Work out what to charge for a sponsored post, using two anchors most brands recognise: the size of the audience you're giving access to, and the work involved in producing it.

The formula

Audience value = (Monthly pageviews / 1,000) x Rate per 1,000 Production cost = Hours x Hourly rate Suggested rate = Audience value + Production cost Walk-away floor = Production cost (below this you are paying to work)

Example

A page with 25,000 monthly pageviews at $75 per 1,000 is worth $1,875 in audience access. Add 5 hours of work at $60/hour ($300) and the suggested rate is $2,175 - an effective $87 per 1,000 pageviews. Below $300 you'd be working for free.

Why two anchors instead of one

Rate cards built purely on traffic break down at both ends. A small, highly targeted audience can be worth far more per reader than a large general one, and a traffic-only rate leaves you doing hours of unpaid work on a post that happens to sit on a quieter page. Costing purely by the hour has the opposite problem: it prices you like a freelance writer and gives away the asset the brand is actually paying for - access to an audience you spent years building.

Adding both keeps the two things separate in your own head during a negotiation. If a brand pushes back on price, you know exactly which component you're discounting, and the walk-away floor tells you where to stop.

Step-by-step guide

Use the traffic of the page it will actually live on, not your site total - a sponsored post on a quiet page doesn't deliver site-wide traffic, and brands increasingly check.
Set your rate per 1,000 from your own numbers, not a template. A reasonable starting point is several times your ad RPM for the same page, since a sponsored post replaces ad revenue and adds your endorsement on top. If your RPM is $15, something in the $50-100 range per 1,000 is a defensible opening ask - then adjust based on how much demand you actually see.
Count all the hours honestly - briefing calls, drafting, revisions, images, and any promotion you've agreed to. Underestimating here is the most common way a deal that looked profitable stops being one.
Quote the number, then justify it with the breakdown. Showing audience value and production cost separately makes a large figure feel reasoned rather than arbitrary.

What else changes the price

Several factors legitimately move a rate up or down and are worth pricing explicitly rather than absorbing silently: how long the post stays live (permanent versus a fixed term), whether the brand gets exclusivity in its category for a period, whether you're also promoting it to an email list or social following, how many revision rounds are included, and whether they want approval over the final wording. Each of those is real work or a real constraint on your future business - if a brand wants them, they belong in the price.

Common mistakes

Selling a do-follow link. Paid links that pass ranking signals breach Google's spam policies. Sponsored links should carry rel="sponsored" (or nofollow), and sites have been penalised for ignoring this. If a brand's brief requires a do-follow link, that's a reason to decline the deal, not a premium to charge for.

Skipping the disclosure. Paid content must be clearly identified as such - it's required by the FTC in the US and by equivalent rules elsewhere, and it protects the reader trust that makes your audience valuable in the first place.

Accepting a low first deal "to build the relationship." Your first price becomes the anchor for every renewal and, through agency networks, often for other brands too. Discounting once is much easier than raising a rate later.

Leaving revisions and duration undefined. "A sponsored post" with no cap on revisions and no agreed live period is how a $2,000 deal turns into three weeks of unpaid rewrites and a permanent page you can't reuse.

Frequently asked questions

What rate per 1,000 pageviews should I actually use?

There is no standard figure, and rates for identical traffic vary widely by subject area and audience quality. The most practical method is to start from your own ad RPM for that page and multiply it several times over - then treat the responses you get as the real market signal. If every brand accepts immediately, you're priced too low.

Should I charge less for a smaller site?

Less in total, yes - the audience-value component scales with traffic. But not necessarily less per 1,000, and never below your production floor. Small, tightly focused audiences often command a higher rate per reader than large general ones, because a bigger share of them are the brand's actual customers.

How do I price a package rather than one post?

Run the calculator per deliverable and add them up, then decide consciously whether to discount for volume. A modest discount for a committed multi-post deal is reasonable; a large one usually isn't, since the work doesn't get much cheaper per post.

The brand says my rate is too high. Now what?

Reduce the scope rather than the rate where you can - fewer revisions, a fixed live period instead of permanent, no social promotion, no category exclusivity. That keeps your rate card intact for the next brand while still giving them a lower number. The walk-away floor tells you when to decline instead.

Is sponsored income taxable?

Generally yes - it's usually business or self-employment income, and in many places gifted products received in exchange for coverage also count as income at their market value. The output here is a gross fee before tax and expenses; specifics depend on where you live.

Should I take payment upfront?

Part of it, commonly. A deposit before work starts with the balance on publication is a widely used structure that protects both sides, and it filters out brands that were never going to pay. Whatever you agree, get the scope, fee, and payment timing in writing before drafting anything.

Related calculators

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Sponsored Post Rate Calculator