Copywriting is one of the professions most strongly affected by the changes of the past two years, and at the same time, Ukrainian materials on this topic mostly avoid this issue. Let’s first look at the current figures and then at what lies behind them.

Current Rates

According to Ukraine’s largest job search platform, the average copywriter salary in September 2026 was twenty-five thousand hryvnias, and this figure was calculated based on seventy-two vacancies. The range runs from approximately fifteen thousand to forty-three thousand hryvnias. Freelance work is usually paid by volume, and the picture here is as follows. The lower segment, meaning freelance marketplaces and work by beginners, pays approximately sixty to one hundred hryvnias per thousand characters. The middle segment, meaning specialized studios, pays approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty hryvnias. Experienced authors in the Ukrainian market charge approximately one hundred and fifty to two hundred hryvnias per thousand characters. English-language texts are paid for in a fundamentally different way, at approximately ten to twenty-five dollars for the same thousand characters, which amounts to a difference of several times when converted into hryvnias.

The Figure That Says More Than the Others

The average copywriter salary increased by approximately four percent compared with September of the previous year. For comparison, the average salary across the country increased by approximately twenty-five percent nominally over the same period. In other words, in real terms, copywriters’ income is not increasing but declining, since four percent does not cover either inflation or the overall growth of the labor market. The second telling detail is the number of vacancies: seventy-two positions across the entire country on a single platform. Together, these two facts mean that the market is under pressure.

What Exactly Has Changed

The reason is not a mystery, although Ukrainian materials mostly do not mention it. Generative models perform well at precisely the type of text tasks that formed the foundation of mass-market copywriting: product descriptions, search engine optimization page content, rewriting existing materials in different words, and typical general-interest articles. This does not mean that such texts have become high-quality. It means that a client who previously needed an acceptable text for one hundred hryvnias can now obtain approximately the same result independently. As a result, the lower segment of the market has contracted the most, and it was precisely this segment that served as the entry point for beginners. The logic is the same as the one I described in my article about the impact of technology on professions: it is tasks, not professions, that are automated, and the first to go are those performed according to clear rules without the need for judgment.

The Per-Character Payment Model Is Falling Apart

Here is a consequence worth understanding, even if you do not plan to write texts. Payment per thousand characters made sense when the length of a text directly corresponded to the time spent on it, meaning that the author physically had to write those characters. Now, volume is no longer a limiting factor, since ten thousand characters can be generated in a minute. Therefore, this payment model is gradually losing its meaning for both parties. The client does not pay for the number of characters but for the text to accomplish its purpose. An author who sells characters competes with a tool that produces them for free. The practical conclusion is that switching to payment per project or per result is not a way to earn more, but a condition for remaining in the market.

What Has Not Been Replaced

Now let’s look at where demand has remained or even increased. Texts that require fact-checking, because a model confidently invents facts, and materials where mistakes have consequences require a person who is responsible for every statement. Texts based on primary sources, meaning interviews, conversations with experts, and personal work experience in an industry. They cannot be generated because this information is not available in any training data. Texts requiring in-depth knowledge of a specific business, meaning those that take real processes, customer objections, and the specifics of a niche into account. Texts for which someone bears responsibility, meaning legal, medical, and financial materials where the cost of a mistake is measured in money or reputation. Editorial work, meaning bringing a draft to a usable state, checking facts, and ensuring a consistent style. This role has not disappeared; it has become more in demand because the volume of drafts has increased. The common feature of all these categories is that what is being sold is not text, but judgment and responsibility.

What This Means in Practice

For those who already work in this field, there are three possible courses of action. The first is to shift toward industry expertise, meaning choosing a specific field and studying it in depth. An author who understands construction, medical equipment, or financial products competes not with a tool, but with a handful of people in the country. The second is to change roles from an executor to someone responsible for the result, meaning not simply writing a text, but being responsible for ensuring that a page attracts customers. The third is to enter the English-language market, since the difference in rates is several times, and I wrote about the mechanics of this type of work in my article about remote cooperation with foreign companies. For those who are only considering this profession, the honest answer looks like this. Entering the lower segment now makes little sense because it is precisely this segment that is disappearing. Entering the field makes sense when you already have a domain, meaning an area in which you understand things better than the average person, and writing becomes a way to sell that expertise.

About Using Tools at Work

Using models for drafts, structuring, and finding the right wording has become standard practice, and clients are usually interested in the result rather than the process. The problem arises elsewhere, namely when an author submits generated text without checking it and without adding their own contribution. Such material is easy to recognize by its lack of specifics, its general statements without figures, and the fact that it is equally suitable for any client. This is precisely what devalues the work, because the client asks themselves what they are paying for if they receive something they could have generated themselves. The working approach looks different. The tool speeds up preparation, while the value comes from fact-checking, specific details from real sources, understanding the client’s business, and responsibility for the result. I wrote separately about where these tools make mistakes most often.

How Much Can You Earn?

Realistic benchmarks for the Ukrainian market look like this. A beginner in the lower segment earns approximately fifteen to twenty thousand hryvnias per month, and this segment is shrinking. An author with industry specialization reaches approximately twenty-five to forty thousand. A specialist who works with English-speaking clients or combines writing with responsibility for results can earn substantially higher amounts, although this is no longer copywriting in the classical sense.

It is also worth considering separately that a fixed in-house salary provides stability, while freelancing offers a higher upper limit with greater instability.

Sources

Work.ua data on the average copywriter salary as of September 2026, reviews of per-volume rates from specialized studios, and State Statistics Service data on overall salary growth.