My Client Just Shocked Me with His Budget for This ONE Service

When a client casually mentions budgeting twenty grand monthly for ads copy, you start paying attention.

Last week, I was chatting with a new ghostwriting client—someone who'd just signed on to scale his personal brand with my help. Naturally pleased to have secured another ambitious founder for one of my few remaining slots.

But then he said something that SHOCKED me:

Twenty thousand dollars. Per month. For writing ads.

This got me digging deep into what's happening in the copywriting world right now. And what I found might surprise you…

What Actually Is Copywriting?

Before we dive deeper, let's clear up the confusion. Copywriting has absolutely nothing to do with copyright law or trademarks. That trips up almost everyone at first.

Copywriting is the art of writing words that sell. Think email campaigns that get you to buy, ads that make you click, sales pages that convert browsers into buyers. It's sales in written form.

In a world where businesses live or die by their ability to convert traffic into customers, good copywriters have become incredibly valuable.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Here's what's fascinating: whilst everyone assumes AI has killed copywriting, the data shows something different entirely.

In the US, specialist email copywriters charge $300-2,000+ per email sequence, with some commanding $2,000+ per individual email for high-converting campaigns. Direct response copywriters are earning $7,500-$20,000 base fees plus 2-5% royalties on sales generated.

UK freelance copywriting day rates have climbed from £379 in 2020 to £440 in 2024. B2B SaaS copywriters command $150-500+ per hour because they understand complex enterprise sales cycles.

The copywriters hitting these figures have cracked something most people miss entirely.

The Unstoppable Formula

After analysing dozens of successful copywriter case studies, I've identified what separates the $20k/month copywriters from everyone else.

Obsessive Target Buyer Knowledge They don't just understand their client's product. They become experts in their buyer's world. Pain points, desires, language patterns, buying triggers. They know the audience better than the business owner does.

Contextual AI Mastery Here's where most people get it wrong. The top copywriters aren't scared of AI. Feed Claude with deep context about your target buyer, examples of high-performing ads in that space, and specific pain points, and it becomes an incredibly powerful writing partner.

Copy Psychology + Editing Skills They understand the psychological triggers that make people buy, combined with the editing skills to polish everything into persuasive perfection.

When you combine deep buyer psychology with AI leverage and solid editing, you become unstoppable. Everyone else is either ignoring AI or letting it do all the thinking. Smart copywriters use it as a force multiplier for genuine expertise.

The Modern Learning System

The legendary Gary Halbert created a copywriting mastery system nearly 25 years ago. Here's the 2025 version:

Hand-copying routine: They used to say spend an hour a day hand-copying great ads. With AI tools like Claude, you probably want to dial that back to around 20 minutes daily. Just enough to internalise what makes good copy work.

Where to find great copy: Swiped.co has thousands of high-performing ads and sales letters. Study what's worked in your target industry.

The real work: Spend most of your time becoming obsessed with one specific industry or buyer type. Study their forums, read their complaints, understand their dreams. Build Claude prompts based on this deep knowledge.

Spot winning ads everywhere: Train yourself to notice effective copy. When you see an ad that makes you stop scrolling, analyse why it worked.

Get so good at understanding one type of buyer that you can create world-class copy for that exact audience every single time. This is how you avoid the commodity trap that destroys most copywriters.

The Skill Stack Advantage

The copywriters commanding premium rates aren't just writers. One copywriter I researched built his $15k/month practice around copywriting plus Facebook ads management plus funnel strategy plus video production. That combination is so rare he never competes with the masses flooding the market.

Another specialises in financial services copywriting, charging $100-300+ per hour because she understands regulatory requirements while creating compelling, trustworthy messaging.

Companies don't pay $240k annually for pretty words. They pay for measurable outcomes.

Back to the strategy...

Different Paths, Same Destination

There are multiple ways to build a $20k copywriting practice:

The Retainer Route: Monthly retainers with growing businesses ($3-10k each). Land 2-3 solid clients and you're there.

The Direct Response Route: High-ticket sales letters and video scripts ($7,500-$20,000 per project plus royalties). One successful campaign per month hits your target.

The Specialist Route: Become the go-to copywriter for one specific industry. Financial copywriters, SaaS copywriters, and health/wellness copywriters all command premium rates.

The Agency Route: Build relationships with marketing agencies who need reliable copywriting partners. They handle client acquisition, you handle the writing.

Why $20k Makes Perfect Sense

So why was my client budgeting $20k monthly for a copywriter?

Because in businesses generating $500k+ monthly revenue, a copywriter who improves conversion rates by even 2-3% pays for themselves multiple times over. They're not buying writing. They're buying profit multiplication.

When you've got a business doing half a million in monthly revenue and someone can consistently improve your ads, emails, and sales pages, twenty grand becomes a bargain.

The uncomfortable truth: only about 1% of copywriters ever reach this level. The rest get stuck competing on price, racing to the bottom on platforms that treat writing like a commodity.

The Path Forward

The copywriting opportunity isn't dead. Pick an industry, become obsessed with the buyers in that space, master contextual AI prompting, and develop the editing skills to polish everything into conversion magic.

The fact that people are still budgeting $20k+ monthly for this skill set, in an AI-filled world, tells you everything you need to know about the opportunity.

What's your take on the copywriting landscape? Have you spotted similar opportunities in your world? Hit reply and let me know—I read every response.

To your success,
Lewis

P.S. Yes I still have 1 ghostwriting slot open—hit me up if you're a founder looking to scale on organic content.