I have had the best writer who charged me $2 a post, not seen him for a while though. Days have changed and you can now get paid upto $50 per post. Small businesses would still be looking for low cost writers though.
I've been on DP on and off for about 2 years now and in that time I have been astonished at how far prices have fallen. When I first signed up and started looking for writing work during my gap year, I was taken aback by how many people would write 500 word articles for $2 and now I find that it has actually dropped further in some cases and certain writers are charging less than $1! It is even worse when people publish a post looking for a writer and are only willing to pay a few pence (cents) for high quality work. I used to be bombarded with work on DP (and my prices are usually in the range of $7-8 per 500 words - extremely high for DP standards) but now it has just gotten ridiculous.
Yes, the price is going come down since 4-5 months!! Generally, the price for article marketing is $5-6 minimum per 400 to 500 words!! At $1 or $3, how to write it quality article, that is very elusive!! Even, sometimes, I'm baffled, when writer is offering to write an article at $3 per per 500 words!!