How much to pay kids to tag photos?

January 9, 2007 6:49 PM

I've been uploading family photos to flickr and am thinking of offering to pay my nieces and nephews (ages 8-12) to tag them. What would be a reasonable rate? I want to encourage a work ethic in them, so it's important to me that I not under- or over-pay them.
posted by espertus to work & money (12 comments total)

Maybe you should check with their parents?
posted by mzurer at 6:50 PM on January 9, 2007

I've asked the parents for permission to offer their children a job, but I hadn't thought of asking them about rates. I know that the 12-year-old can make about $4/hour baby-sitting.
posted by espertus at 7:05 PM on January 9, 2007

I can't offer you a number, but I would say that factors to consider are:

-do they get an allowance? if so, how big? is it related to chores of some kind? or have they any other money making opportunities? Does someone's 14yo brother have a job of some kind? (for comparison)
-do you want to pay them by hour or per photo tagged?
-leads to: presumably there's a finite amount of tagging to be done - are you going to allocate it between the kids or let the fastest worker get the most money?

I would probably divide the photos into sets for each kid and pay them per hour at some rate defined by the first questions, but try and get an idea of how long it should take them (probably slightly slower than yourself) and tell them to aim for that speed.

On preview: I'd go with $4/hour then, maybe adjusting it for the younger ones if you think they'll actually be significantly slower.
posted by jacalata at 7:13 PM on January 9, 2007

My brothers were 13 and 14 when they got paid to scan a friends entire life's worth of photos into the computer. They got paid by the photo (or photo album), although I'm unsure how much. You have to remember that if you sit a kid that age in front of a computer with the internet running, they will get distracted. Maybe you should consider negotiating rates based on how many photos they tag, rather how long it takes them to do it.
posted by cholly at 7:13 PM on January 9, 2007

5 cents per photo.
posted by bonheur at 7:41 PM on January 9, 2007

Maybe you should consider negotiating rates based on how many photos they tag, rather how long it takes them to do it.

I agree with cholly. Kids will be kids and get sidetracked.

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posted by Gerard Sorme at 8:03 PM on January 9, 2007

That came off snarkier than I intended - I really meant check with them about how much money the kids from other jobs, how much of their allowance (if they get one) they typically save, etc... In order for them to value your job, you'll need to have a pretty good sense of how they value their money and time right now. If they get already bring in $20/week from other sources, you probably won't get far for 5 cents a photo...
posted by mzurer at 8:49 PM on January 9, 2007

a nickel per tag...
posted by Exchequer at 8:50 PM on January 9, 2007

How much is it worth to you? That's how much you should pay them.
posted by robcorr at 10:03 PM on January 9, 2007

Ok, so I just asked my brother how much they got paid for scanning the photos. Basically, they worked solidly for an hour with the family friend to work out how many they could scan in an ideal hour. The per photo rate was then worked out based on the fair hourly rate divided by the number of photos. He seems to think it was about 10 or 15 cents per photo.
posted by cholly at 10:20 PM on January 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

i second a nickel per tag. its works better for you and it will challenge them to keep track of the number of tags and think of tags. Also you get a bonus for some of the wacky tags they'll come up with. theyre worth far more than a nickle :)
posted by joelf at 10:38 PM on January 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the advice. I decided to charge by photo, as suggested, so the kids can work at their own pace. I offered 10c/photo, which works out to about 5c/tag. This may have been on the generous side, since it seems the youngsters were able to tag about 100 photos in less than an hour, making $10/hour. They did a great job too.
posted by espertus at 4:15 PM on January 24, 2007