Guides

How much does a grant writer cost?

The short answer: freelance grant writers bill anywhere from $25 to $250 an hour depending on experience, and a full proposal written from scratch commonly runs $2,500 to $6,000. Here is where those numbers come from, what drives them up or down, and what the alternatives cost.

Hourly rates

Funding for Good, a consultancy that trains grant writers, publishes the fee ranges it sees in the field:

• $25 to $50 an hour for writers who are new to grant writing.
• $50 to $100 an hour as the common rate for intermediate writers.
• $100 to $200 an hour for writers with extensive experience.
• $150 to $250 an hour for federal and other government grants, which demand specialist knowledge.

The hourly rate is only half the equation. The other half is how many hours the application takes, and that varies more than most people expect. A simple foundation application might take around 10 hours; a complex one, or a first application for a new client, can take 20 to 30. Federal applications run from 20 hours up to 100. We break that down in how long it takes to write a grant. At $75 an hour, a 15-hour foundation application costs $1,125 before any revisions.

Flat fees per proposal

Many writers quote a project fee instead of hours. From the same published fee guidance:

• $2,500 to $6,000 for an important proposal for a new program or a new foundation funder.
• $3,000 to $6,000 to develop a template proposal you can adapt yourself afterward.
• $7,000 to $10,000 to manage and write a large, complex federal grant.

Why nobody reputable works on commission

A percentage-of-award deal sounds tidy: no win, no fee. In practice the Grant Professionals Association’s code of ethics prohibits percentage-based compensation, and many funders will not allow grant money to pay a commission at all. A writer who offers it is telling you something. Expect to pay for the work itself, hourly or flat, whether or not the grant comes in.

What you are actually paying for

A good grant writer does three jobs: finding funders worth applying to, checking the eligibility fine print so you do not waste a month on a grant you cannot win, and writing the proposal. The writing is what the invoice says, but the research is often half the hours. If your team can supply a clean set of organizational documents (budget, determination letter, board list, program descriptions), the hours drop and so does the bill.

The alternatives, priced

Hiring a person per application is one option. Grant-search software (a database subscription where you still do all the writing) generally runs over $2,000 a year. Grant Current sits in between: it does the finding, the eligibility checking, and the first draft for a flat $250 a month, and your team reviews and submits. The full comparison is in grant writing help for small nonprofits.