Dear WordCount: I applied for a blogging job with a local company. They want to know what I’d want to be paid for posts of 250 to 600 words. What’s the going rate for posts of that length? — J.B.
Dear J.B.:
Thanks for writing, and congratulations on being approached about the paid blogging gig.
Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer to your questions. Rates for blogging are all over the map, from pennies a post to hundreds of dollars or more. To help you come up with a number, let’s look at some of the variables that go into determining a fee:
1. Subject
If you’re writing about something you know, it’s going to be easier than covering a topic you have to educate yourself about first.
2. Time
The less time a post takes to write, the higher your hourly rate will be, regardless of the fee. If you can crank out a 250-word post on a topic you know well in 30 minutes, the $50 fee is equal to $100 an hour – not shabby. If you’re writing about a topic that you have to search or do multiple interviews for and you end up spending four hours, that same $50 comes out to $12.50 an hour, or about what my son earned as a lifeguard at the local public pool.
3. Sources
Not all blog posts are alike. Some offer analysis on current events, and don’t require anything more than linking to news reports on what’s happening and your ability to present well-reasoned arguments for or against a certain position on the subject. Others are more like news stories, with research based on your first-hand reporting from a conference, or in-person or phone interviews. Others could be a collection of links on a related topic with commentary on each from you. Depending on what the company offering the blogging gig wants, you could wind up using sources in some or all of the posts you’re asked to write. Take that into consideration when setting a price.
4. Extras
Writing blog posts might also entail learning how to use a company’s content management system so you can file your posts into it. It might also mean making sure posts are fit for SEO, which could mean adding meta descriptions, categories and tags, and finding images. The company might also want you to promote your posts on Twitter, Facebook et al. Don’t overlook the time it takes to manage all these extras, and don’t set a price before asking the company what they expect.
5. Client management
Beyond the work itself, you’ll also spend time talking or emailing your editor or company contact, invoicing and doing other housekeeping. Try to estimate how much time you’ll spend on client management and build that into your hourly rate as well.
Once you’ve taken all of those factors into account, look at your ideal hourly rate and determine how much you need to charge in order to meet it. I normally underestimate how fast I can write posts, so when I’m asking to for a rate quote, I build in an extra 25 to 30 percent to account for that. When I’m negotiating I like to ask for more than I want to leave myself some bargaining room. For example, if you’re willing to write posts for $50 each, start at $100 and see what they say.
One last thing: I hope you ask to be paid for any sample posts the potential client asks you to write. If they’re that interested in you, you shouldn’t have to write posts on spec. One possibility is to work out a deal so that if you get the gig, they’ll build the fee for the sample posts into your monthly retainer, and if you don’t, you’ll bill them for a pre-approved flat fee.
Dear WordCount answers your questions about writing, blogging and running a freelance business. Send questions to wordcountfreelance@gmail.com.
Michelle, you are literally right on the money. It always takes longer than I think it will to write a quality piece–blog, press release, article, whatever. Better to keep that in mind upfront when negotiating so you get paid fairly and don’t develop any resentment down the line.
Amen. And even though I know it on an intellectual level, I constantly underestimate how much time it takes me to complete projects. That’s one of my goals for 2011, to be more realistic about the time projects take, and not take on so much that I end up not enjoying what I do.
Michelle
I totally agree with you Michelle, its very hard to figure out how much it will take to write a quality piece and I am sure all of has have been there. I think I will stick to my goal for many years quality of quantity.
Thanks for the insight about this. I was discussing a possible blogging gig with someone recently, and I was debating internally about what to charge. I tend to underestimate the time it takes to write a (good) blog post myself, and I don’t want to lowball myself, if you know what I mean.
Send me an email with the sites that would pay $50 for a blog post. 😀
I have figured out how many words I can write per hour and use that to estimate what a post will cost. I also figure in the topic, the specifics of the job (some clients want WAY more format and SEO), and even the particular client.
The clients that like what I produce will counter if my price is too much. The ones looking for mill writers will usually not even respond.
Kathryn:
How you estimate what to charge sounds makes total sense to me – a per post rate might sound good but if something takes hours more than you expect, even $500/post doesn’t pencil out.
Michelle
All of this just made it harder for me? I still have no clue what to charge. It can take me anywhere from 1 to 2 hours to finish one blog post depending on the subject matter. (and the topics are what I know very well, little to no research is involved!) Also, if one company is quoted lets say, $50 a post up front, the next one could be worth $100.00
Chandra:
Maybe my experience would be informative. I have a great long-term client who publishes daily blog posts on news in a niche industry. You bring up an interesting challenge — one post may take much longer than another based on the subject matter at hand, so how do you figure out an average amount of time to base your quote on?
I dealt with this two ways: First, I was very detailed in my bid, outlining that my fee of $X per post would cover news stories of between 140 and 300 words citing two online sources, with a photo included in every other other post, the associated formatting in the CMS and comment moderation when a reader asked a specific question about the story. I provided my best estimate for how much time this would take. I backed up my proposed fee with data, providing sample per-word rates from previous print clients and citing the average hourly rates for different types of writing listed in a Writer’s Market survey. My bid established a very specific scope of work that the client could accept, reject or negotiate before work began.
We reached a set of expectations agreeable to us both. This finally brings me to my second strategy, which should answer your question about estimating time. The number of billable hours is always a guess. What makes it accurate is sticking to that amount of time once the work begins. Good writers always have an impulse to add more — more sources, more words, more analysis, more revision. But part of the business challenge in writing for different clients is to provide them exactly what they paid for and expect. If I order a hamburger for lunch, I have no expectation that the cook is going to throw in some apple-smoked bacon and artisanal cheddar just because he has a passion for making tasty burgers. Likewise, if a client wants, and agrees to buy, something short and simple, that’s what the writer should provide. That could mean narrowing a post’s focus or leaving out ancillary topics or omitting a couple of links or spending less time crafting the perfect narrative lede. It’s a tricky but crucial skill to balance a worthwhile eagerness to exceed clients’ expectations with your own business’ need to stay on time. Tracking hours and hourly rates for projects in the first couple of months can be helpful to that end. So can ensuring you’ve got enough padding in your original quote to stay positive about a project if it takes longer than expected.
Peter: Thanks for the detailed response. And I love your analogy of not giving clients apple-smoked bacon and artisanal cheddar when all they paid for is a plain hamburger. You are absolutely right in saying that good writers have an impulse to add more; fighting that impulse can be really hard. On the other hand, I had one regular blogging gig where I routinely did more than what was necessary, and my editor was very demanding. But because of it, I landed work at two other publications, both of which were more high profile than the original. And even though the editor was demanding, he knew it and was very open to letting me do some posts that were super simple to put together, so it all balanced out.
Michelle
I agree with Peter about being very specific about the scope of what your fee covers.
Amazing post! Thank you so much this was an awesome and beyond helpful article. I am so glad I stumbled across your page, it is now a favorite! I’ll be back for more!
Yup, I think that it is troubling, the whole low-pay blog issue. I’m struggling with that right now, and have been for years. Somehow, I’d like to get out from under doing for other”s blogs and build my own business of blogging, that has more foundation and legs, i’m not that coherent as it’s late. But, here’s the deal, I cn’t even hire a writer to do some of the writing or subcontracting for me, because the pay is too low and then i’m actually taking advantage of the writings and working for a system that is already undercutting top notch writers. what do you do. how to take bak power?! ……..
To people who don’t know how much to charge for their writing. Here’s an easy formula to figure it out. As a freelancer, in 2014 dollars you need to get paid at least $75 an hour to make a basic living. Don’t forget you have to pay for your living expenses; software and upgrades; computer depreciation and repairs; taking people to lunch, booze for clients and otherwise marketing yourself; vacation time; training and continuing education; therapist; normal slack periods; motivational presents to yourself; Roth IRA; and time off for illness and other unexpected expenses.
I not only charge based on my time, I also charge on the pagerank/authority and pageviews of the site I’m putting the article on.
I have a prepper/survivalist site http://graywolfsurvival.com/ that is a PR3 and gets currently about 160k pageviews/mo. I would definitely charge more for an article there than on my brand-new men’s lifestyle blog http://mancavezen/ I just started that has a PR of zero and gets a few thousand pageviews per month.
The same goes for the complexity, as you mention. An article explaining how to properly plan and document a bug out route would be much more difficult to write than the same length article about the new Harleys that just came out.
Am about to decide how much to pay for photography posts. For blogs it’s hardly possible to pay like known commercial publications.
But I guess $30 for a 500 worder is an insult?
Yep, $30 for 500 words is way low. Depending on the subject, client, industry and what the writer is expected to do in the way of research or reporting, rates for a post of that length go anywhere from $100 to $500.
Michelle
These deals with smaller posts…. What if the post is 1000 words long with multiple links and research done on a current issue? This is from my personal blog
https://www.quora.com/Tariq-Hossenbux/Posts/Tariq-Hossenbuxs-Web-Research-on-Managing-Pet-Cancers-with-Natural-Ingredients
I have worked in magazines mostly and I know in publishing it has typically been a per word fee and that has worked out for years. Why not do that? I understand a $4 per word fee is probably not gonna happen, but even a $1 per word fee would be fair. Or $.75? What are you thoughts on this. I am fascinated how creative talent has lost money in this new internet economy.