What Editing Costs in the United States

What editing costs · 786 words · about 4 minutes to read

The Editorial Freelancers Association published its 2026 rate chart in March of that year. More than 1,100 people completed the survey behind it, the most since the survey was first distributed in 1991, and it was the first edition opened to professionals outside the association.¹ It is the closest thing American editing has to a published price list.

It is also easy to misread. The association states that the rates in the chart are for guidance only and are not mandated or recommended.¹ It adds that as a member association it neither sets rates nor advises members on what rates or rate types to use.² What the chart records is what a large number of working editors reported charging. It is a survey result, not a tariff.

The published figures, level by level

For fiction, the 2026 chart puts copyediting at 2.0 to 2.7 cents a word, or $40.00 to $50.00 an hour. Proofreading appears at 1.2 to 2.0 cents a word, or $35.00 to $45.00 an hour. Line editing runs 2.7 to 3.5 cents a word, and developmental editing 3.0 to 3.5 cents.²

Nonfiction runs higher at every level. Copyediting appears at 3.0 to 4.0 cents a word and proofreading at 2.0 to 3.0 cents. Line editing runs 3.5 to 5.0 cents and developmental editing 4.0 to 5.0 cents.² Indexing, which is a separate trade with its own practitioners, is listed at 2.0 to 2.5 cents a word, or $55.00 to $60.00 an hour, or 6.0 to 8.0 pages an hour.²

Two things follow from reading those columns side by side. The gap between proofreading and developmental editing is roughly threefold at either end. And the same level of work on nonfiction costs about half again what it costs on fiction, which is a fact about the material rather than about the editor.

Why the levels are priced differently

The levels are not degrees of care. They are different operations, and the professional bodies describe them in terms specific enough to compare. The EFA places developmental editors on content, organization, and genre considerations. Line editors work at the sentence or paragraph level, correcting errors while concentrating on the language and style of the text. Copyediting covers spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation, along with checking cross-references and preparing style sheets. Proofreading comes among the last stages, with proofreaders checking for typographical errors and formatting mistakes.³

Editors Canada draws the same boundary from the other direction. It defines proofreading as an examination of material after layout or in its final format, and records that proofreading is not a substitute for editing.⁴ A price quoted for a proofread buys the last operation on that list. It does not buy a smaller version of the first one.

The unit decides who carries the risk

Four units are in use, and the chart reports figures for each. A per-word price fixes the author's total before the work begins and leaves the editor to absorb the chapters that turn out to be difficult. An hourly price does the reverse and leaves the author's total unknown until the job ends. A per-page price is a per-word price with an assumption about page density built in. A project fee is a per-word price with the arithmetic already done.

Reading the per-word and per-hour columns together is more informative than reading either alone. Dividing the hourly figures by the per-word figures puts the implied reading speed for fiction copyediting somewhere between roughly 1,500 and 2,500 words an hour. A price well under the low end of the range implies a faster pass, a narrower scope, or both. Neither of those is dishonest where the editor says which one it is.

What moves a quotation, and what does not

How much of the manuscript the editor has read is the largest single factor. A figure produced from a ten-page sample is an extrapolation, and later chapters written under different conditions can be denser than the opening. A figure produced after reading the whole manuscript can be held to.

Schedule is the second. The EFA's guide for new authors records that rush work commands higher rates, and that an editor needs adequate time to edit a complete manuscript.⁵ A deadline agreed before the whole manuscript has been seen carries the same uncertainty as a price agreed the same way.

What does not move a quotation is how much the author wants the book edited. Every author wants that, and it is not a variable an editor can price.

Where EditFast sits

EditFast charges by the word. A proofread is 3 cents, a light edit 3.5 cents, a medium edit 4 cents, and a heavy edit 5 cents, with a $50 minimum. Estimates are free and carry no obligation. Everything a client sends is treated in confidence, including unpublished manuscripts, business documents, and correspondence. We quote on the whole document rather than on a sample, and we say which level the figure covers.

An author comparing three quotations is usually comparing three different jobs. Asking each editor which of the four operations they are quoting for turns an unanswerable comparison into an arithmetic one.

References

Editorial Freelancers Association, EFA Announces 2026 Editorial Rate Chart, March 24, 2026. https://www.the-efa.org/2026-editorial-rate-chart/ ↩
Editorial Freelancers Association, 2026 Editorial Rate Chart. https://www.the-efa.org/rates/ ↩
Editorial Freelancers Association, Editorial Service Definitions. https://www.the-efa.org/editorial-services-definitions/ ↩
Editors Canada, Definitions of Editorial Skills, June 2019. https://editors.ca/hire-an-editor/skills/ ↩
Editorial Freelancers Association, Hiring an Editor: A Guide for New Authors, revised July 2022. https://www.the-efa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/EFA-Hiring-an-Editor-A-Guide-for-New-Authors_REV-7-2022.pdf ↩

EditFast charges by the word: 3¢ to proofread, 3.5¢ for a light edit, 4¢ for a medium edit and 5¢ for a heavy edit, with a $50 minimum. What each level covers and what a full manuscript costs, or estimate your own.

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