How much do you pay freelancers?

[Logan]

I'm trying to see if what we are getting paid is fair or not. I supplies stories to weekly newspapers with circulations under 4K. Is $15 a story too little or too much for one time use?

You supply stories? Are you the middleman or something? If so, that's a decent cut of the overall fee, I guess.

​

First, thank you for all the responses so far.

To answer some of the questions asked:

1. Sometimes I'm the middleman and other times I'm the writer.

2. Mileage is paid at IRS rate.

3. I wasn't clear, but these are weekly papers with a 4K or lower circulation.

4. All prep sports and mostly game stories. Occassional sports features once in a while.

5. One time use. We sometimes license the stories to multiple publications.

6. We are in located near a college town where the cost of living is nearly the lowest in the state.

I agree the pay isn't too great if where in a larger metro community, especially for a five hour football game. We try to cover games where we have multiple publications interested in the content so with two team sports or events so we'd actually earn $30 for that coverage.

Again thanks for your input. If you have additional thoughts I'm listening. Thanks!

 

[Gomer]

Logan, based on all that info I'd say $30 should be fine, maybe $50 for features. Never $15. If you're spending more than an hour combined at the event AND writing it, $15 is a slap in the face.

 

[Paul Hewson]

Logan, it has nothing to do with the cost of living. It has everything to do with the price you put on your time. When I was 20, I was happy to make a buck. Today, my kids don't eat if I write stories for $15 a pop. My time is worth much more today. I can't justify $15 for four hours of work. That's not even $4 an hour. If that's all I'm making, I'd rather be a door greeter at Walmart. At least they get a cool blue vest.

 

[lmcmillan33]

Most of the smaller daily papers around here pay $25 per story with no mileage included, including my own. I feel bad about it (I have no say in the pay amount), but typically it's college kids who want experience (and would do it for nothing) and usually it's an easy assignment like football tab previews that involve calling a coach and talking for 10 minutes and writing a story in 30 minutes. In those cases, it's not such a bad deal.

 

[Jay Sherman]

Logan, it has nothing to do with the cost of living. It has everything to do with the price you put on your time. When I was 20, I was happy to make a buck. Today, my kids don't eat if I write stories for $15 a pop. My time is worth much more today. I can't justify $15 for four hours of work. That's not even $4 an hour. If that's all I'm making, I'd rather be a door greeter at Walmart. At least they get a cool blue vest.

:D

 

[WoodyWommack]

I string for papers all shapes and sizes all over the country and I've never been offered less than $50 per story. That includes a 5K weekly that I contribute to on occasion.

 

[hpdrifter]

I can tell you that I have worked for $50 for the past two years, and I always thought it seemed like a standard that had been around for a number of years. I guess I was right. I started adding an extra $10 for some assignments. I figured the editors would say something if they didn't like it. But it was my way of getting a few extra bucks for the longer trips.

With the cost of everything rising these days, it seems natural to want more per assignment. But it's tough for a newspaper to justify paying someone $75 to cover Podunk vs. ****sville. This is particularly true for those papers that try to cover the mediocre to abysmal games.

So some prep guys are probably trying to decide whether to pay stringers $50-$75 and limit their coverage to the bigger match-ups or pay a bunch of stringers $35-$40 and cover more games.

Of course, it's getting a little wild with all the cost-cutting. So who knows how things will come out when the wash is finished. I just know that my underwear will be pink.

Yeah, but I hear ****sville is loaded this season.

 

[mike311gd]

We start at $60.