How Much Does Developmental Editing Cost? (2026 Guide)
Bijgewerkt op: 26 aug
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If you’ve landed here, it means you’re a serious writer who has finished a first (or second) draft and knows you need some level of editing.
You’ve likely come across the term developmental editing. And now you need the answer to the burning question: how much does developmental editing cost?
The short answer is: anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000+, depending on the editor, your manuscript’s length and genre, and the level of feedback you need.
And yes, that probably sounds like a lot (I know it’s a lot of money to me). But developmental editing is an intensive, hands-on process that can take an editor dozens of hours depending on your manuscript.
But don’t worry. After 5+ years of editing both fiction and nonfiction, I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of what increases the price on a developmental edit and—perhaps more importantly—which problems you can tackle yourself before handing your manuscript over to an editor.
So let’s break down everything you need to know about developmental editing costs and what you can do to get the most out of your developmental edit.
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How Much Does Developmental Editing Cost?
So before we delve deeper into it, I’d like you to have a clear idea of the price range you’re dealing with, depending on whether you write fiction or nonfiction.
As an indie author myself, I’ve always found it helpful to know what the common rate is to budget accordingly and make informed decisions.
Once you know the numbers for developmental editing, I will let you in on some little secrets of how editors calculate their rates and why sometimes it seems to vary so much between one editor or the other.
The numbers below are average ranges based on the current editorial rate chart (2026) from the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). They use the most common ways editors price a manuscript: a price by word count or by hour.
Fiction
First, these are the rates for fiction developmental editing.
Rates per word:
$0.03–$0.035 per word.
For an 80,000-word novel: $2,400–$2,800
Rates per hour:
$52.50–$70 per hour.
Editors typically edit 1,375–2,500 words per hour.
Estimated range for 80,000 words: $1,680–$4,073.
Nonfiction (Popular/General Audience)
The editing rates here apply to mainstream nonfiction like self-help, memoir, or general interest, not technical, academic or legal texts.
Rates per word:
$0.035–$0.05 per word.
For an 80,000-word book: $2,800–$4,000.
Rates per hour:
$57.50–$70 per hour.
Editors typically edit 1,000–2,000 words per hour.
Estimated range for 80,000 words: $2,300–$5,600.
How Do Editors Calculate Their Rates?
If you’ve already looked around at developmental editors, you’ve probably seen that many editors charge different rates.
One of the things that factors into price is the editor’s experience.
When I started out, I charged less than I do now. I had less experience and had done fewer courses. The more experience I gained, either by taking another course to upgrade my skills or by editing more books, the more I charged.
Even so, I still always charged within the EFA’s range. There are also many editors out there who don’t do that.
And that usually has to do with the factors location and financial circumstances.
For instance, I live in the Netherlands, where living costs can be quite high. Factor in that most of my clients are from the US (so I get paid in USD), which I then have to convert to euros, and it means I have to charge what I do to make a livable wage.
Other editors might live in countries where the cost of living is lower or where the exchange rate for USD is more favorable.
Financial circumstances can also be widely different between editors. For some editors, editing is their only source of income that has to pay the bills, whereas for others it might be a bit of additional money they use for fun stuff.
All those circumstances factor into how editors calculate their base price, meaning their rate per word or rate per hour.
What Can You Do to Bring the Costs Down?
I’ve gotten inquiries from writers whose manuscripts could’ve cost less if the clients had done some more work beforehand.
Usually, the problem wasn’t that the manuscript was unreadable, but the writer simply hadn’t done the needed big-picture revision work that should come after a first draft.
Or, on the opposite end, they’d revised their manuscript so much that it turned into a “Frankenstein” draft. This means there are scenes switched around, removed, readded, revised, and so on, until it no longer resembles a coherent story.
While it’s perfectly understandable that after a first draft you might not be sure what to do, I would encourage you to follow some steps for self-editing before you go to an editor. (And stop after draft two or three; don’t keep going without a clear direction.)
And if you really have no clue where to start, book a manuscript evaluation before you book a developmental edit.
Here’s what you do after you’ve finished your draft.
1. Let the Manuscript Sit
I know it can be very tempting to start revising right away, but it’s often better to let things sit for at least a day or two.
Celebrate finishing your manuscript!
Then, it’s time to create a plan of attack for your revisions.
2. Create a Reverse Outline
Outlining isn’t only for writing your manuscript. One of the most useful things you can do,is creating an outline of your story after you’ve finished the story.
For each chapter, note these things:
Your character’s goal
The inciting incident of the scene
What turns the scene
The climax of the scene
The resolution of the scene
Whether the character accomplished their goal
For example, here’s what this looks like with one of my own projects:
Vincent Tull wants to succeed selling their Guard Dragon to young couple because they need the money for their breeding station that’s close to bankruptcy. However, the man wants to see a Warrior Dragon, even though they’ve been affected by a strange disease that makes them sometimes attack people. Vincent relents, wanting to please their customers, and they go to the Warrior. All seems well, until something makes the Warrior go mad and attack them. Vincent gets the couple to safety and calls their own dragon. They kill the Warrior before it can hurt anyone. While they’re all safe, the couple no longer wants to buy a Guard Dragon, and Vincent is left with the body of the dead Warrior.
If any of the questions above are hard to answer… that might mean there’s an issue with your scene. But now’s not the time to fix your scenes.
3. Check It Against a Global Structure
It doesn’t really matter if you’re a fan of Story Grid, Save the Cat!, Hero’s Journey, or the Snowflake Method.
All of those methods will give you a decent plot structure. So all you have to do now, is see where your scenes fit within that structure.
Don’t have a favorite one yet? Then now’s the time to read some books on story structure!
Seriously, it will help a great deal. Even better: study some of your favorite books. Seeing how they’re structured can teach you a lot about effective story structure and how to build on a proper theme.
If something doesn’t quite fit, brainstorm what you can do to change it into something better that would fit along the structure.
4. Check the Individual Scenes
Once you’ve done that, you can check the individual scenes. If some of the scenes don’t align (like when you can’t quite answer any of the previous questions for your outline), it’s a sign you might need to revise it.
For instance, if a scene remains static (it doesn’t end better or worse than it begins), if there’s no clear character goal, or if the actions within the scene don’t align with one another at all.
Once you’ve done these revisions, your manuscript will be in much better shape than it was before, so it will be much easier for the editor to go through. Even when they charge a rate per word, it can help.
How to Know Your Manuscript Rate
If you pick an editor with a set rate per word, calculating your rate follows a simple formula:
Manuscript word count x rate per word = price for edit.
However, if you want to work with an editor who charges a rate range or a rate per hour, it becomes more complicated.
You can use the calculator here to give you the price range for an edit. Always keep in mind: the better in shape your manuscript is, the more likely you’ll be charged on the lower end.
For example, at the point of writing, I charge per hour, and I always give my quote to a prospective client after editing a sample.
In this case, I usually glance over the full manuscript (which is what I usually request), picking a section here and there to sample the writing at different sections.
What tells me whether a manuscript is more or less work is:
whether certain big plot events fall approximately where they should fall
whether those events show a consistent line
how the dialogue, action, exposition, and descriptions are balanced.
Then I pick a section for my sample edit (almost never the first chapter), and I’ll edit it with Track Changes and comments, timing how long it took me to revise that section.
For example, if it took me 1 hour to edit 1000 words, I’ll use that as my base.
I know the further along I get, the faster the edit will go, so I take that into consideration. Then there’s also a minimum amount of hours that also goes into creating a scene sheet and editorial letter.
If the manuscript is overall in decent shape, I might estimate my average will turn out to be 1500 words per hour. For a manuscript of 90,000 words at a rate of $50 per hour, that would be $3,000.
However, if the manuscript has some bigger issues, I know the editorial letter will take me more time, as well as editing the big picture elements with comments and Track Changes. In that case, I might estimate my average will fall to 750 words per hour.
Keeping the word count at 90,000 words at a rate of $50 per hour, that would be $6,000.
As you can see, it pays to revise your manuscript into a good shape first.
What About Alpha Readers?
At this point, you might wonder if you should save yourself the cost of hiring a developmental editor by just getting a handful of Alpha readers to give you feedback.
And I do think it’s a good thing to have readers go through your book and let you know what they like and don’t like, what they feel works and what doesn’t.
Because that gives you valuable information: how your target reader perceives your book. (It is important here that the Alpha reader actually enjoys reading your particular brand of book. Otherwise, you’re going to get a lot of conflicting advice.)
But that’s not the same thing as a professional set of eyes picking your book apart.
For one, the type of feedback is entirely different.
An Alpha reader might tell you they just didn’t quite connect with the side character.
An editor will tell you why a side character doesn’t quite hit the mark and will give you suggestions for how you can improve this.
For example, it might be because the character doesn’t have their own goals. They just follow along with the protagonist because of plot and don’t have their own desires and wishes and personality.
That definitely beats figuring it out yourself, especially if you’re newer to writing.
Do I Need a Developmental Editor?
The truth is, while I believe a developmental edit can definitely make your book stronger, it’s not always the most-needed edit depending on your skills.
For most writers, funds are limited. You need to make choices. And what choice you should make, often depends on where you are in your writing journey.
When I first started writing, the combination of a developmental edit and manuscript evaluation was exactly what I needed.
I made a lot of mistakes in those first drafts, and I needed someone to guide me to what the story needed to be.
It did mean I didn’t have the proper funds for a line & copyedit, which I ended up doing myself (which I don’t really recommend).
By now, I have a solid grasp on story structure, how to weave in themes, and how to create satisfying character arcs.
While I know a developmental editor could help me bring these things out even more, I also know that with limited resources, I’m better off hiring that line & copyeditor at this point.
If you currently don't have the budget for a developmental edit, have a look at some budget-friendly alternatives here.
However, if you have the funds, I will always recommend both. Or, at the very least, a manuscript evaluation.
Would a Manuscript Evaluation Be Enough?
Most often, you can see a manuscript evaluation as a kind of “light” version of a developmental edit.
In my view, though, a manuscript evaluation dives much more into the global storytelling mechanisms compared to a developmental edit.
For instance, in a manuscript evaluation, most of my focus will be on the story’s structure, character arc, and even the genre alignment.
In a developmental edit, a good portion of that focus also goes to the scenes themselves: how they’re structured, how the narrative is balanced, whether there are any gaps in the plot, and so on.
So, if you struggle more with the larger elements, I would say a manuscript evaluation can be very helpful, especially if you struggle with doing the revisions yourself.
I even once had a client who came to me for a developmental edit. But as I was reading through their manuscript, I realized a manuscript evaluation was actually the better starting point. That helped them fix their bigger story issues without also paying for a lot of feedback on chapters and scenes that would most likely get cut and revised.
Even then, a developmental edit can still be incredibly helpful after you’ve fixed the global plot issues.
Because then, you can refine your scenes and narrative flow: how each chapter moves the story forward, enticing your readers to read just one more chapter, how the exposition is balanced, when you reveal what information, and a whole lot more.
In that sense, a manuscript evaluation can be enough if you’re strong enough with revising your own scenes. Or if you’ll just do a scene critique for a couple scenes you’ve struggled with.
But it pays to look clearly at your own strengths and weaknesses when deciding whether it’s enough.
If you're not sure: email the editor you'd like to work with and ask for their opinion! It never hurts to ask a prospective editor some questions before you commit.
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Is a Developmental Editor the Right Investment?
I’m biased because, after all, I am an editor.
I will always say that a developmental edit will make your book better. It is a valuable investment. It will give you a readable book with an enticing plot and characters your readers will fall in love with.
And it will give you more knowledge and skill as you learn more about writing and editing.
But only you know the funds you have. Only you know whether it’s an investment that makes sense for you right now.
Since it does cost quite a bit, you want to make sure you’ve picked a trustworthy editor. Unfortunately, there are a lot of scammers out there. It makes me genuinely sad because it doesn’t shed a good light on my profession.
But there are some things you can do to help you choose an editor who’s a good fit and will help you make your book better.
Whatever you do, always make sure you sign a contract with your editor.
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