Starting an IT Freelance Practice: The First Clients and How to Get Them

What is this page about?

A practical guide to launching an IT freelance practice, centred on the hardest problem: getting the first three clients through your existing network, freelance platforms, and local business outreach. It covers which specialties freelance best (cloud and cybersecurity command the highest rates, general support the lowest), a rate-calculation method (target income plus about 30% for taxes and benefits, divided by 1,000-1,200 billable hours, typically 75-250 dollars an hour), legal and business setup, a reputation stack, common first-year mistakes, and the certifications that win clients.

What has been corrected on this page?

Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 11 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   9 flagged issues verified: quotes attributed to Brennan Dunn, Alan Weiss, and Paul Jarvis (all real authors) had no locatable source for these specific statements and were de-attributed; a claim attributed to 'Rachel Andrew... has written' (linking to a sister site rather than an independent source) was de-attributed; an unverified-precision Upwork stat (64 million, $1.27 trillion, $65/hr) was softened; an unverified 'HubSpot sales conversion study... 10-20 times' multiplier was softened; an unverified 'Gartner... 83 percent' stat and an unverified '2023 Freelancers Union survey... single most cited' claim were both softened; and a genuinely outdated factual claim was found and corrected -- the article stated the ISC2 (ISC)2 CC certification 'is free via the One Million Certified in Cybersecurity program,' but that program closed to new enrollments on 2026-05-20, so the blanket 'is free' claim is no longer accurate and was corrected to note the exam now carries standard pricing.

   What the page claimed

   Article cited unverifiable quotes attributed to Brennan Dunn, Alan Weiss, and Paul Jarvis; a claim attributed to Rachel Andrew sourced only to a sister site; unverified-precision Upwork stats (64 million freelancers, $1.27 trillion, $65/hr); an uncited HubSpot '10-20 times' conversion multiplier; an uncited Gartner '83 percent' stat; an uncited 2023 Freelancers Union 'single most cited' claim; and an outdated claim that the ISC2 CC exam 'is free via the One Million Certified in Cybersecurity program.'

   What was corrected

   De-attributed the Brennan Dunn, Alan Weiss, Paul Jarvis, and Rachel Andrew quotes/claims to plain prose; softened the Upwork, HubSpot, Gartner, and Freelancers Union statistics to qualitative statements; removed the corresponding unverified references from the reference list; and corrected the ISC2 CC claim to note the One Million Certified in Cybersecurity program closed to new enrollments on 2026-05-20, so the exam now carries standard pricing.

   Why: Applied fact-check corrections: de-attributed 4 unverifiable quotes/claims, softened 4 unverified/uncited statistics, removed now-unsupported references, and corrected an outdated ISC2 free-certification claim.

   View the full record →

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1 contributor has checked "Starting an IT Freelance Practice: The First Clients and How to Get Them" on Pass4Sure. Each name below links to that person's public CitePep profile, where every contribution they have made is listed with the exact change they proposed.