Sponsored blog posts can create real income for bloggers big and small (after securing over $500,000 in brand deals for other bloggers, I would know!). But what should you charge for a sponsored blog post? I’ll show you how to use a blog post rate calculator to set your prices and factors that could influence your sponsored post rates. It’s easy to make money blogging with a tool like this!
Variables That Directly Affect Sponsored Post Rates
As a blogger, there are two key metrics you can look at to estimate your blog sponsorship rates: Unique visitors per month and domain authority score.
Unique visitors per month (UV) is the number of individual people who visit your site. This number is usually higher than sessions, since unique visitors can have multiple sessions. You can find UV in Google Analytics under Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens > Users.
Domain authority score (DA) is a proprietary number from Moz, the keyword research tool. It’s one of the easiest ways you can calculate at a glance how well your website ranks in search engines.
DA ranges between 1 and 100, with 100 being the highest score. If you have a higher DA, you most likely post consistent, quality content and focus on SEO to drive blog traffic – and brands will love to see that because they want more eyeballs on them. You can also use free domain authority checkers to find this number if you don’t have a Moz account.
The general rule? The higher your UV and DA, the higher you can set your sponsored post rates on your blogger rate sheet and media kit.
Other Factors That Can Raise Sponsored Post Rates
When brands want more than simple sponsored blogging, you should charge more. Here are other items they may request:
- Exclusivity: You promote a single brand for a period of time and no competitors.
- Whitelisting: Brands use your social accounts to run ads.
- Ads: You advertise through your social accounts.
- Usage Rights: Brands re-use your content or media on other platforms that aren’t yours.
- Brand Budgets: Ask the brand about their budget before setting blogger rates. Higher budget means you should charge more.
- Multiple Deliverables: More than one post, or other items such as social media posts.
How much to charge for a sponsored blog post will increase when these factors enter the conversation. Don’t ever offer them for free!
What A Blog Post Rate Calculator Won’t Cover
When calculating sponsored post rate, keep these other factors in mind:
- Engagement rate: How much your audience interacts with your blog.
- Niche: How closely the brand aligns with your blog content.
- Quality: The level of professional effort you put in every aspect of your blog.
- The brand itself: Company name, size, and reputation (bigger brands almost always have bigger budgets)
- Demographics: How well your audience fits with the brand’s target audience.
- Deadlines: How fast the brand wants your content published.
- Forms of payment: Other value the brand might provide in lieu of payment, such as free products. (Tip: They should be very valuable freebies for this to be worthwhile.)
- Long-term partnership: If the brand wants to offer more long term work, you can give them a little discount for their loyalty.
Consider this example. You have a highly niched blog and a brand that fits perfectly with your audience reaches out to you. You can afford to charge them a little more because they will have a hard time finding other bloggers that their target market will trust. (Or, you might decide to charge them a little less if they want to work with you long-term over a series of posts.)
Here’s another example. A home cleaning brand you can find in every grocery store wants a sponsored post from you for the same niche blog on a short deadline. You may charge them more because they’ll have a bigger sponsorship budget, and because you’ll need to create your deliverables faster.
Situations like this happen all the time when you pitch brands, so you’ll never want one price for every sponsorship. Which is why…
Your Blog Post Rate Calculator Needs A Range
Never offer one price per blog post – always have a range in mind. Why?
Brands will have different budgets, content requirements, constraints on your time, and deadlines.
Plus, you may connect with brands that you truly love but can’t compensate you well. In cases like this, having a lower rate (that still honors the work you need to do) is essential.
The other great part about a range? You can suggest the highest end of your range when charging for a sponsored blog post and negotiate down if the brand can’t afford it. Sometimes, you don’t even need to negotiate – the brand will take the higher number, no questions asked.
Is A Blog Post Rate Calculator Worth It?
To be honest, some people don’t trust sponsored blog post calculators because they think you shouldn’t need just one number to price yourself – and they’re right.
That’s why you should find one that offers a range and use it as your starting point for setting prices.
Only you know how much work goes into your blog, the quality you can offer, and what your audience will love. A blog post rate calculator can help you figure out the bare minimum you should charge (especially for new bloggers!) and know what you’re worth for the incredible work you do.
