1.
You can set up agreements with your writers and pay them as they turn them in, this will have to be done manually on your end. This has the highest degree of safety on your end.
2.
You can set up weekly payments to be issued to writers automatically. oDesk will charge you that amount, on Sundays without your imput. This is ok if you are working with reliable contractors, who turn in a regular amount of work without fail. There is risk since they get paid even if they dont turn in work for that week. You may view the process and more information on how to set it up here-
https://support.odesk.com/entries/23128092-What-is-a-weekly-payment-
3.
You can set up an hourly contract for your writers, and agree how many articles are expected per hour worked. This payment is also automatic and charged weekly. The risk is shared between client and contractor since you can see what they are working on while they are billing you, and they also dont have to worry about not getting paid for their work since it is automatic. They will still have to send you the work of course. For this option, I suggest starting with a small amount of hours per week to build trust, hours can be increased at any time during the week, but decreases take effect only on Sundays.
4. You can also use the hourly set up for autobilling without having a person track time. You can agree upon a rate per article, and have that as their per hour rate, or even have a rate that equals 2 articles per hour, which they can bill in 30 minute increments. You can ask the contractor to enter their manual time per article turned in. This method requires trust, and should also be started with a low weekly amount of hours to limit risk. This is auto billed the same as weekly payments and regular on the time hours.
I hope this answers your questions.
