How much should I pay for one hour of content creation work?

[LittleDog]

Hi I have recently been looking for some new content creators to work with. And I recently asked a blogger that I know of how much he would charge for some content creations. I told him that I'm looking for some good compelling content that is about 400 to 500 words. And he told me that he would charge $180 an hour. I sorta feel like that's a bit to much, but I don't want to jump to conclusions without any advice from you all. I'm very well versed in my SEO and do most of the work for my site. But I think a fresh touch would really be helpful.

[LittleDog]

I really liked your answer this was super helpful. Thank you.

[LittleDog]

Thank you everyone for all the info. I deff gained a lot of insight.

[LittleDog]

Thank you for all the info and tips.

[SusannahK.Noel]

I'm a content creator/copywriter. When people ask me about writing some pages for their site, I quote anywhere from $50 to $75 per hour, or I give a flat fee that's based on that rate. A blog post might be $150 to $200, and a "money" page might be $250. I've been doing this for about six years.

I know some copywriters go up to $100/hour, which I would do if the piece involved reporting and/or a lot of research. But for a blog post or a smallish site, I wouldn't charge that much.

I hope this helps!

Susannah

[BrianJGomez]

Yep, I agree with both of these posts. I looked at the site on your profile and if that's the site you are thinking about hiring a writer for, I really don't see the need to pay that much for something like that unless you KNEW for a fact that it was going to be UBER compelling. In my experience, compelling content for local businesses is usually written by someone who is a) an expert in that industry and b) has an extremely unique voice. So unless this individual checks both of these boxes, I wouldn't pay anywhere near that personally.

[amirfariabr]

I agree with Egol. If you are worth of being paid USD 180 per hour, then you don't need to sell your work, you can make money out of it easily.

In my past experience, I've seen people writing for USD 10 per hour, the quality is OK but you need to improve the text before posting. Anyway, as a content creator myself, this week I decided not to pay anymore for any content. Creating value is more important than quantity, even for SEO, as I have been noticing.

[EGOL]

Take a look at the person's previous work.   Does it get published, mentioned or linked to on extremely high quality websites - websites that everyone has heard of?  Is it interesting, helpful, hilarious, provocative?   Does it get shared?  Does it rank?  Is this person visible, known and respected throughout your industry?   Does their writing generate a lot of immediate attention and traffic when it is published on their own website?  How much would it be worth to you to have an article from this person on your website?

If their work  is published on your website do you think your visitors will respond well to it and spontaneously share it with their tribes?  If the answer to the above is "yes" then this person might not realize the value of their work and be crazy for selling it for $180 per hour.

My personal opinion is that many of the best authors don't sell their work.  They publish much of it on their own website and give the rest away without charge to websites that are valuable for "getting their message out" or helping other people.  Much of the quality content published on the moz blog fits this pattern.

(Personal opinion, I would not give a great author a wordcount.  I would want then to write what is needed to do a great job.)