How To Make $1000 Per Month

Many freelancers struggle with setting attainable goals. In this post, we look at how to make $1000 per month so that you can set your first milestone for achieving your financial dreams.

This is, hopefully, a different sort of post than usual.

While the title might suggest that we are going to offer a bunch of different side hustles that you can make money with, we’ve already got that covered  elsewhere. Instead, today we are going to help you set a very reachable goal for any beginning freelancer: $1000 per month.

This isn’t passive income. This isn’t get rich quick money. This is a stable, predictable source of revenue that comes from doing good work.

Why $1000?

It might seem like an arbitrary number, but $1000 per month is the perfect early goal for a lot of reasons.

For starters, $1000 is about the median cost of rent in the U.S.  So, even if you aren’t trying to scale your freelancing to a full-time gig, knowing that it is putting a roof over your head can be really motivating. Like, deep-down hits-you-in-the-feels motivating.

Additionally, $1000 per month equates to $12,000 per year. A lot of people start freelancing as a way to save extra money. Whether you’re trying to squeeze together a down payment on a house, add to the kids’ college savings, or even just build up a nice rainy day fund–if you know how to make $1000 per month, you are going to fill up that savings account a lot faster.

Perhaps most importantly, once you’ve hit the thousand dollar mark, you will probably know everything you need to scale up from there. For freelancers who are trying to create a full time income, $1000 per month is like the first taste of success that can quickly snowball into $2000, then $3000, then $4000, and on.

What Does It Take to Get to $1000 Per Month?

The whole point of this post is to motivate you that this isn’t as hard of a goal as it might seem. Especially if you are just getting started, landing a thousand bucks worth of sales every single month may feel like an unimaginable dream.

But if you break it down into manageable chunks, it starts to look a lot more attainable:

• If you charge $10 per service, you only need 100 sales a month.
• If you charge $25 per service, it’s 40 sales a month.
• If you charge $100 per service, it’s 10 sales a month.
• If you charge $250 per service, it’s 4 sales a month.

A great way to use this basic concept is to offer a mix of services at varying price levels. When you are just getting started, buyers may not want to risk a lot of money on a single service. But if you can get them to try you out for just ten bucks, they will be more willing to invest in that big 250 dollar service you offer.

Which brings us to another neat trick…

How To Turn $100 Into $600

If the thought of making 100 ten dollar sales seems intimidating to you, does making just 10 of them sound more reasonable?

If so, then you can probably turn the $100 you make off of those 10 sales into $600. Here’s how…

For starters, you need at least two services: a $10 one and a $300 one, both of which are likely useful to the same client. Let’s say, for example, that you provide the following two services:

• In-depth keyword research report for $10
• On page SEO and back link package for $300

These are a good pair because anyone who is looking for someone to do keyword research is probably going to be publishing posts and pages that they will eventually need back links to rank. If they could get them from the same trusted seller, why not?

Here’s the trick. Every time you fulfill one of those ten dollar orders, throw in a coupon for $50 off the back link package. If you do good work for your clients, odds are pretty good that at least 2 out of 10 of them will try out your high ticket service (especially on account of the discount).

So, you land a measly ten sales for $10 each and make a hundred bucks. From there, two of your clients take you up on your deal, netting an extra five hundred dollars.

That’s how you can turn $100 into $600.

Obviously, the numbers might change depending on your niche and services. But, the general principle remains the same: use a low ticket item to attract high ticket clients.

And if you aren’t confident that you can get those first few little sales, read the next section and check out our guide to finding consistent freelance work.

Don’t Neglect The Loss Leader

If you aren’t familiar with business 101, one of the secrets of how to make $1000 per month is capitalizing on loss leaders.

A loss leader is a product or service that you sell at a loss simply for the purpose of landing other sales. If you’ve ever seen canned goods on sale at the grocery store for 7 cents or some similarly ridiculous price, that’s a loss leader. The store advertises those sales because they know if you come in to buy canned corn, you’re probably going to buy something else too. That’s how they turn a loss into a profit.

On your quest to a thousand bucks a month, you can use loss leaders in your freelancing business too.

Maybe you design really awesome logos. You notice that everyone else who offers similar quality is charging about $20 per order. Even though it’s not the proper value for your time, you may decide to charge $5 for your logo design services, using them as a loss leader in order to attract customers to your other services, such as your videos and voice overs.

Loss leaders are a good way to build up your client base, create trust in your services, and eventually, upsell higher ticket items.

Do The Hard Work

We started off by warning you that this isn’t a get rich quick scheme.

Getting to a thousand bucks a month doesn’t come from hastily throwing together a service description and hoping for the best. You’ve got to have a quality service to offer. And you’ve got to put in the hard work to acquire and keep your clients.

But it’s also not rocket science.

Simple pricing tricks like the ones we’ve covered in this post, combined with effective client communication  and value-added work, will have you earning $1000 per month eventually.

And from there, the only limit is how far you want to scale it.