The copywriter's guide to contracts and invoicing (UK)

Copywriting has a business problem hiding inside a creative one. You're paid to produce words — but you're really being paid to hit a brief, to an agreed length, with a sensible number of rounds to get it right, and to hand over the right to use the finished copy. When any of those is left vague, the friendly project drifts into unpaid rewrites and awkward conversations about who owns what. A clear agreement and clean invoicing keep the work enjoyable and the money predictable.

This guide covers the contract terms that matter for copywriting specifically, how to price and take deposits, and how to invoice so you're paid on time.

A quick note first: TrustSolo isn't a law firm or an accountancy, and nothing here is legal advice. Its contract templates are customisable starting points, not solicitor-reviewed documents — for a high-value or unusual engagement, a professional opinion is worth the money.

Why a written agreement matters for copywriters

Three features of copywriting make an agreement especially worth having.

The first is the brief. Good copy is written to something — a brief, a tone, an audience. But briefs move: a client reads the first draft and decides they want a different angle entirely. That's a perfectly reasonable thing for a client to want, but it's new work, not a revision — and the only way to charge for it fairly is to have said, in writing, that a change in direction sits outside the included rounds.

The second is ownership. Copy is intellectual property, and whether the rights pass to the client, and when, is a commercial decision worth making deliberately. A common and sensible arrangement is that ownership transfers on full payment — which conveniently means the client doesn't own the words until they've paid for them.

The third is accuracy and sign-off. You write from the information and claims the client gives you; they're the ones who can confirm those claims are true and approve the final copy. Making that split explicit — you draft, they fact-check and approve — means both sides know where responsibility sits if a published claim later turns out to be wrong.

The terms worth nailing down

A clean agreement covering the following handles most of what goes wrong in a copywriting engagement:

• Scope, brief and deliverables — what you're writing (pieces, formats, approximate word counts), and a line that a change of direction or a new brief is additional work, quoted separately.
• Revision rounds — how many rounds the fee includes (two is a common starting point), what counts as a "revision" versus a rewrite, and your rate for anything beyond.
• Intellectual property and usage rights — who owns the copy and when. Transfer on full payment is common; alternatively you license specific uses and keep the copyright.
• Fact-checking and sign-off — that the client provides accurate source material and approves the final copy before it's published.
• Credit and portfolio use — whether the work is ghostwritten or credited, and whether you may show it in your portfolio. Worth a line, especially for ghostwriting.
• AI use — if it matters to the client how the copy is produced, agree the position up front rather than leave it unspoken.
• Deposit and cancellation — a deposit to begin, and a kill fee if the client pulls out mid-project so blocked-out time isn't simply lost.

TrustSolo's copywriting contract template is built around exactly these — a brief-based scope, revision rounds, IP transfer or licence, fact-checking and sign-off, and cancellation terms — as a customisable starting point you adjust per project. You can see how it works under contracts.

Pricing and deposits

Copywriters price a few different ways: a fixed fee per project or per piece, a day rate for open-ended or ongoing work, and sometimes per word (though per-word can quietly penalise you for writing tightly, which is usually the harder skill). Whichever you use, price to cover the unbillable hours — the briefing calls, the research, the admin — not just time spent typing. For a sense of the going rate, see what UK copywriters charge; the free rate calculator then works backwards from the income you need to a sustainable rate.

Taking a deposit up front, credited against the fee, is sensible practice — it funds the early work and filters out clients who were never quite committed. The usual shape is a deposit to begin and the balance on delivery; for a larger content project, splitting it across stages keeps your cash flow steady.

Invoicing and getting paid

Your invoice follows the same rules as any freelance invoice — a unique number, your details and the client's, a clear description, the amount and a due date. Our guide to how to invoice as a freelancer covers exactly what to include and how to set payment terms. Most copywriters invoice the deposit at the start and the balance on delivery, or per stage on a bigger project.

If a payment runs late and your client is a business, you have the same statutory protections as any freelancer — the right to charge interest of 8% plus the Bank of England base rate, plus a fixed recovery cost. Our guide to late-paying clients walks through the whole escalation ladder. As ever, though, the stronger position is prevention: a deposit up front, a clear invoice, and a due date on it.

How TrustSolo helps copywriters

TrustSolo is built to take the admin off your desk. The copywriting contract template gives you a customisable starting point covering brief-based scope, revision rounds, IP transfer or licence, fact-checking and cancellation; the invoicing handles your deposit-and-balance or staged billing with a payment link attached; and a running estimate of your Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance keeps your numbers in view as you go. It's there to make the business side quiet and predictable, so your attention stays on the writing — with the commercial choices left to you.

The view tailored for copywriters lives at TrustSolo for copywriters.

Get the agreement and the invoicing set up once and copywriting becomes mostly the writing you enjoy. When you'd like the paperwork to look after itself, you can start free — no card required.