How Much Do You Pay for Outsourced Writers?

Thao said:
Wow, reading this thread makes me think I'm spending too much on writers. I generally pay $0.05-$0.10/word DOE and try to find writers based in the US. I have trouble seeing how people can make a decent living here earning lower than that.
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Some people don't have to make a living, such as stay at home parents or students.
 
My average is 4 cents per word. I have gone as high as 8 cents per word in some cases, but I really didn't see any improvement in the writing.
 
I'm testing two writers on an hourly wage.

I believe this will be cheaper than paying pr. word, for the kind of quality I want.
 
$50-75 is decent for quality writers for 1,000 words. Depends if you're getting SEO writers and a more in-depth writing structure to internal and external links etc. Good writers will even upload the content for you.
 
For English content,, around $ 120-300 for a ~ 2,000 word article. It depends on how technical and complicated the content is.
 
I pay around 0.10€ per word (or 150€ for a 1000 words) here in Belgium.
With anything below this price point I haven't been able to find any decent writers.
 
Usually, 0.03 per word for general niches, but a more technical niche could be higher.

You can definitely find good quality at 0.03 cent per word. You just have to look for it. :happy:
 
I pay between 2-3 cents per word (so $20-$30 per 1000 words), for my writers.

All of my writers are subject matter experts (I do not hire generalists), who are based in the US.

Given their expertise (and location), this is a lower rate than my writers would normally accept elsewhere.

The reason why they are accepting this rate is because if needed, I could give them 2 posts per day, with an average wordcount of 2000-3000 words (so potential earnings of ~$180/day if they really go for it).

Because the writers are subject matter experts, this is completely doable for them, as far less research time is required for their posts vs generalist writers.

SCALE: This is how I can get extremely high quality content at a very affordable price per word.
 
DigitalFather said:
I pay between 2-3 cents per word (so $20-$30 per 1000 words), for my writers.

All of my writers are subject matter experts (I do not hire generalists), who are based in the US.

Given their expertise (and location), this is a lower rate than my writers would normally accept elsewhere.

The reason why they are accepting this rate is because if needed, I could give them 2 posts per day, with an average wordcount of 2000-3000 words (so potential earnings of ~$180/day if they really go for it).

Because the writers are subject matter experts, this is completely doable for them, as far less research time is required for their posts vs generalist writers.

SCALE: This is how I can get extremely high quality content at a very affordable price per word.
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are you finding these writers in their niche-specific places, like forums or FB groups? are they already writers or just subject matter experts?
 
TotoMuffinMan said:
Sorry if asked before but how much do people pay for outsourced writing? Also do you ever charge per hour or always per words? Thanks.
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$25 to $28 per thousand words. I then let the articles rank. If they end up on page 2 I update them to push them to page one. I do that myself for now and will eventually hire an hourly editor to do that via upwork. I've also used hourly via upwork for articles but it wasn't worth it at the time.
 
britt said:
are you finding these writers in their niche-specific places, like forums or FB groups? are they already writers or just subject matter experts?
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I only consider looking at niche-specific places as a last resort. I prefer looking for writers who happen to be subject matter experts in my niches. The reason why is because writers will stick around for the long-run (as writing is their career), while subject matter experts might not be able to contribute the volume of content that I want for long periods.
 
Akrtw1 said:
$20-$40 per article. I don't use wordcount. I asked the writer to Google the keyword, look at the first 1-3 results and write better, longer than them.

Also I always ask my writer to post on my site directly. I will train them on formatting.
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A nice simple SOP. Have you always used that method or did you previously do something more long winded - wondering if you have before and after type results.

It certainly seems like a lot less work than the more common SOPs, but what are the drawbacks - do you have to spend time sifting through poor results before you can find writers that have clue? Do you provide more direction that indicated above or is the above only applicable once your writer is up to speed with your expectations and you've worked together for a while?
 
jetfinder said:
A nice simple SOP. Have you always used that method or did you previously do something more long winded - wondering if you have before and after type results.

It certainly seems like a lot less work than the more common SOPs, but what are the drawbacks - do you have to spend time sifting through poor results before you can find writers that have clue? Do you provide more direction that indicated above or is the above only applicable once your writer is up to speed with your expectations and you've worked together for a while?
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I have a standard guidelines for uploading and formatting. It's your typical ones like "use your h1,h2,h3", "add 5-8 internal links and 1-3 external links", "add 2-3 images", etc.

Typically you need to educate the writers a bit in their first batch of articles but once they learn, it's much less headache.

I am playing the volume game though so my tolerance to minor mistakes is much higher.
 
In my experience, the quality of the content has minimal correlation to the price. I have had much cheaper writers at the lower end of the pay scale easily beat the quality provided by writers 5x or even 10x their price.

The video below is from an interview between Graham Stephan and the highest income freelance writer on the Fiverr platform ($378,000 per year apparently) who charges a crazy amount for her content. Around the 1 hour mark of the video they get her to do a writing test and you can judge her content for yourself...


I know she is controversial and her income claims from the Fiverr platform are disputed as well as claims that she just outsources her content orders to other writers. That said though, she was on the Fiverr ad campaign a few years back for the highest income freelancers on the platform so even if she wasn't making as much as she claims, she was still classed as of the higher income and highest rated writers on the platform.

One of the writers I used to work with on a regular basis (found on Upwork, I don't pull my writers from Fiverr) got back in touch a few weeks back and we have been talking about him doing some content orders for me again for a new blog. He's looking at $7.5 per 500 words right now and he is happy with it as he knows the niche very well so doesn't need to put much time into researching. I'm also looking to put 50,000 words his way per month for at least 3 months so he can give me a cheaper rate too and this is my main recommendation, get bulk discounts if you are happy with the performance of your writers. He's in the Philippines and English is his second language but he speaks it better than I do as a Brit.

Another thing that I would add, many of the freelance writers seemed to have dropped platforms like Upwork a few years back when Upwork put their freelancer fees up and moved to the ProBlogger market place. I have never tried it out myself and I have heard mixed reviews from people I know who use it but from what I can tell, people consider it better than Upwork these days.
 
I make a outsourcing team from Problogger, and now I pay $30/1000 word and pay them two times per month. and every 15th and the end of every month, all the writers send me an invoice including title, word count, and money, I pay them as for the invoice. this procedure works well.
 
I hired two writers recently. Both different skill sets but on the same niche. One a creative writer. One a more journalistic writer in the past.

But building the relationship and quality of both their work to be SEO centric.

One is at $0.04 per word, and the other about $0.35

Both know the niche extremely well. One lowered their rate considerably to work with me on the project because of passion for the niche.

Time will tell though if the work presents results.
 
CBDOil said:
$50-75 is decent for quality writers for 1,000 words. Depends if you're getting SEO writers and a more in-depth writing structure to internal and external links etc. Good writers will even upload the content for you.
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This depends on the the platform and agreement you have

befrchmumopa said:
I pay around 0.10€ per word (or 150€ for a 1000 words) here in Belgium.
With anything below this price point I haven't been able to find any decent writers.
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You must be making a lot of money then to spend someone's adsense earnings per article

shaunm said:
In my experience, the quality of the content has minimal correlation to the price. I have had much cheaper writers at the lower end of the pay scale easily beat the quality provided by writers 5x or even 10x their price.

The video below is from an interview between Graham Stephan and the highest income freelance writer on the Fiverr platform ($378,000 per year apparently) who charges a crazy amount for her content. Around the 1 hour mark of the video they get her to do a writing test and you can judge her content for yourself...


I know she is controversial and her income claims from the Fiverr platform are disputed as well as claims that she just outsources her content orders to other writers. That said though, she was on the Fiverr ad campaign a few years back for the highest income freelancers on the platform so even if she wasn't making as much as she claims, she was still classed as of the higher income and highest rated writers on the platform.

One of the writers I used to work with on a regular basis (found on Upwork, I don't pull my writers from Fiverr) got back in touch a few weeks back and we have been talking about him doing some content orders for me again for a new blog. He's looking at $7.5 per 500 words right now and he is happy with it as he knows the niche very well so doesn't need to put much time into researching. I'm also looking to put 50,000 words his way per month for at least 3 months so he can give me a cheaper rate too and this is my main recommendation, get bulk discounts if you are happy with the performance of your writers. He's in the Philippines and English is his second language but he speaks it better than I do as a Brit.

Another thing that I would add, many of the freelance writers seemed to have dropped platforms like Upwork a few years back when Upwork put their freelancer fees up and moved to the ProBlogger market place. I have never tried it out myself and I have heard mixed reviews from people I know who use it but from what I can tell, people consider it better than Upwork these days.
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On problogger you discus and this eliminates the middle guy, I will test it later on, I use writersaccess now with in house writers since we are Nigerians and we speak English.

I have used hirewriters in the past
 
My cheapest writer is $0.02 per word. My most expensive is $0.07 per word. When you're talking about blog writing, story writers often accept less as they enjoy the craft.
 
I used to be a content writer.

Got paid 2c - 2.5c per word when starting out.

Moved up to 4c per word for most of my clients after a few months.

Then landed a 6c per word client. The quality of the 6c was the worst as it was just rinse and repeat articles. Basically they wanted the same article rewritten for 40-50 different car brands.
 
iamkingsleyf said:
In my local currency I pay let's say ₦100 per 100 words.

That's like $0.26 per 100 words.

Most of my writers are locals though
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Would you mind sharing how/where you find your writes? Am in the same locality as you and am thinking of starting a blog that will target local keywords.
Thanks
 
I have hired a lot of writers over the years and the answer for me is always "it depends".

It depends on the type of articles I want written...
It depends on the writer I am hiring for what article...
It depends on how quick I want the articles...
It depends on how much research is needed for the articles...
It depends on much work I have for the particular writer...
ETC
 
I found a neat little hack when using crowd platforms like iWriter and WriterAcces - request from a lower grade writer, and if the copy is bad simply reject it. When you resubmit back to the crowd, usually a higher grade writer will pick up the job at the lower level pay rate. If the writer is good, save them as a favorite and you can keep requesting work from them at a lower rate! I have 2 great writers doing this for me right now!!
 
I usually write all my own content as I'm an "expert" in my niche but I'll outsource some content to friends and colleagues who have unique experiences/knowledge (e.g. professionals who use the product or have PhDs on the topic) and will pay anywhere from $50-100/1000 words. For fluff pieces I don't want to write (e.g. nothing too technical) I'll go cheap like $10-30/1000 words
 
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