in-house content folks: what do people expect to pay for a 1200ish word blog post?

I think it depends on the quality. I've seen a post that sits around that range from 90 dollars to 3-400 dollars. Niche writers who really understand what you're going for will be more expensive - but ultimately worth it. As someone who commissions a lot of external content, the question becomes "will I need to take this another 10% or 40% to get it to where it needs to be?"

experience is a huge variable as well as pedigree: when I hired freelancers who were former journalists (wired/fast co/gawker/etc), we typically paid about $1,800-2,000 for a post like that—which included interviewing the SME and a handful of revisions

@numerous-agency-61749 do find that there's a sweet spot, e.g. you pay enough that you don't have to do a ton of work

agree with @numerous-agency-61749 on niche writers being worth the money. i was in a niche space of influencer marketing for fintechs and we had a writer who knew his stuff and it showed. $400 for 500 words. $750 for ~1,000 words

If the writer is interviewing sources, it’s a different rate than writing a blog that just involves online research. Most companies I’ve written for pay about $1-$2 a word with the understanding that you as a writer a) have subject matter expertise b) you’re interviewing 2-3 subject matter experts. I’ve always tried to pay my writers a minimum of $1 a word and I find that the quality of the writing and the writers I’m working with are great

@plain-ability-19865 Honestly, yeah. First, I want to preface that "too expensive" reads more that we can't fit it into our budget, and not a reflection of whether the work being worth that amount. I do find that in the mid range between those amounts (180-250 dollars or so), I usually have to take it the last 10-15% or so and it's good to go.

Love how this question is for in-house folks. When I was working in-house, all freelancers I reached out to [a lot, not just 10] were giving me crazy rates like 0,80-1$. Catch is, I knew how much the companies they were writing for were willing to pay. Sometimes that was just 0.20/word. For some, the higher rates were justified. In most cases, nope.