No one likes talking about money, which can make it hard for bloggers to know what their rate should be. What is too high, and what is too low? Here are some best practices that can help you set your standard rate.
Bloggers generally aren’t paid based on the number of words in their post. Instead bloggers are paid based on the number pageviews to their site and amount of social media followers they have. For this reason, you need to have a media kit ready to explain these stats to potential clients.
It is often said that someone with 10,000 pageviews a month can charge $250 a blog post. I asked some fellow bloggers their opinions. Some said that was spot on, while others thought that was high. There are also lots of variables. Are you creating a recipe? Taking photos? Running a giveaway? Promoting via social media? How big is your social media following? All of this factors into the amount of compensation.
Once you determine what your unique visitors and social media reach are, you need to review the pitch and estimate the amount of time it will take to write the blog post. Adjust your standard rate if it seems to high or too low for the number of hours the project will take.
Things to consider:
$250 for 10k pageviews a month is somewhat of a best practice, but it still varies greatly
Standard rates increase slowly, this means that bloggers with 20k pageviews aren’t charging $500 – but bloggers with 100k pageviews might be charging $500 a post
BlogHer pays bloggers $25 for 4 social media posts and $50 for 8
Sometimes it makes sense to do work in exchange for exposure. If it is a big brand, or if you don’t have much experience doing freelance work, unpaid opportunities can add to your portfolio and let to charge more for other opportunities later.
You might also want to check out our posts on how to be easy to work with, why you need a media kit, and media kit essentials.
Pricing is something that bloggers don’t talk about often, so feel free to sound off in the comments!