How much should I pay outsourced writers?

It should depend on the TYPE of text, the turnaround time, and, of course, the quality.

Well if you're a writer, you should already know that you shouldn't be paying anyone $7.50.

In my experience, anything decent costs $25-50 an article. Infact I'd be happy to pay $100 per article if they were good enough.

As for what you're paying your own staff, well that's entirely up to you. But $7.50 per article seems extremely low.

How long, detailed are the articles? Are they formatted?

$10 for a good 300-400 word is what I pay mine.

I just started a "warriors for hire" ad to freelance my writing skills. I've found it insanely frustrating how many quality writers get low balled. I started on freelance sites, but people expect an unrealistic amount of work for incredibly cheap. A seasoned writer can do wonders with the use of verbiage etc.

That being said, if you're bringing in consistent work, there will be hundreds of writers that will be willing to work for $7.50, just don't expect a level of quality that will keep clients returning time and time again.

About £1 ($1.50) a word will get you someone who can write well.

I think the most difficult part is finding a good writer who will make your articles worth their price. If I was going to outsource my writing work I would give the writer around 70% of the total rate - pay well and they will be happy to continue working with you.

Although the fees are too low, I think this is a better idea. You'll get more customers if you can supply more good quality content so it's better to earn less per article if you're not writing it yourself because you can spend more time finding work.

50% of your charging price is about right. Like other people here have said, the amount you charge should reflect the quality of the articles you're producing.

A $14 article should be pretty basic compared to a $50 article

Personally, I prefer to pay my writers a bit better -- normally 75% of what I charge my clients. This encourages them to deliver better work and go the extra mile. Also, it keeps them on board, which saves me money indirectly. This is an important consideration when you're selling on a large scale and don't have time for hiccups.

Wow.
I've been following this thread and I must say I'm really surprised with your answers.
I've tried writing articles before for $5 for 500 words for a little while. Business is good but I don't want writing articles all day long even if I can. Then I saw some sellers selling 500 articles for $2.5 so I outsourced some of the work there for the articles that I need for my website.
Then here you're saying that you're willing to pay some writers $10 for a good 300 word article and $100 for a very good article (no exact number of words mentioned).

I'm really curious and I hope you can enlighten me on this, how much do you think we should offer for a good 500 word article? I'm already paying $2.5 for that but if you know any seller that can deliver me better articles I just want to know how much should I offer if I want to get that kind of writer.

You should pay your writers better. Words go out fast on the Internet and a lot of good writers will be interested in working for you. You should be strict especially with quality and delivery time. If they fail to comply and still give you low quality articles, find other writers. Always be strict with quality and you will have a lot of returning customers.

You should try iwriter for these kind of work, well you can find very good writers there who'll write very good articles for the price range of $7-$10. Mind you, there are even native English writers in there.

A 50& profit for you seems like a good idea. But you might have to up the rate from $15 to at least $25. provided the content is worthy though.

Yes. $7.50 is a fixed price per article. $15 seems big but expect higher quality.

Currently i am paying $1 per 400 words article. You can find good and cheap writers on freelancing websites

It depends I have found some writers who were willing to get paid just $5 for an article which was really goos quality

As many mentioned so far .. it depends on many factors but mainly how long the article will be . I'm assuming since you are an experienced writer that 7.50 is for about 300-400 words approximately ? i guess that can be pretty good but there is writers that will do it for cheaper but the price is good for the amount of words i mentioned.

Your question is just like asking how much you should sell a car for.

It all depends on what TYPE of car you're selling, or who you're selling it TO, and what they will be using it FOR.


You wouldn't charge the same price for a BMW Z3 that you would for a Toyota Corolla would you?


Personally, I would say to pay a decent, livable wage. $7.50 for good content, personally, wouldn't cut it for me.

It also depends on how long you want to keep good writers working for you. They might be willing to work for $7.50 per article at first but they'll quickly move on to greener pastures. This means you'll constantly be looking for new writers. If you want to hang on to your best writers you should consider paying them a higher rate.

Even those of us who write because "we love to write" still have to feed our children.

Rose

First, let's assume that the work you write yourself gives your clients the results they need for their money.

Second, let's say you and your clients along with their target markets are based in California, and you intend to outsource to writers in developing countries like the Philippines. This means you must calculate the purchasing power (not the forex value) of the USD in that particular developing country. As an example:

• Here in Manila, someone with a family of 3 and earns $1500/month will have buying power similar to a full time nurse in California with a family of 3 and earns $5000/month.

Third, answer the questions below:

• How much work can you produce per 8-hour day?
• How much are the businesses in your area (startups to 2 to 3-year old ones) paying their inhouse full time writers who work 20 8-hour work days per month?

By answering the first question above, you're setting a daily quota baseline. This is the quality and volume of work you could expect from a qualified writer, assuming you have effective screening and testing processes in place.

by answering the second question above while considering the buying power of the USD in the particular country where you intend to outsource to, you're setting a baseline price for the work you can expect from a qualified full time writer.

By having these details, you could perhaps more accurately do your calculations and project attainable revenues for your business, pinpoint competitive per-word prices to charge your clients, determine reasonable per-word rates to pay your offshore writers, and set significant net income margins to keep for yourself.

A couple of things I'd like to add:

• You won't be paying employer shares for your offshore writer's government and private insurance and benefits. You should factor this in when doing your calculations; and

• Overall content quality and daily work output volume can often be standardized when you hire writers with significant knowledge from specialized university studies and real world expertise in the particular industries where your clients operate in.

It seems that a few people understood my question while others really got hooked on the $7.50 thing. That was just an example. I asked what percentage do you give your writers, not the exact amount.

Love this thread!

Maybe I missed it, but no one touched on the price to use article writing services like textbroker.com or iwriter.com. I haven't personally used iwriter yet, but I can give my insight on textbroker.

The articles range in price, but below is a basic breakdown of their costs:
$.012 /word
$.016 /word
$.022 /word
$.067 /word

Now there are other factors such as length of article and various SEO options that will make the price go up.

Most of the articles I've had written are around 400 words, use SEO options like keywords, etc. and have a one day turn around. They cost about $8-$9 an article.

They aren't the best written articles, but as most people have pointed out, you get what you pay for. I don't think it is a terrible option, but they require some scrubbing from you to make sure they are good enough to present to a client.

I hope this helps..

Decide what price YOU would be willing to write the article for yourself and sweeten the deal.

Never pay less than you're willing to work for yourself.
Give writers bonuses so they want to continue writing for you.

Just my 2 cents.