Copify pay copywriters according to a pay scale ranging from 2p a word for newbies, through 4p for I guess you'd call them middleweights to 8p for experienced writers. They also have a minimum order of 100 words, yielding a newbie writer the princely sum of £2.
As far as I am aware, Copify aren't coercing anybody to take any of the assignments on their site. So it's functioning as any market does - if a buyer and a seller agree on a price, it's the right price. I agree it does seem low. To write 100 words and get paid £2 - well by the time you've bought a coffee and factored in the cost of toner and electricity for your PC you might be making a loss.
I imagine the job, being apparently aimed at creating SEO content, is less about what we might call the craft of copywriting than the simple process of typing as fast as possible with a client-specified keyword every tenth word or so. If you can type at 60 words per minute and you count as a professional, you could make £48/hour, which is OK. And if you can keep that up for ten hours straight you would make £480, which seems pretty good.
So why all the fuss? Some copywriters believe that Copify is dumbing down the craft. Others are losing clients to content mills and feel justifiably aggrieved. Still others can't get their heads around the notion of working for peanuts and rail against the injustice.
Ultimately you can't game the market. Clients who want quality will search it out and pay for it. Clients who want cheap will do likewise. Copywriters always have a choice about who they work for - the freelance ones I mean - so if Copify doesn't appeal, just ignore it.
And for writers who are working through Copify and retort "Well I'm quality and I'm cheap" I think the answer is, "Good for you!"
