How much does it cost to hire a quality writer for 500 words?

What has been your experience on the minimum spending level to not make yourself regret it?

 

Depends really. There are a few people in forums like DP and bidding sites doing really good articles for $0.01/word or so but these writers are very hard to find and often unreliable. If you want to be on the safe side, I recommend you be willing to spend $0.02-$0.03 a word at the very least. That's what I usually charge my clients and a lot of other writers charge a lot more.

 

Depends on the quality you want and the type of writing you want. A standard bit of SEO-content you may even be able to get done for $0.01 a word or less - whereas a journal article or a sales letter may need you to shell out $1 a word - or more, especially from a pro.

I'd recommend you pay $0.05 a word minimum, just to be on the safer side of things

 

It actually depends on the quality of the writer and his work. The more keyword rich content he can provide, all the better for you site. 10$/100 words might be the cost to hire a good writer

 

You can not same price from people with different backgrounds. Quality and speed matters.

 

It depends on what's important to you:

1. Do you want a writer in your home country, so you have more legal protection if a copyright issue comes up, or are you willing to take on extra risk legally to outsource elsewhere and save money?

2. Do you insist on having a native English (or native in whatever language you're looking for) speaker, or do you not care as long as it's readable?

3. Do you want someone who can write well conversationally in the language, or do you only care about it being technically, or formally, correct?

4. Do you want a specialist in your niche or industry, or are you OK with a generalist (often affects the level of detail and real understanding of the subject matter)?

5. What's the motivation behind the writing? A simple SEO article will generally cost you much less than 500 words of sales copy that could lead to huge profits. The type of writer you're hiring will determine the way they charge and often how much (such as copywriters vs. content writers).

There's no simple answer. You can get people for less than a penny-per-word, or you could pay $1 / word or more. Writers fall all across the spectrum, and the price alone isn't enough to determine whether or not you'll "regret" it.

 

The level of writing too is very important. Some professional copywriters can add keyterms very wisely to the contexts in a way to stand better while used in the search engines.

 

There have been some key points raised in this thread regarding the type of writer you want and the area they would write about.

It is really hard to determine the threshold for 'regret' when it comes to paying for any type of writing. A writer may be able to turn in quality work for a low cost, however, it might not appeal to your audience as you had hoped. Similarly, a writer may turn in something you do not like, but it is well received by your audience.

Whether you pay a small amount or a large amount, you can still regret it if it doesn't do the job you intended it to do.

 

It does depend. If, for example you are looking for a writer who can write on the subject of interventional neuro-radiology, you'll have a hard time finding a per-word priced writer. If you're looking for an article on soccer, you still need an interest angle but it would be easier to find one for a per word price.

So it depends on

• The target market
• The niche
• The venue. How it will be used? An ad? Direct mail? Website? Sales Letter? Radio spot? Press Release?

 

A lot of variables go in to this however one thing I would say among all else is you usually get what you pay for. There are a lot of posters who will spam forums with bids for 1 cent per word or less and offer top quality results. I have cleaned up articles produced by writers like this and I can say from my experiences half of these articles are so poorly written that I had a hard time even figuring out what the article was about.
As a content writer I start at 2 cents per word and keep most of the rights for myself. 3 cents per word is base line for non-bulk content which the buyer has all rights to. I consider my rates fairly cheap and experienced sales writers I know charge between $1 and $3 per word.
That said my advice is to be wary of the dime stores and instead go with those who can provide samples of their work.

 

Hi All -

Great topic, because I have noticed a lot of "professional blogger" jobs where the employer is willing to pay a blogger around $5 for a 300 word post. This works out to about .01 cents per word. No matter how good you are, it would be tough to produce a quality 300 word post in less than an hour when you consider research, proofing, editing, and rewriting. It could take longer. So is $5 an hour or less what a quality writer, or even a rank beginner should earn?

I agree with the comments above -- quality writers will be pricing their work between .35 cents a word, and $1 a word. Sound high? Well particularly if "all rights" are sold (which is usually what those same employers want), then $1 a word is not high if you are signing away your right to repost on your own blog, or resell it in other forms and to other publications.

Scott Frangos, Managing Editor - WebHelperMagazine.com

 

I would find 0.04 per word reasonable for some topics, but if you'd have me writing an article on "hydroponic stabilizer" then I'd definitely up the price.

Also, it's a lot easier to write 300 words than 800 words, so I'd say price-per-word should go up as the word count goes up.

 

I am getting just 0.1$ per 5 words. I think its really low comparing what you all are charging.

 

Well the difference between $0.1 per 5 words ($10 for a 500 word article) and $0.03 per word ($15 for a 500 word article) isn't that big

 

I suggest you look for quality over price. Many times with writing services, I advise others to look for a quality writer and then negotiate price. Those super low priced writers tend to submit work that is neither unique nor of the better quality or so I have found.
Usually the price depends upon the length of the article or finished piece.
Any decent writer will typically research the topic and produce a quality piece based on findings. This adds to the time spent writing the article but can make or break the finished piece.

I tend to spend at minimum $.01 per word. Sometimes you run across a good writer offering low prices but in my own experience, you get what you pay for in the grand scheme of things.

 

Thomas, to add on what you said.

A quality writer already has some form of rep in the writer/content buyer community and he will not risk giving you crap. Whereas a peanut writer will have no problem with that, because if he gets revealed as a copy/paster or poor writer, he can just start over again.

 

The writing and transcribing services we offer, we charge out at 20 - 30 pounds an Hour, this is for original content, written to an extremely high level by someone with very high credentials including an English Degree with hons and regularly writes and transcribes for such people as Steven Sonsino, GSL- London, LBS and a few other select clients.

The reason we started doing this is due to so many low rate, cheap as chips writers, its just not worth it.

I will never pay non-western rates, imo its pointless. Just look at the caibre of sites out there, most are in English, but completely unreadable.

PS: NOT fishing for business

so to summarise, I would say 5 usd per 500 words is a waste, should be closer to 20 USD and thats a minimum.

 

True but I'm guessing it's not just because people hire bad writers cheaply. I'm thinking it's also because people from non-English nations are trying to get into the international market (which is English) and create their own content but obviously can't spell or make sense as well as a native

 

thats definetly the crux of the matter

I know i can't cook , so I stay the hell out of the kitchen.

see my point
the majority of cheap writers are non native english speakers, well in my experience.

 

Obviously, but don't diss all non-native writers as poor quality. I'm non-native ^^