Market and competitors
Two markets sit on top of each other: a commodity software category where the cheapest credible product costs $2.39 an article, and a services category where a professional 1,500-word article costs $225 to $675. Austen is priced in the second and built out of the first. This chapter is every price, with a URL and a check date, so you never guess in a meeting.
The read
- The software category is a knife fight. Frase is at $2.39 an article, Byword at $3.33 to $3.96, MarketMuse withdrew its pricing entirely after being acquired, and Copy.ai abandoned the mid-market for a $1,000 a month floor.S11S12S15S18 Austen's $99 and $299 plans sit in that fight and cannot win it on price.
- The hybrid category is where the money is, and it is already proven. Verblio sells AI plus a human at $0.06 a word plus a $49.50 monthly platform fee, about $90 for a 1,500-word article.S21 That price clears. It is also your floor.
- The service category above it is expensive and unhappy. The EFA's 2026 rate chart puts ghostwriting at 15 to 30 cents a word, $225 to $450 for 1,500 words, and Ahrefs' survey of 439 providers puts the average agency content retainer at $3,209 a month.S23S26 The $2,500 pilot and the $2,000 to $2,500 retainer are priced against these, not against Byword.
- Nobody in the software table employs editors. That is the only durable line you have. Use it in every meeting.
Software: AI content generation, cheapest per article first
Prices as published on each vendor's own pricing page, checked 4 September 2026 and re-checked 30 September 2026. The only change is Penfriend, now taken from its own site rather than a third-party index.S11S19
| Product | Published price | Per article | What it does not do | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frase Professional / Scale | $103/mo for 40 articles; $239/mo for 100 (annual) | $2.58 / $2.39 | No human edit. SEO briefs and drafts. | frase.io |
| Byword Starter / Standard / Scale | $99 for 25; $299 for 80; $999 for 300 | $3.96 / $3.74 / $3.33 | No human edit. Bulk publishing at volume. | byword.ai |
| Frase / Byword pay as you go | $4 to $5 per article | $4 to $5 | Same. | frase.io |
| Writesonic StarterS13 | $79/mo for 15 articles | $5.27 | No human edit. Closest published shape to Austen Starter. | writesonic.com |
| Writesonic Basic / Growth | $199 for 25; $399 for 50 | $7.96 / $7.98 | Same. | writesonic.com |
| Clearscope Essentials / Business | $129/mo (20 drafts) / $399/mo, unlimited seats on every tier | $6.45 / $19.95 | Optimisation grading, not finished articles. | clearscope.io |
| Penfriend Solo / Team / MaxS19 | $89/mo for 8; $229/mo for 20; $429/mo for 40 | $11.13 / $11.45 / $10.73 | No human edit. | penfriend.ai |
| AirOps Solo, marginalS20 | $0.025 per task, roughly 500 to 800 tasks per article | $12.50 to $20 | A workflow builder. The buyer assembles the pipeline you already ship. | airops.com |
| Surfer Discovery to Peace of Mind | $49 to $299/mo | $0.28 to $0.51 per optimisation doc | Optimises documents; does not write finished articles. | surferseo.com |
| Jasper Pro | $69 per seat/mo ($59 annual), no word cap | Seat priced | No human edit. Enterprise brand platform. | jasper.ai |
| Jasper Business | Not published. Vendr average contract value $25,000/yr across 48 deals, range $7,000 to $74,700 | Not comparable | A procurement cycle you cannot reach in 90 days. | vendr.com |
| Copy.ai Chat / Growth / Expansion / Scale | $29/mo (5 seats); then $1,000 / $2,000 / $3,000 per month, annual only | Not comparable | Has abandoned the mid-market, and was acquired by the RevOps platform Fullcast in October 2025.S15 Their $1,000 floor is your ceiling argument. | copy.ai |
| MarketMuse | Pricing withdrawn; acquired by Siteimprove in October 2024, now an enterprise add-on | Not published | Gone from the mid-market. Say so if a buyer names it. | marketmuse.com |
| Austen Starter / Pro | $99/mo for 15; $299/mo for 50S1 | $6.60 / $5.98 | Human editing is available on every plan, priced separately. | austenapp.com |
Do not sell Starter and Pro cold. Against this table, a $99 plan for 15 articles is a fair price and an unwinnable argument. Starter and Pro are what a pilot converts into, or what a very small team self-serves into after finding you. They are not the opening offer.
Services: what a finished article actually costs today
| Provider | Published price | Per 1,500-word article | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verblio AI plus human hybrid | $0.06/word plus $49.50/mo platform fee | $90 | verblio.com |
| Verblio 100% human | $0.16/word | $240 | verblio.com |
| Compose.ly | $0.06 to $0.22/word | $90 to $330 | feedbird.com |
| EFA 2026 rate chart, 1,100+ respondents, fielded Nov 2025 to Jan 2026 | Ghostwriting 15 to 30 cents/word; work for hire 25 to 45 cents/word | $225 to $450 / $375 to $675 | the-efa.org |
| UK freelance blog postS24 | GBP 150 to 400 standard; GBP 400 to 900 pillar | About $190 to $505 | whito.co.uk |
| Draft.dev, technicalS25 | $600 to $700 per article; engagements from $6,000/mo | $600 to $700 | draft.dev |
| Ahrefs survey, 439 providers | Agency retainer average $3,209/mo; agency per project average $9,508 | Not per article | ahrefs.com |
| ClearVoice managed folded into Fiverr | Reported from $249/mo for the Content plan, plus $100 to $500+ per piece. Its own site no longer resolvesS27 | $100 to $500 | miniloop.ai |
| Austen pilot | $2,500 for 10 finished, human-edited articles in 30 daysS3 | $250 | Not live yet: austenapp.com/pilot returned 404 on 30 September 2026 |
| Austen retainer | $2,000 to $2,500/mo for 8 finished, human-edited articles | $250 to $313 | This guide, Chapter 3 |
Where $250 sits. It is 2.8 times Verblio's hybrid, inside the EFA's ghostwriting band, below the EFA's work-for-hire band, below Draft.dev, and 78% of the average agency retainer for eight pieces instead of an unspecified programme. That is a defensible position, and the argument for it is never "cheaper". It is "finished, on brand, edited by a named editorial firm, and you approved the brief".
The proofreading category next door, because buyers conflate them
You will meet buyers who think "AI plus editing" means Grammarly. It does not, and the numbers help you say so.S28
| Product | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Grammarly Business | $15/user/mo list; average contract value $12,825/yr across 179 deals | vendr.com |
| Scribbr proofreading | $0.017 to $0.053/word by turnaround, plus a $25 setup fee | scribbr.com |
| Wiley Editing Services | About $311 for a 2,000-word manuscript, roughly $0.155/word | wileyeditingservices.com |
| Proofed retail | $105 for 3,000 words at one-day turnaround, about $0.035/word; $315 urgent | proofed.com |
| Proofed managed service | $65/hr, falling with retainer size, against a stated $90/hr in-house comparison | proofed.com/business |
Grammarly checks a document. Proofed edits it, with a person, against a style guide, and hands back tracked changes. When a buyer says "we have Grammarly", that distinction is the answer, and it is also the reason your cost of goods is real and theirs is not.
Positioning, in one paragraph you can say out loud
Austen is a content engine with an editorial firm behind it. Software alone gets you a draft for a few dollars and there are a dozen good products that do it. A freelancer or an agency gets you a finished article for $225 to $675, or a retainer averaging $3,209 a month, and you manage them. Austen gets you a finished, on-brand, professionally edited article for $250, at ten a month if you want it, with the brief approved before anything is written and the edit shown as tracked changes. You are not buying cheaper words. You are buying a publishing pipeline that ends with an editor.
Who you are actually against, by deal shape
| Deal | The real incumbent | The line that wins |
|---|---|---|
| Agency, white-label resale | Their freelance bench at $0.10 to $0.14 a wordS22 | "You brief once instead of nine times, and the margin on the client's line item goes up rather than down." |
| B2B SaaS hiring a content marketer | The open req itself | "The pilot costs less than one month of the salary you are advertising, and it delivers while you are still interviewing." |
| Professional services firm | Partners who will not write, and one marcomms person who cannot edit fast enough | "Your partners approve a brief and review tracked changes. Neither of those is drafting." |
| E-commerce, regulated claims | Nothing, or an intern with ChatGPT | "An unedited AI claim on a supplement page is a compliance event. Ours is edited by a professional before you see it." |
| Publisher commercial desk | Freelance editors and a maternity-cover gap | "Surge capacity you can turn on for one campaign and off again, without a contract." |
| University or training provider | A team of four owning the whole web estate | "Proofed already edits academic work. This is the same bench, writing the course pages you have not had time to refresh." |
| Anyone who has just tried an assistant | ChatGPT or Claude | "Keep using it. Connect Austen to it and the same request produces a researched, on-brand article with its SEO and GEO scores, saved in Austen and ready to send for a professional edit, instead of a draft in a chat window." |
Marketplaces: where content services are actually bought
Ten platforms, checked 4 September 2026. Where a figure is not published it says so.S30
| Platform | Buyer pays | Take rate | Can a company list? | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upwork | Freelancer's own rate plus a 5% marketplace fee on Basic (3% for eligible US clients paying by checking account), 10% on Business Plus (8% discounted), plus a $0.99 to $14.99 contract initiation fee | Freelancer service fee 0 to 15%, disclosed at proposal and locked for the contract. Combined both sides typically 15 to 20% | Yes. Create an agency account from a freelancer account. Agency Plus is $20/month and is required to submit proposals | List first The only open channel where a company can sell finished content at its own price with a known all-in cost |
| Fiverr Pro | Package price plus a 5.5% buyer service fee, and a $2.50 small-order fee under $50 | Flat 20% seller commission on every order including extras and tips. Pro sellers pay the same 20% | Application, vetted. Pro requires manual vetting; a profile can be converted to an agency page and buyers can filter by seller type | Apply 20% is a real haircut, but AI use is conditional disclosure only and the Proofed edit answers it cleanly |
| ClearVoice gone | Reported from $249/month plus $100 to $500+ per piece, with a 4% marketplace transaction fee | Was the lowest here at 4% | No longer a separate route. Checked 4 September 2026: clearvoice.com and clearvoice.com/pricing both return HTTP 301 to fiverr.comS27 | Do not apply The application collapses into Fiverr Pro. Apply there once, not twice |
| ScriptedS32 | Varies by length and complexity; no published rate card. Buyers skew tech, SaaS, finance and B2B | 25%: a Pro writer on a $100 order earns $75 | Open application; approval is per industry and topic, reviewed weekly | Apply, low priority Tolerable take and the right buyers, but per-topic approval is friction |
| WriterAccessS32 | $39/month (Basic) to $99/month (Premium) platform fee, plus $0.02 to $2.00+ per word by writer star level | Not published as a rate card; one third-party comparison puts it near 35% | Writer application by star level, individual shaped | Skip Take plus star-level price compression pushes you below delivery cost |
| Verblio | $0.06/word hybrid plus $49.50/month; $0.16/word human | Writer pay not published | Writer application, individual oriented | Skip as a channel Use it as the price anchor instead |
| Compose.ly | $0.06 to $0.22/word | Writers earn $0.10/word typical, up to $0.14, implying roughly a 30 to 50% platform margin (derived) | Application with a grammar assessment; individual shaped | Skip Writer rate is below what you can deliver for |
| ContentlyS33 | Not published. Reported $500 to $2,000/month for mid-size teams, $5,000+/month enterprise, plus implementation of $1,000 to $50,000 | Not published | Effectively closed. Writers cannot apply; talent scouts approach them | BD target A partnership conversation, not a listing |
| SkywordS33 | Not published; reported to start around $5,000/month with a $60,000+ annual threshold | 10% contributor fee on assignments opened from 16 October 2025 | Contributor network application, enterprise-managed | BD target The buyers are the interesting part |
| ContentooS33 | Not published. Amsterdam based; clients include Booking.com, Klarna, Mollie, Rituals | Not published. 1,000+ pre-screened creators, AI for matching and briefing | Invite only in effect: states that only the top 10% of freelancers get access | Competitor first They already sell vetted humans plus AI workflows. One email, as a white-label supply conversation |
1
List on one, apply to two, ignore the rest
Open an Upwork agency account at $20 a month, apply to Fiverr Pro with an agency page, and apply to Scripted. Total cost is $20 a month plus two applications, and it is the only way to find out what "10 human-edited articles, $2,500" converts at cold without spending outbound time to learn it.S30
One correction to the research. The underlying target research recommended applying to ClearVoice on the strength of a 4% take. On 4 September 2026 clearvoice.com returns a 301 redirect to fiverr.com, so the standalone network appears to have been folded into its owner. Treat the Fiverr Pro application as covering both, and re-check before spending an hour on a portfolio for it.S27
What this chapter does not claim
- No market size figure is given, because no defensible one was found for "AI plus human edited article production" as a category. Do not invent one for a deck.
- Vendor prices change without notice. Re-check any price before you put it in a customer-facing document, and put the check date next to it.
- Vendr's average contract values are transaction data from one buying platform, not the whole market. They are directionally useful and nothing more.
- The marketplace take rates are what each platform publishes about itself. WriterAccess's roughly 35% is a third-party claim, not a disclosure, and is labelled as such.