$3 Articles?!

How do you know they are under priced.

Are you basing that on the cost of living in the U.S., Europe, Australia??

In some places in the world, $3.00 or $5.00 is quite a bit of money.

Another thing is getting yourself out there. There are many talented individuals that might be putting themselves in the market at low prices to get themselves a following, it is called investment in your business.

Just my opinion

al

$3 an Article?
If I saw someone selling their writing services at $3 an article, I doubt the articles are either unique or high quality.

At those prices, it's either reused articles, stolen content (e.g copying an article from an article directory) or PLR content that contains some changes/spun version.

Those prices are nearing PLR content prices. And, the only reason why PLR content is so cheap, is because the costs of producing that content is shared by multiple buyers.

What about $5 an article?
I don't know about this one. There's a lot of people who write or who rewrite pieces of content for $5 on Fiverr.

Maybe they sell their services so low, as a way to get their foot in the door... and then have higher prices content options...

I have bought some articles for the $3 to $5 range and have mixed reviews - mostly bad. However, have found some that were good and were trying to get there name out there. If I find someone good I re-order.

For those who get constant positive reviews, I'm willing to bet they don't know how to write a compelling lede. Writing is an art form. There are many people who are 'good' writers out there, and less exist still that are 'great' writers.

Sure. Someone can draw a picture, but the art of it is knowing how to frame that drawing, thinking about each and every color to use, which angle is the drawing done from, and so on. You might get a piece of writing that explains what you want, but you probably won't get a piece of art that is as compelling, succinct, thought-provoking (or action-provoking) as it could be. When you want a $3 article (or a $3 picture), you get a drawing, not a piece of artwork.

At least, as a writer, that's what I think.

At that level, you're not addressing writers, so much as text-manipulators. It's been brought up many times before on this forum, and elsewhere, but the sub $5-$10 article market is almost peculiar to the IM sphere. It's a purely commodity-based trade in which writers who can't write supply readers who can't read. As such, both parties are satisfied and probably deserve each other.

Meanwhile professional writers can go about their business providing quality work to canny publishers who understand the real value of truly compelling content.

Frank

For an American $3 is nothing. But in other countries where the value of the dollar is much higher, $3 is a good chunk of change.

Here is an example BELLY DANCING: An Evergreen Tradition | Dance Mamas Bought it for 5$.

It looks good, but since I jus started in AM I have no idea, if it really is good enough. Someone more experienced maybe could share his opinion.

Let's me do the calculation:

- If they work 8 hours per day and could produce 1 article per hour = 1 x 8 = 8 articles per day
- If they work 6 days per week and 4 weeks per month = 8 x 6 = 48 x 4 = 192 articles per month
- If they charge $3 per article = 192 x 3 = $576/month

$576/month is nothing in developed countries. They won't ever ever charge with this rate (except they just start up and want the base portfolio).

Yet, in most under developing or developing countries which the average wage is $100/month, $500/month is not that bad.

The problem is the quality articles which are written by them not the problem that they charge this rate because they're comfortable with this rates and easy to compete with native or near native writers out there.

New golden idea... Hook up with highschool/college english teachers. Tell them to assign homework which involves the students writing short 500 articles about a specific topic each night.
Sell the articles for $3 each. Hue hue hue

Many good writers charge relatively low rates because they need the volume. They just love to write and expand their horizons. Usually, the lower your rates, the more orders you get.

A $3 or even $5 article is complete garbage. I wouldn't trust anyone selling an article at that price in the first place.

As long as it's a good article, who cares about the price. You can easily pay $50 for that same $3 article

For some people in different countries, it's well worth their time. In some places like China and the Philippines, you can work the rice fields from Sun up to Sun down for 3-4 dollars a day.

I'd be cautious about buying of $3 articles, but $3 is a cheap price to test it out.

I will like to quote a comment from a fellow warrior on a post which I read somewhere "There is a market for junk cars and there is a market for BMW." Similarly, there is a market for $3 article and there is a market for $100 articles.
At the end of the day, it should satisfy your business needs.

It's all relative. If people are writing in some countries such as India, their standard of English may be amazing because of their history as part of the British connection. However some live on $1 a day so in that context $3 is amazing. I've used Indian writers before and they are excellent.

"Underpriced"....? If it's making them a ton of money, why would they care about being underpriced? These people have a life to live.

It depends upon many factors, if they're new it may be that some marketer in the past had told them that in order to sell anything they had to practically give everything away. The theory is that new people are more likely to be scammers so to build a reputation you have to take a huge hit.

I tend to disagree that you should hurt in order to possibly profit later on. If you're services are top notch there will be those that will take a leap of faith and help you gain more of a following with their reviews.

There is also the possibility that they are trying to get tons of people to purchase at the deeply discounted price, get them hooked and later up the price to a more reasonable amount.

What ever the reasoning, it will work in some instances and sometimes not work at all!

There are a lot of reasons.
Both good and bad.,
Just keep in mind the old motto - you get what you pay for.

Personally, I have yet to find writing that I find acceptable (interesting, factual, original, proper english, no awkward phrasing) at less than $20 an article. More if I want all rights.

Unless I write it myself. Which I frequently do.

Good professional writing is expensive. Relatively.

As someone who started with the $5 articles I can say this.

For someone new to the game the only way to get attention is low prices until you learn how to brand and get new clients.

If you can write semi-fast you can still make $10/hr - for someone in college (also like me haha) this isn't chump change - it's easy and it doesn't require certain hours!

Hope that helps answer some questions.

There are a few cheap writers out there who deliver quality articles. But the general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for. A low price usually means a low quality.

Thats usally what you get! There are a lot of good spinners out there. You can google for article writers in the "article writers in the philippines" and get an idea I guess

I'm a writer, but I'm lazy sometimes. I bought a bunch of $5 articles for my blog. They were terrible. They needed so much correction that I could have written them from scratch faster. I think the people that are okay with the quality of these cheap articles probably don't know enough about grammar to realize the articles are awful.

I'm sure there is a rare gem out there, but I tried 20+ writers and wasn't satisfied with any of them.

It's absolutely feasible to get content for $3 per article.

But here's the thing.

Different content serves different purposes. There are a few instances where low quality content will actually suffice, like in the case of review sites, bridge-sites or thin-content sites. (We can argue that these sites will be of low quality, but that isn’t the argument. The argument is that there is indeed a market for low-quality articles).

But what if you want real high quality engaging content? It's going to cost more than a few dollars.

My Advice to Newbie Content Writers: As someone that has taken on many paid writing contracts, I can tell you that starting for cheap is often a GREAT way to build awareness for your expertise. Especially when the majority of content writers selling for low prices, absolutely suck. If you're any good? You can develop a higher demand by over-delivering. When your demand increases, which it will, you should increase your rates.

A lot of naysayers would contend, “But if you’re charging pennies you absolutely suck and are a fool!” – Which is true, but the full reality of the situation is that, just because you start out for pennies, doesn’t mean you have to REMAIN there. Everyone needs to start somewhere. It’s only unfortunate when a writer (or any service provider) is unable to increase their rates over a period of time, some more rapidly than others.

So don't be afraid to start small; if you're any good, and start accepting volumes of content? Clients will soon realize that you can write well; then they'll want to buy 10x more. Then more and more clients do the same. That's when you know you need to raise your prices. Drastically. We call this “The Inverse Bait and Switch”.

And when your demand surpasses your ability to create content? I leave you with a word of advice (And master business philosophy) from a long ago Emperor.

"France has more need of me than I of France"-Napoleon Bonaparte

I do have to admit, I have been selling articles here and there for $5. Most of the time, I charge much more, but it can be a bit difficult to get your name out there. I know that my work is worth much more than a mere $5. I am trying to get my foot in the door and get my name out there mostly. I know its bad, but I do write for content mills such as Text Broker and iWriter. I am working on starting my own website to sell my PLR packs and will accept requests for custom articles (all in the nutrition/fitness/alternative medicine niche). Of course those will cost more than $5, but I have to start somewhere.

I used to work for a client who would only pay 1 cent per word for articles and I managed to make a decent amount of money because he had an unlimited supply of work. I wrote these articles in 10-20 minutes, maybe the quality was not the best, but he was happy with them. I won't lower my rates again but it is possible to make good money writing for cheap because more often than not the employer does not have a very strong grasp of the English language and won't expect perfection.

The most I made writing for this client was 100$ in one day - well, more like a few hours.

I am not recommending writing for low rates, the point that I am trying to make is that if you know how to write fast, it is easy to make money writing for 1 cent per word.

Just what I think.

Sorry to resurrect the thread, but I found this blog post that might help anyone concerned --> Why Freelance Writers Need to Make $100 an Hour - Make A Living Writing

I was also skeptical of the quality of the articles that were being offered for about $5 or so, but after ordering a few, I was quite surprised. I actually got some quality material. I think that today there is too much competition out there for a writer not to offer anything but quality material. Im sure they know that it is in their interest to attract the buyers to come back to them again.

If everyone's offering the same price to write articles, buyers wouldn't know which one's better unless there are excellent reviews for a particular writer. The cheaper would stick out.

Some people do not have the skill to charge more than $3-5 an article. Their english simply isnt good enough. And for most of these people $3-5 is pretty good money.

Now for the person buying them they probably will not use the content for money site but could very well be using this content for tier 1, tier 2, linkbuilding as well as their own private blog networks.

I've yet to find a good article writer for under $50. I've seen claims that you can find good writers for cheaper, even $2.50 an article.

I believe this is because some people don't know any better. They're either not smart enough, not educated enough or their reading skills aren't good enough to know the difference. They see crap writing and they think it's good.

I think its competition which made them to offer such low price. And sometimes these offer providers outsource their writings from freelancers at more lower price and make a profit. So, their motive is to sell more and making more profit from more sales- this is a good idea to buildup a business. How is that ?

Aren't the search engines asking for bigger better content, no more general cookie cutter stuff that everyone has already? It's the big/epic content that gets linked to, shared, and stays relevant longer not the $5-10 general stuff. When will the low cost, not as helpful content stop "having its place" on the internet? When google makes the killer zebra update that's when! hehe

You know what I REALLY love.. spending hours and hours reading sites with $3 content, I just can't get enough of it.. I really connect with what they're telling me, it's like they know my pain.

I don't even know why people charge under $10 an article. I started out selling 400 to 450-word articles for $12 apiece and had no problem finding clients.

In my opinion, there are a few reasons a writer would have to set their rates so low. The first reason is obvious: the writer is lacking in talent. A second reason probably has to do with websites like Elance and oDesk fooling people into thinking that they can't make decent money writing articles. Or, like others have suggested, maybe the writer is new on the scene and would rather set their prices low in order to get more work and establish themselves.

I just don't think it's necessary to charge so little in order to build a client base. If you're competent, charge ten bucks at the very least. I personally don't enjoy working with most IM people that don't want to pay at least 10-15 bucks for an article.

I originally charged 5$ for a 500 word article to get more clients, and to get noticed.

Now that I'm getting clients I'm slowly raising the price, sometimes it's just a good way to get your name out there.

Plus, I can write relatively quickly, so the pay really isn't too bad.

One thing is original content writing matching chosen keywords that matter for your websites and other thing is spinning articles making it unique.If u spin articles it doesn`t take much of the time but if you want original articles that need keyword research that is different and definitely more than price mentioned above.

I hope you got the message

I wouldn't automatically assume that a $3 or $5 article is poorly written. When I first got started writing I sold some articles on a sister forum for $3 each and the buyer turned right around and sold them on the same forum for $5. He then emailed me to say if I would sell my articles at a bulk rate he could supply plenty of work! I was already at rock bottom prices for quality content. I felt insulted and turned down his offer. The best way to judge the quality is to buy one article. My buyer recognized he had discovered a gold mine.

There are issues, may be $3 is less amount to a person of developed country, but to a person of under developed country $3 is not bad for an article. If it takes 1 hour to write an article and he earns $3 for this, then his hourly rate is $3. In Odesk, Elance there are a lot of quality service providers whose hourly rate is $3 or less.

So in this point of view, I believe, with $3 you may not get high quality article, but you will get something that is not bad. Also, if you want to use these articles for SEO purpose, then these articles are the best at reasonable costings. But, if you want to use them as website content, then these will never be good.