If I were to ask you “how much should I charge for a blog post?”, what would you answer?
I asked myself that very question as I was researching for this article. Don’t worry, I‘m not going to leave you hanging with an “it depends”-answer even though it does.
The first thing we have to consider is that there are many types of blog posts with different purposes that can help achieve different goals for your client’s business.
There are the 500-word blog posts but they aren’t that popular anymore. They usually don’t do much for SEO or engagement because you can’t really dive that deep with 500 words.
Then we have the current standard of 2,000 words which is usually a good place to begin. You might also have seen more in-depth pieces like mini-guides at 4,000-5,000 words and ultimate guide blog posts that range from anything above that.
They are not set in stone but rather a way for you to get an idea about where you want to start. The writing is usually the easy part and the difference between a good, mediocre, and bad blog post is often found in the ideas and outlining stage.
A lot of the work at that stage will be similar no matter how long your article is. If you don’t know where to place yourself, start with a rate for a standard blog post of 2,000 words.
Consider having a backup rate for 1,000 words since clients sometimes ask for that because it is easy to multiply it depending on the type of article they are looking for help with.
There are a million different ways to think about how much to charge for a blog post. There are also many different industries and niches, and all of them have different going rates.
Not to mention whether you have to supply first-hand data (like your own expertise, an interview, or data), they’ll supply it or it isn’t needed at all.
That can be one of the factors that differentiate how much clients are willing to pay for an article since something with unique insights is harder to come by, sometimes creates more attention, and thus worth paying more for.
Often, you can earn more by offering things like first-hand data and insights because most other copywriters base their articles on second-hand research they find in the field (that everyone else has access to).
In this article, we’ll first look at pricing examples, then things to avoid when thinking about how much you should charge for a blog post along with a simple technique to set your rate for a blog post.
Blog post pricing examples
The first place for us to start is by comparing examples. I’ve found a few for us to look at on Upwork.
Upwork is good for research because a lot of the pricing and project information is publicly available, so you can get a great sense of the market just with a bit of quick desk research.
A lot of people are concerned that freelancers on Upwork only work for scraps and while that is true sometimes, there are plenty of freelancers earning great money there too. You can simply use filters to sort through them.
In the examples below, I filtered for the writing-category of work, freelancers only (no agencies), and searched for “blog post”. I left the rest on default.
Blog post pricing examples from Upwork
Niche-specific examples
Note: more recent projects suggested a higher fixed rate but I couldn’t find anything that was clear so I kept it at this one example.
I clicked to find out more information but it was unclear if this was one or multiple articles. Since it says “posts”, plural, it was probably multiple although the pricing could fit to be for a single one.
General/non-niche specific examples
Different price levels
In this section, I’ve found some different pricing examples for blog posts based on three different skill levels: beginner, intermediate, expert.
Upwork doesn’t show us an exact connection between pricing and experience-level, so I’ve picked them out based on my experience and market knowledge. That isn’t perfect, so consider it rough guidelines but nothing certain.
Beginner
Intermediate
Expert
For this example, I couldn’t find a previous project fee as everything was hidden on the profile.
Blog pricing examples off of Upwork
I’ve previously shared a case study with the word-for-word emails I used to land an article for $500 at about 2,000-3,000 words when the client initially wanted one for $100 (or 10 for $1,000)
In this example, I positioned myself as an advertiser and marketer turned copywriter with the point that I can bring plenty of insights and first-hand experience to the content that isn’t shown elsewhere.
That helped me stand out among a sea of copywriters – marketing blog posts is a popular niche because it pays well.
I also showed examples where I had worked with other popular businesses in the space, so he could better understand what the final product would look like.
I sold the same concept to another client at double the price for double the words; 4,000-5,000 words for about $1,000.
In this example, the situation was the same but I had discovered a different problem I could help the client solve. Here they already had a successful business but felt dependant on a specific platform.
Compare that to the first example, where the client was building their business from scratch and needed traffic.
In the second example, I suggested helping them drive traffic with blog posts instead of depending on that platform so they could increase their profits. I go into more detail in this article but the gist is the same.
Because I was able to find their business information, I could better understand their exact situation. That allowed me to tailor what I offered them and solve their problems better than I could have with a generic pitch.
Things to avoid when pricing your blog post starting out
There is a lot of good advice on how much you should charge for a blog post but with a lot of different advice, things can get confusing quickly.
Popular advice you’ll hear is to calculate your rate based on what you want to earn per year. The idea is good in theory but doesn’t take into account that you might not know how long it actually takes you to write a blog post.
Even mapping it out wouldn’t be exactly accurate because things rarely go exactly as planned. Not to mention that you might not feel emotionally ready to charge whatever that rate you calculate becomes – or you might resent that rate.
Another important point is that your market might not be willing to that price for the service and if they don’t want to pay, there isn’t much you can do.
I’ll also avoid charging by the word at first because you have to deliver value in the blog posts, not just a number of words.
How much should I charge for a blog post?
Let’s first look at this rate card based on a survey featured on Ramit Sethi’s Growthlab.com.
That should give you a baseline idea but the problem with surveys is that those surveyed might be at a different stage or market than you, even if you identify with the beginner or intermediate level.
A quick technique to set your rate for a blog post
Go to Upwork and search for rates in your niche and select freelancers around your level. Then charge something similar (if you are comfortable with it), so you know you are roughly at the market rates.
You do that by opening Upwork, clicking the little arrow, and switching the search from jobs to “Freelancers & Agencies”.
Then you’ll search for your industry and add filters as needed. I like to keep the filters open to get as much inspiration as possible but play around with it and see what it can do for you.
Then pick something you are comfortable with and log the number of hours you spend for each part of the project e.g. brainstorming ideas, communicating with the client, outlining, writing, editing, revisions, etc.
After the first project, you can evaluate how much time you spent and see if you should adjust your rate.
Especially, in the beginning, you will probably spend more time than expected because you are figuring everything out for the first time. But remember that you’ll get better and faster the more you do it.
Keep adjusting your rates until you find something that both you and your clients are happy with. In the beginning, it’s more important to get clients because you’ll learn so much rather than charging the perfect rate.
I tend to keep an open mind in terms of what type of pricing the client prefers; by word, hourly rate, project, or a fixed rate per blog post.
That means if you have a price per blog post in mind and the client wants a different type of pricing, consider simply calculating the cost per word, hourly rate, etc. based on the price you wanted to offer per post. It makes the client feel good because you are trying to accommodate their needs.
At the same time, I suggest explaining to them that you are happy to do it but you recommend a fixed price per post because it is about the value that the post brings to their audience (whether that is leads, page views, traffic, etc.), not its length or the number of hours it took to create.
Takeaways
- What you charge for the first couple of blog posts doesn’t matter as much as long as you don’t resent yourself for it. You’ll learn a ton and move forward — that’s all that matters!
- Continue to adjust your rates as you learn more. You’ll learn so much from getting clients at first and that is more important than setting the perfect rate.
