How to structure pay for link development?

By the hour, per link, or?

[limitup]

We don't engage in reciprocal linking, but we are constantly looking for new affiliates and thinking of hiring someone to do basic affiliate recruiting.

Basically we will use Arelis or other similar tools to build lists of potential affiliate sites.

This person would be responsible for visiting each site manually, taking a look around, and contacting them if appropriate to see if they might be interested in getting paid for linking to us.

Question is - how much should I expect to pay for this? And do you folks generally pay by the hour, per link acquired, etc? Technically this person wouldn't be on payroll as an actual employee, more like a general contractor on a 1099 basis I suppose.

[anallawalla]

I am about to hire a fulltime employee but I have seen another model where there is a base salary and then incentives based on success. I have seen this refined further based on the "quality" of the link but this could lead to arguments, e.g. is a PR3 link from an article on widgets better than a PR3 link from a directory category page on widgets, both with the same number of links on them.

[jaffstar]

base salary and then incentives based on success

Sounds like the right way to do it. So if I obtained a PR4 for you, would I get a bonus if it was say:

Range A: $10-$20/month
Range B: $20-$30/month
Range C: Free

You would have to break it down based on:

Pagerank of site
Links out
Topical or Not
Price

[evan420]

Is there a certain price structure that you use to buy links? I've heard everything from $1-$2 a link up to $50. Would like some guidance here, thanks.