90% of Copywriters are NGMI (Not gonna make it)

Seven years ago, animator Steve Cutts released a four-minute video called "Happiness" on Youtube.

Set to Bizet's "Habanera" and Grieg's "Morning Mood," it shows rats waking up in a cramped sewer with thousands of other rats, all scrambling over each other in a frenzy.

The rat pushes through the crowd, squeezes onto a packed subway, sits in gridlock traffic, and stumbles into a soul-crushing office job where he is trapped at the neck by his office table that’s been fashioned into a rat trap(metaphor for the handcuffs our work lives put on us).

After work, he mindlessly shops for things he doesn't need, drinks and indulges in mindless pleasure to numb the pain, and collapses into bed.

The next morning, he wakes up and does it all over again, finding himself typing away, all for that good ole cheddar.

Sound familiar?

The animation depicts the endless pursuit of this fleeting idea of "happiness" in a consumer society, using the rat race as a metaphor for modern working life.

The rat never catches what he's chasing. He just runs faster on the same wheel.

Most people never truly achieve happiness through work, they just buy more things they don't need and work harder and more tirelessly as they age with added responsibility.

Only to end up dying alone, abandoned by their family in some musty retirement home. Bleak.

I saw this animation years ago and it changed my life. I was a freshman at my Alma mater driving nearly 45 minutes to university and back with nothing but maybe 20 bucks to last me the week.

And everyday during the PM rush hour, I'd feel like an absolute dickhead.

I'd look around and see other fellow dickheads in their cars(lol) in the rat race with me and realized then that I had to choose a different path.

The 9 to 5 grind, the rat race, that shit is not for me.

That's why I'm a clientless copywriter.

I've chosen a better path to total freedom. Where I have time, locational and financial freedom.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows but it’s a path that actually makes me happy.

And I've learned a lot since then.

Like the fact that most copywriters are rats in a race they can't win.

If you're a freelance copywriter or an in-house copywriter.

You're a rat.

And the saddest part? You volunteered for it.

Most freelance copywriters are trapped in the exact same cycle as that animated rat. They wake up, hunt for clients, pitch, get rejected, land a project, deliver the work, invoice, wait to get paid, and then start hunting again.

The wheel never stops spinning.

Let me show you the math that proves why 90% of copywriters won't make it.

The average copywriter thinks they need to charge around $31-$32 per hour to hit a $65,000 annual income.

That sounds reasonable, right?

Wrong.

Here's what nobody tells you:

The Hidden Economics of Freelancing

As a freelance copywriter, you can't just divide your target salary by 2,080 hours and call it a day. The real numbers look like this:

• 40% of your time is non-billable. You're hunting clients, sending proposals, managing contracts, invoicing, chasing payments, doing bookkeeping. You don't get paid for any of it.
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• You pay for everything yourself. Software subscriptions, website hosting, health insurance, retirement, professional development. Employers cover these costs for salaried workers. You don't get that luxury.
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• Self-employment taxes eat 15.3% of your income right off the top for Social Security and Medicare alone.
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• Every day off is unpaid. Vacation? That's lost income. Sick day? Lost income. Holiday? Lost income.
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So that $65,000 target?

Here's what you actually need to charge:

1. Increase your target by 30% to cover taxes and benefits: $65,000 × 1.30 = $84,500
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2. Calculate realistic billable hours: 2,080 hours × 60% (after non-billable time) = 1,248 hours
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3. Your real hourly rate: $84,500 ÷ 1,248 = $67.71 per hour
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Not $31. $68.

But here's where it gets worse.

The average freelance copywriter stays a freelancer for just one to two years. Most don't even make it that long.

They realize the math doesn't work. They burn out from the constant hustle. They get tired of the feast-or-famine cycle.

So they quit and go back to a job where someone else worries about where the next paycheck comes from.

"Maybe corporate is better," they think.

So they take an in-house copywriter job. $60,000 to $85,000 a year. Health insurance. Paid time off. A 401(k). A real desk in a real office.

Finally, stability.

Until they realize they've just traded one race for another.

Sure, you get a steady paycheck. But you also get:

• A manager who doesn't understand copywriting telling you how to write
• Projects you don't choose and can't turn down
• A fixed schedule where you're expected at your desk from 9 to 5
• Office politics and bureaucracy that eat half your day
• A "no side hustle" policy that blocks any path to building your own thing
• Salary increases decided by HR, not by the value you create

And the real kicker? Your ceiling is someone else's budget.

Senior copywriters might push $111,000 if they whittle themselves away climbing the ladder and working in a high-cost area. But that's where it ends.

No matter how good you get, no matter how much revenue your copy generates for the company, you'll never earn more than what the salary band allows.

You traded a bit of freedom for security.

And you got neither.

The copywriters who fail all make the same mistake as Steve Cutts' rats.

They chase the same thing everyone else is chasing.

Client work. Hourly rates. Project fees. A salary. Retainers if they're lucky.

They compete for the same pool of clients who want to pay the lowest rates. They scroll job boards like rats fighting for scraps. They undercut each other to win projects.

It’s a race to the bottom.

If not at the freelance level, at the corporate level.

And every single month, they start from zero.

The rat race has no finish line. It's designed that way.

But here's what the 10% of us who make it understand:

The copywriters who break free from the rat race don't just write better copy or charge higher rates.

They stop being rats entirely.

They realize that the most valuable thing they can write isn't copy for someone else's business.

It's copy for their own products, their own offers, their own audience.

That's what every high IQ copywriter does, they all have a personal brand that brings in discovery, a list to sell to and an offer that makes them money.

Whether it’s one off or MRR.

No clients. No pitching. No competing on price.

Just a weekly/daily email send (a scalable asset) that generates revenue while we sleep.

Systems, KPIs and SOPs that move the needle everyday for us so we don’t start from zero.

That's what separates the 10% from the 90%.

The 90% trade hours for dollars until they burn out or quit.

The 10% build assets that compound.

Assets that for example, allow us to spend more time with our family and loved ones or from the more extreme, live-abroad boats and van-life for the adventurous ones.

Yeah, there’s guys out there writing from the middle of the ocean traveling the world in sailboats using Musk’s Star-link for the internet. Or driving to a new country every few weeks in souped up SUVs living their best lives.

When you aren’t a rat, you don’t think like one, so abundance and freedom is your natural state.

Here's What This Means for You

This week, stop and ask yourself:

Are you a rat running faster on the same wheel?

Or are you building something that lets you step off the wheel entirely?

Because the harsh truth is this:

If you're still charging by the hour, if you're still hunting for the next client, if you're still starting from zero every month, or working for a boss where your income is capped, you're not a copywriter.

You're a rat in a race you can't win. And if you keep that up, you’re NGMI.

The question is: are you going to keep running?

Or are you going to build something that runs without you?

Much love and more next week,

Fathi