Make Money Writing Product Descriptions
Right now, there’s an online shopping boom. People are buying everything from groceries to houses on the internet. And rarely do you see a picture of something for sale without some words.
A lot of that wording is purchased from freelance copywriters.
Writing Product Descriptions
The requirements and rates for this type of work vary widely. I’ve written product descriptions for small businesses and big ones, such as Zulily, Hayneedle and Sam’s Club.
In some instances, the rates started at about $2 each for short 25-word to 75-word descriptions that only required looking at the product and writing something that would appeal to shoppers.
In other instances, the rates ranged from the teens to nearly $30 per 100-word to 500-word description. Those higher-paying gigs required more work, such as creating descriptions with multiple flowing paragraphs and getting the necessary info from product sheets or spreadsheets. There were also often tedious tasks involved, like creating bullet points with contents and care instructions or adding an FAQ section.
In most cases, no matter the rate, product description jobs usually come in batches, and you can get a lot done in a little time.
You may, for example, get a file folder with 120 dresses paying $3 per description. That’s $360. Depending on how fast you work, you may finish that batch in four hours, allowing you to go about your day or do other types of work.
During a normal winter holiday season—meaning one that isn’t plagued by 2021-style supply problems—product turnover is often so high you can work seven days a week writing product descriptions if you wanted to.
Several years ago, during my peak month for writing product descriptions, I made in the range of $5,200 from just that. It was during the holiday season, working in the range of four to five hours a day, five days a week plus I worked two Saturdays.
As far as loving the work, well… Some of it I enjoyed, at least some of the time. Writing about clothes and home decor can be fun and offer room for creativity. But I have also had extra-dry assignments that involved writing about highlighters and oven door handles.
Below is a screenshot from some work I did a few years ago when I was reviewing Metro for this site.
Metro is a platform where you find product description gigs. One of the best things about the platform, in my opinion, is that they hire fast and pay three times a week. And you don’t have to commit to batches. You can write one description a day or 100 if the work is available.
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