Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Copywriter: The 12 That Matter

The exact questions to ask before hiring a copywriter — plus the red-flag answers to walk away from. Get a fixed-price quote from Sage Writers.

Nine out of ten founders open a copywriter call with the same question: “Can you send me some samples?” It’s the weakest opener in the book. Samples show taste. They don’t show how a writer thinks, prices, briefs, or handles the moment you hate the first draft. Here’s a teardown of the three questions that waste everyone’s time, plus the twelve that actually surface fit — and the red-flag answers to listen for on each.

Why most hiring conversations go wrong

Three questions dominate first calls with copywriters. All three are near-useless.

• “Can you send me some samples?” — samples reveal taste, not process. A polished landing page tells you nothing about how many revision rounds were needed to get there, or who actually wrote it.
• “What’s your day rate?” — the answer is meaningless without scope. £400/day for two days beats £200/day for six.
• “How fast can you turn this around?” — a one-line turnaround promise is a sales answer, not a real one. It ignores briefing, revisions, and sign-off delays on your side.

None of these questions tell you whether the writer will actually deliver the outcome you want. They just fill silence on a discovery call.

The real hiring test

You’re not hiring a portfolio. You’re hiring a process, a person, and a payment structure. The twelve questions below get at all three.

The 5 fit questions to ask first

Here’s the counter-intuitive move: the best fit questions are ones the writer should be asking you. If they don’t, that’s the red flag — they’re already writing before they understand the brief.

1. Who’s the one customer I’ll be writing for?

Not “your audience”. One person. A good copywriter will push back on “small business owners aged 25–55” and ask for a name, a job, a Tuesday-morning frustration. If they accept your vague audience brief without a fight, they’re going to write vague copy.

2. What’s the outcome that would make this project a win?

More leads? A specific conversion rate? Fewer support tickets? A writer who can’t tie words to an outcome will happily write forever. A good one asks what “done and working” looks like before quoting.

3. What have you tried before that didn’t land?

This one saves months. If you rewrote your homepage twice last year, the writer needs to know why it flopped. Anyone who skips this question will repeat your mistakes on your budget.

4. Who signs off — one person or a committee?

The single most common cause of blown budgets: a founder briefs the job, then the CFO, the CTO, and a friend of the CEO all “have thoughts” at the eleventh hour. A pro asks upfront and structures revisions around the answer.

5. What’s the deadline that actually matters?

Not the deadline you invented to hurry them along. The real one — the product launch, the pitch, the PR window. If the writer doesn’t ask, they’ll optimise for the fake deadline and miss the real one.

The 4 process questions that separate pros from punters

Now flip the direction. These are the four you ask them — the ones that reveal whether you’re hiring a professional or a hopeful.

1. How many revision rounds are included? Vague answers — “as many as it takes”, “we’ll work until you’re happy” — mean scope creep is baked in. Two named rounds is the standard. Anything else needs a written explanation.
2. Who actually writes the copy — you, a junior, or an AI tool? The “small studio” test. Larger agencies often sell you the senior writer and deliver the intern. Ask by name.
3. What does your brief look like before you start? No brief document = no accountability. If they say “we just jump in”, the first invoice will hurt.
4. How do you handle a draft I hate? Listen for a process — a rewrite call, a fresh angle, a clear number of rounds. Defensiveness or “that rarely happens” is the tell.

Here’s how the typical answers stack up:

The mid-tier studio column is roughly what a shop like Sage Writers looks like in practice — small enough to talk to the writer, structured enough not to wing it.

The 3 money questions no one asks (but should)

Money questions feel awkward. Skip them and you’ll spend the whole project awkward instead.

• Is this fixed-price or hourly, and what triggers extra fees? Hourly means you’re paying for their learning curve. Fixed-price means they’ve thought about scope before quoting.
• What’s NOT included in the quote? The gotchas live here — SEO meta descriptions, image sourcing, uploading to WordPress, extra pages, “small tweaks” after sign-off.
• When do you invoice, and what are your payment terms? 50% upfront, 50% on delivery is standard. 100% upfront from an unknown writer is a flag. Net-60 from a solo writer means they’re desperate for cashflow.

Quick tip — fixed-price beats hourly for SMEs every time. You know the total before work starts, and the writer carries the risk if the job takes longer than they thought. For a deeper breakdown, our guide to freelance vs agency copywriter costs in Birmingham walks through what each model actually charges.

Red-flag answers to walk away from

You’re not looking for perfect answers. You’re listening for these five specific ones:

• “We use AI to speed things up” — with no human editor named. Great, so does everyone. Who reads it?
• “It depends” as the answer to every pricing question. Vague pricing means vague work.
• “Our team will handle it” — no named writer. You’re buying anonymity.
• A portfolio full of unnamed brands or “concept work”. Concept work is homework, not a client win.
• “That rarely happens” when you ask how they handle a draft you hate. It happens. A lot.

What if they refuse to name the writer?

Walk. There’s no upside to hiring a copywriter you can’t name, email, or call. The excuse is usually “we protect our writers from client contact” — the real reason is that the person quoting you isn’t the person writing. If a shop won’t put a name on the deliverable, they won’t stand behind it either.

How Sage Writers answers these 12 questions

We’ll answer our own homework, no hedging.

Every job at Sage Writers is written by a named senior UK writer — the same person who reads your brief also writes your first draft. There’s no junior tier, no AI drafting, no outsourced overflow. Fixed price per project, agreed before we start. First draft in five working days. Two revision rounds included as standard.

Before we write a word, we run a five-question brief — the same one covered in our about page. Who’s the one customer? What’s the win? What’s failed before? Who signs off? What’s the real deadline? The answers fit on an index card. Everything we write is measured against it.

Do you outsource any of the writing?

No. Every draft is written by the senior writer named on your quote. We don’t use offshore teams, junior ghostwriters, or AI content mills. That’s the whole point of staying small — you know who’s writing, and so do we.

What to ask on the discovery call tomorrow

Enough theory. Here’s what to do in the next twenty-four hours:

1. Print the twelve questions above and take them into your next copywriter call.
2. Write the answers down verbatim. Not paraphrased — verbatim. Vagueness lives in paraphrase.
3. Line up two or three shortlisted writers and compare answers side-by-side. Patterns show up fast.
4. Cross off anyone who dodged the money questions or refused to name the writer.

Whoever’s left is worth a second call.

If you’d rather skip the shortlisting and get a fixed-price quote from a named senior writer this week, get a free quote and we’ll come back within one working day.