There's two ways to read the sentence "they paid them to fabricate the story", It can be read as they actively requested a fabricated dossier, or it could equally apply that they paid for a dossier that happened to be fabricated. A dossier was put together containing a combination of truths, rumors, and outright fabrications. Clinton's campaign paid for the creation of that dossier. Therefore, they paid for the creation of fabricated claims against Trump. So in at least one sense, they absolutely "paid people to fabricate the story". I'm sure they'd have been fine with only true information, though I also wouldn't be surprised if they said "throw in some salacious lies too", but there's no evidence that happened.
That's not accurate at all and there's a big difference.
The Washington Free Beacon and Paul Singer paid Fusion GPS to fabricate the story. They stopped paying the bills when Trump became the nominee, and Fusion GPS shopped the fabrication of the story to Perkins Coie, which just happened to perform the DNC's and Clinton campaign's legal services while Perkins Coie attorneys did double duty as Clinton campaign staffers, up to and including Marc Elias himself. Perkins Coie started paying for the fabrication of the story with funds appropriated from both, illegally itemized as legal services rather than electioneering.
Just never mind at that point, the DNC had been completely captured and held fiscally hostage by the Clinton campaign, and its offices stacked by Clinton campaigners. Same for the fact all parties involved already knew the dossier and most of its allegations were bunk. Or that the Clinton campaign was simultaneously and independently leaking stories from the dossier and resultant investigation to the press, without knowledge of the dossier's existence or who was actually funding it.
Any semblance the situation may bear to Clinton's 2008 campaign, when overzealous staffers and campaign contributors/supporters were independently and simultaneously following plays proscribed by confidential high-level campaign memos questioning Obama's patriotism, Christianity, and citizenship -- while playing up the Jeremiah Wright story in media -- is entirely a figment of your imagination. There's no established pattern for firewalls to maintain plausible deniability, money laundry, or outright ratfuckery when a Clinton is involved at all.