information!