How much do editors charge per word? 2026 rates by type of edit, and how to measure what the edit changed

Editing rates per word in 2026, by type of edit

Editing is priced by the kind of edit and the kind of text: for fiction, the 2026 chart runs from about 1.2 cents a word for a proofread to 3.5 cents for a developmental edit. The figures come from the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), a US association of freelance editors, whose 2026 Rate Chart (updated 29 March 2026) is built from a survey of its members run from November 2025 to mid-January 2026. Over 1,100 members, nearly a third of the membership, reported what they charged during 2025.

Each range sits around the median rate members reported. The EFA's notes on the chart say plainly that it "neither sets rates nor advises members on what rates or rate types to use", and that individual rates vary with the type of work, turnaround time, expertise, local cost of living, training and experience. Read the chart as what the middle of the market charged in 2025, not as a price list.

Why the rates online disagree

Most of the disagreement comes from mixing genres: the same edit costs roughly a third to two thirds more on nonfiction than on fiction, and academic work more again. Guides in the search results give copyediting as 2 to 4 cents a word on one page and 3 to 8 cents on another. The 2026 chart's copyediting rows alone run from 2.0 cents (fiction, at the bottom of its range) to 5.5 cents (STEM theses, at the top), depending on the row.

Three other things widen the spread. Marketplace guides average the quotes on their own platform, which is one slice of the trade and rarely carries a year or sample size. Some pages are old: rates move with each survey. And an editor's own price list reflects one person's experience, speed and specialism, which is exactly what the EFA warns makes individual rates "vary considerably".

The kinds of edit also overlap in price. Line editing fiction (2.7 to 3.5 cents) and a fiction developmental edit (3.0 to 3.5 cents) share most of their range, so a higher quote does not by itself tell you which edit you are buying. The scope does.

What each edit does, and what you are paying for

The four edits run from the whole book down to the printed page: developmental, line, copy and proof. The definitions below are the EFA's own, from its editorial service definitions.

• Developmental editing (also called substantive, structural or content editing) deals with "content, organization, and genre considerations". The editor may write an overall critique, a manuscript evaluation, or an edit letter that sets out the big-picture problems and how to address them.
• Line editing works "at the sentence or paragraph level". Like a copyeditor, a line editor corrects errors, but the main focus is "improving the language and style of the text".
• Copyediting corrects spelling, grammar, usage and punctuation, checks cross-references and keeps the style sheet that holds the manuscript consistent.
• Proofreading is "among the last stages": a check for typographical and formatting errors, in traditional publishing on the publisher's proof, against the previous stage.

Order matters for cost. A developmental edit can move or cut whole chapters, so copyediting before it pays for sentences that may not survive. A proofread on an unedited draft turns into a copyedit, and either the editor charges for the extra work or the proofread misses things it was never priced for.

What an edit costs: an 80,000-word novel, worked

Multiply the word count by the rate in dollars: 80,000 words copyedited at 2 cents ($0.02) a word is $1,600. The table applies the EFA's 2026 fiction ranges to an 80,000-word manuscript, a common length for adult fiction (the novel word count guide has the ranges by genre).

Few books buy every row. A book that takes a developmental edit, then a copyedit, then a proofread of the formatted pages costs, at the middle of each range, $2,600 + $1,880 + $1,280: about $5,760 for 80,000 words. The same manuscript as nonfiction (copyedit 3.0 to 4.0 cents) would cost $2,400 to $3,200 for the copyedit alone.

Checking a per-word quote against the hours it takes

The chart's pages-an-hour column lets you test whether a quote is realistic. Copyediting fiction at 6 to 10 pages an hour, 250 words a page, is 1,500 to 2,500 words an hour. 80,000 words is then 32 to 53 hours, and at $40 to $50 an hour that is $1,280 to $2,667, which brackets the per-word total of $1,600 to $2,160.

Editors Canada's "What editors charge" page gives a second set of figures, quoting Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz's The Copyeditor's Handbook (4th edition, 2019): copy editing a standard text at 4 to 7 pages an hour and a difficult text at 2 to 4, substantive or structural editing at 2 to 3 and 1 to 2, proofreading at 6 to 9 and 4 to 6. The page does not say how many words its pages hold, so the two sets are not directly comparable, but both make the same point: a difficult text takes about twice as long, so a quote above the chart's range for your genre is not necessarily inflated.

Per word, per hour or a flat fee: comparing quotes

Put every quote into the same unit, cents per manuscript word, before comparing. A flat fee divided by the word count, or an hourly rate divided by words edited an hour, gives that figure.

The hourly quote looks cheapest, but only the per-word and flat quotes fix the total. If the copyedit takes 53 hours, the slow end of the chart's fiction pace, the hourly quote becomes $2,385, or about 3 cents a word. Ask an hourly editor for an estimate of hours and a ceiling, and for every quote, ask what is included: a style sheet, a second pass on your revisions, and whether notes and back matter are in the word count.

Agree which word count the price is on

A per-word quote is only as firm as the count under it. Word processors and online counters split hyphens, dashes and numbers differently, as why word counts differ shows, so two tools can disagree by a word or two in a hundred: on 80,000 words, a 1% difference at 2.5 cents is $20. More money rides on what is in the file: front matter, acknowledgements, footnotes and endnotes. Agree the count in writing, and run the final file through the word counter so you both work from one number.

The hourly rate in the UK

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) publishes suggested minimum hourly rates rather than per-word rates. From 1 March 2026 they are £31.92 for proofreading, £37.11 for copyediting and £42.66 for substantial editing, rewriting and development editing. The CIEP describes them as what an editor "with training in the core skills and some experience" could charge, allowing for holiday and sickness cover, a pension and professional development, and says some editors charge considerably more.

Converted at the EFA's fiction pace, which is this guide's arithmetic and not a CIEP figure, £37.11 an hour for copyediting is about 1.5p to 2.5p a word (£37.11 ÷ 2,500 to 1,500 words), or £1,188 to £1,979 for 80,000 words. Proofreading at £31.92 and 10 to 15 pages an hour is about 0.9p to 1.3p a word.

How to measure what the edit changed

Count the words changed between your draft and the edited one: cut plus added, per 1,000 words of your original. A per-word price tells you the cost; it does not show how much the editor did. The edit counter compares the two drafts word by word and splits the result into words kept, cut, added and moved, then gives the words changed per 1,000.

To show the scale, here is one paragraph of 101 words edited three ways, counted with the edit counter's rule (a word is a run of letters or digits, and drafts are aligned with the shortest diff).

Original: Maggie had lived in the village for nearly fourty years, and in all that time she had never once locked her door. The neighbours knew it, the postman knew it and, it seemed, so did who ever had walked into her kitchen on Tuesday night. Nothing was taken. The kettle was still warm when she came downstairs, and there was a cup on the table that was not hers, it was blue with a chipped handle and it smelled faintly of whisky. She stood there for a long time, looking at it, not really sure what she was supposed to feel.

Proofread: as the original, with "fourty" corrected to "forty" and "who ever" to "whoever".

Copyedit: the proofread, plus "and on the table was a cup that was not hers. It was blue, with a chipped handle, and it smelled faintly of whisky" for the comma-spliced sentence, and "unsure" for "not really sure".

Line edit: In nearly forty years in the village, Maggie had never once locked her door. The neighbours knew it, the postman knew it and, it seemed, so did whoever had walked into her kitchen on Tuesday night. Nothing was taken. But the kettle was still warm when she came down, and on the table stood a cup that was not hers: blue, chipped at the handle, smelling faintly of whisky. She stood looking at it for a long time, unsure what she was supposed to feel.

The net change, which is all a word processor's count shows, hides most of the edit: the line edit changed 54 words but shortened the paragraph by only 16. Words changed per 1,000 is the figure that separates the three.

What the number is good for, and what it is not

Use it to compare like with like. Two editors' sample edits of the same pages, or a quote for a "light copyedit" against what came back, are fair comparisons. If a proofread comes back at 500 changes per 1,000, the work was closer to a line edit, which is worth raising before the next stage is priced. The edit counter also reads a Word file's tracked changes on your device, so a returned manuscript can be measured without retyping anything.

Do not use it as a price per change. There is no standard figure for a light or heavy edit, and a low count can mean a clean manuscript rather than a lazy editor: the editor still read and checked every word, which is why the price is per word of the manuscript. A count also cannot see quality. One well-placed query in the margin about a timeline error is worth more than fifty swapped commas, and comments in the margin are not words changed at all.

Questions to settle before you pay

Agree the edit, the word count, the price unit and what happens to revisions before work starts. The checklist below covers the points that most often turn a quote into a dispute.

1. Which edit. Name it by what it does, using definitions such as the EFA's, not just by its label.
2. Which words. The word count of which file, and whether front matter, notes and back matter are in it. Round the way your contract says; standard manuscript format explains how word counts are stated to agents and publishers.
3. Which unit. Per word, per hour with an estimate and a ceiling, or a flat fee.
4. What comes back. Tracked changes, an edit letter, a style sheet, queries.
5. A sample. If the editor offers a sample edit, edit the same pages with two editors and compare them in the edit counter: words changed per 1,000 and the margin comments together show each editor's approach.
6. When. The turnaround: a rush job is one of the factors the EFA names as moving rates.

What this guide does not cover

The rates here are survey figures for freelance editing, mostly in the United States, and the CIEP's minimums for the United Kingdom. They are not quotes, and an individual editor's price can sit well outside them. The guide does not cover publishers' in-house editing (paid by the publisher, not the author), translation, ghostwriting, indexing or formatting, all of which have their own rows on the EFA chart.

Simple Online Counter is a free set of browser-based counters and writing tools. Its edit counter measures how much changed between two drafts and keeps the drafts on your device; it does not judge whether the edit was good, and it is not affiliated with the EFA, the CIEP or Editors Canada.