Content Pricing?

[webgeek]

For those who are inclined to either occasionally or frequently buy content from UK writers, I'd like to ask your input please...

What do you consider a reasonable price for 1,000 word articles/posts/pages (no graphics) from native UK, English speaking writers of respectable content. I'm not referring to 500 word SEO articles hammered out in bulk offshore!

I am referring to something that you'd feel good about having your prospective customers read (and which would do you some good in search engines).

What should 1,000 word articles like that be priced at?


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To answer my own question, and to get things rolling, I've seen articles like this for £30, £50, £100. I think it varies on how fast the turnaround, how technical the subject matter and how well it's optimised for SEO. If you throw in a couple of pics (not any old pics, but rather stock photos that have been substantially edited to be unique), the cost goes up significantly - more like £75, £125, £200.

 

[makeusvisible]

We do quite a bit of this type of writing for our customers. The way we price it is by the hour.....which may sound a bit strange but let me explain;

When a copywriter is writing on a topic they are unfamiliar with, it takes time to research, and write a well thought out piece. If they are already familiar then obviously the process is faster.

We find for recurring clients, the articles become faster to write, as we get more clued up on the topic. You'd be amazed at what our copywriter knows about industrial fans, IBCs, and child physiology. We also find initially that when working with a client there really needs to be some 2 way communication to ensure the articles are key with their tone and brand. Again....this improves as the work continues.

As for time.... a 500 word (ish) article for a client we have been working with for some time might take 30 - 45 minutes. For a brand new project you can almost double that. Cost wise we charge £50 per hour.....some will charge more,some less.

Hope that helps.

 

[Alan]

Yes £20-£200 is good range for the all factors cited. Also £50 an hour seems a fair number for a UK business.

You can ( occasionally ) get a gem at a low rate, I have had the pleasure of an English teacher that was more than happy to supplement their income at £10 per hour - but these are rare exceptions.

 

[webgeek]

As for time.... a 500 word (ish) article for a client we have been working with for some time might take 30 - 45 minutes. For a brand new project you can almost double that. Cost wise we charge £50 per hour.....some will charge more,some less.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the detailed reply and sharing how you're approaching this - that's great stuff.

I'm typically writing, for our own site, 1500 word pieces that, when combined with getting the photos (and data necessary to make the dashboard charts/graphs), then formatting with the right markup (bootstrap and some tweaks), and finally creating an html email (using fairly bog standard similar layout each time), I can spend a full day generating a post.

External site guest posts, which often don't accept pics, and want the posts more like 800 words can be done in a couple of hours, but then again, I'm not a high volume writer and apparently not a speedy gonzalez author either

£50 an hour seems pretty reasonable for good, optimised content. After all, a good on-page SEO service is typically somewhere between £500 and £1000 per day, depending on where they're based and whether you're getting mates rates.

@makeusawebsite If you need any content writing assistance, I know someone (not me) who has done solid work and would be priced at half your client rate (£30 per 1000 word article, no VAT), so there's room to mark it up. Just PM me if you want their contact details.

 

[justinaldridge]

We have in-house writers and a high quality 1000 word article costs the client around £200. Sourcing and including images is part of the outreach process and so is not included in the above figure.

Writing the articles takes quite a bit of time as the sites we target for outreach are very high quality and generally very demanding.

It's certainly a lost more time consuming (and costly) than it used to be but everything needs to be absolute quality.

 

[AllUpHere]

As a rule, if someone asks me if I write 'content' I say no. More than happy to write copy though. In my experience, those who want copy are happy to pay a decent amount, understanding that they will get their investment back hundreds (if not thousands) of times over.

If I spend time writing something I'll make damn sure it will achieve results. Equally, as I have spent years developing the skills and knowledge required to be able to do that, I won't be doing it for 50 quid.

People simply don't seem to put the same value on content as they do on well written sales copy; probably due to the fact that those of us who can write stuff that really gets results are few and far between, where as every other person you meet these days is a content writer.

As far as prices go, I have a minimum price of £80 + VAT per hour, but usually price each job rather than working for an hourly rate.