‘Our copywriters are paid a sum which includes a minimum word content with quote and a seperate minimum without quotes, this sum is evaluated by the subject as if someone were writing about brain surgery more time for research is needed or the content is worthless anyway.’ – Care to disclose your rates?

Clients: If copy is a commodity, use Copify.

Writers: If you don’t value your work, use Copify.

More thoughts on the subject on The Drum

http://thedrum.co.uk/blogs/larnercaleb/2010/02/09/the-word-is-mightier-than-the-sword-unless-charged-at-0-04pence/
Larner´s last blog ..The world needs iSurgery

I still don’t understand this business premise. Who in their right mind decides that anything other than the highest standards are enough, let alone contracts out their second best wish list to an inexperienced writer they have never met and who knows nothing of their organisation? Surely they’d be better off having a stab at it themselves or doing it by committee?

And it’s not as if Copify promises a fast turnaround. A couple of jobs have March deadlines and one of them is for the princely sum of £15.20! I really don’t get the concept. Clients who are willing to settle for second or third best hires inexperienced writers to produce bog standard copy in a ‘when you can be arsed’ timescale? I’d last five minutes with an approach like that. And haven’t People per hour been doing similar, but not just for copywriting, for quite a while?

However if they want to pay a premium (they tried “Standard” before, but it wasn’t really what they were after…they need something better) then they pay extra and in turn ONLY THOSE with the experience can accept these jobs.

From your own FAQ:

If the job is rejected, it will be reviewed by the Copify team and if it is found that it does not match up to the initial brief, you will not be paid for the job.

I’m a client. I’ve paid the bargain bucket fee, and got some fairly greasy chicken. Not too impressed. Doesn’t match my brief, which was edible chicken. Fine. I go for the bigger price, I get my chicken and I go home happy.

I’m a copywriter. First article for copify. Yeah, it’s a bit greasy. But hell – if you want good chicken, don’t get drive thru. What’s this? The client’s realised he’s paid a pittance for poor copy? He’s rejected it? I’ve not been paid? I can’t re-do it because I’m not a Premium Deluxe Copywriter? I’ve wasted my time for no reward?

Nice. The way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You either devote more time to it than you’re getting paid for, or you don’t get paid. Brilliant for the agency, OK for the client, crap for the writer.

What’s my incentive for joining again?

Ok so our initial plan for the pricing on Copify (and how it stands on the website now) is based on the following;

Not everyone wants the highest standard, and not everyone can deliver the highest standard.

We can’t exclude the businesses who do (however sad it may be) only want quantity over quality. And on the flip side, is it fair to exclude the less experienced copywriters who are willing to make some money supplying this type of copy?

Also, if we don’t price per word, how do we price? We can’t price “per hour” as this hourly price will vary for each copywriter. Andrew, you may deserve £50+ per hour, but that’s you. Not everyone has your experience – but we still want to cater for these writers as their is demand they can be involved in.

So we need to know the capabilities of the copywriter (hence the “Standard”, “Professional” etc. to begin with) but also how many words are we talking? 100? 10,000? It makes a huge difference to the publishers using the site.

The simplest way for the publishers (who have no experience of the copywriter they are about to use) is to pay a fixed price per word, depending on the quality they are happy to receive. If they are happy to pay for low quality copy (hey, its a free world so let them have it) then they pay the minimum, and in turn the copywriter can deliver the minimum.

However if they want to pay a premium (they tried “Standard” before, but it wasn’t really what they were after…they need something better) then they pay extra and in turn ONLY THOSE with the experience can accept these jobs.

One big issue seems to be the cost per word figures. Please understand this is early days for Copify and these are not set in stone. This is a learning curve for us too and we need the backing of quality, experienced copywriters like yourself Andrew to get to the stage where we are comfortable in the knowledge we can raise the bar, and supply quality , well paid jobs to people like yourself.

We can’t charge a serious company top-whack when we have no idea of the quality of the copywriters in the “pool” on Copify – we are not there, yet. Once we have seen jobs completed successfully and have a good system in place to ensure only the best get paid the most, we can increase the prices as we can be sure Copify can deliver the goods.

Seriously though, I can’t see how this service offers any real value. I worked out that, even using the top notch 0.04p rate if I was to take a gamble and assume that I would be classified as a professional, I would have. at best, earned half of my normal rate for a 450 word piece and, worse still, a third of what I charged for a recent time consuming 2,500 website refresh project. Indeed I would have struggled to make the minimum wage on the latter job had it been through Copify.

Copywriting should not be priced per word because it is so much more complicated an equation than the simple how long is a piece of string principle. Some jobs in my line of work (predominantly recruitment advertising/communications) are straightforward enough and are priced on a per job basis, but the client is paying for my expertise in a specialist field where not everyone can write decent ads (take a look at any job board for examples of poor ads written, or rather, cut and pasted, by recruiters/clients) . Others, such as the website review and refresh I spoke of are a lot more involved and take far longer and thus are charged by the hour.

I am all for any new service that opens up a bunch of potential new leads to writers, but only at a rate that, at the very least, reflects the experience, professionalism and time taken to produce a piece of copy. Where the Copify model falls down for me, and I am sure for many others, is that no matter what example I take, when I work out how much I would have earned using the Copify equation, it makes pretty scary reading. I am not top of the range price wise either.

I have held my rates for the past six years and charge less than I myself was paying when I was a ’suit’ in agencies commissioning copywriting. I’ve also, in these recent credit crunch times, had to sniff around a bit more for work due to some agencies putting a freeze on the use of freelancers and generally managing to keep their writing needs in-house. But, would I consider doing a time-consuming, say six hour, job for a quarter of what I would normally charge? The answer has to be no, otherwise we are cheapening the whole art – and that to me is plain wrong.

Cheers.

Does it make sense for an agency to make it clear to their customers exactly what they pay their suppliers – especially when the rates are, at very least, questionable?
Stephen Da Cambra´s last blog ..Whatever You Do, Remember Your Brand