Blogging for Cash – What to Charge for Paid Reviews on Your Blog
Author: Jim | Filed under: Blogging Tricks, Make Money Online
Many bloggers nowadays offer sponsored/paid review postings as a main source of revenue for their websites. While some may label these for-money marketing “sell-outs,” I maintain that offering to accept money to write reviews is honest work. With this in mind, the problem remains the question of how much to charge for these sponsored posts on your blog?
Let me start out by saying that the rates on Jimvesting dot com are too low, I know this, and people that buy reviews from me know this. However, I feel that you should never raise your rates more than once a month… and I am more than happy to offer a deal until that point. That being said, there has been a long-going debate over whether you should under-charge or over-charge for paid plugs on your blog.
The Pros
Under-charging: Having a backlog of sponsored posts is always a good thing. Also, having a shortage of supply for advertising slots can create it’s own artificial demand that will eventually get you higher prices.
Over-charging: While you may not see as many posts, having a high rate will make sure that every post you sell will be well worth your while. You’ll be making more per post, and this may more than compensate for slower demand.
The Cons
Under-charging: While you may have high demand, you don’t want to saturate your blog with sponsored posts all the time. Sometimes its more valuable to post useful content than slowing yourself down with advertisements. Additionally, perhaps you feel underpaid; after all, you could be making more.
Over-charging: Sure, you make a great profit whenever someone orders a review… but perhaps offers are coming in too slow for your liking? We all like to make money, and artificially high prices could crush your demand a bit too much.
The problem now is for setting your prices in the first place. For those bloggers that have
had the opportunity to test the waters, it’s going to be mostly intuitive whether they are under-charging or over-charging for paid reviews. If you feel demand slowing, maybe you offer a limited time deal on cheaper advertising. If the opposite, maybe you announce higher rates and take it from there. But if you really haven’t dealt with sponsored articles thus far, its a bit harder to determine what prices are appropriate.
Jimvesting’s Suggested Paid Review Rate Chart
The best metric to base your decision off in my opinion is your RSS subscriber numbers. These are typically tracker through a third party like FeedBurner, so sign up if you haven’t already. Here is a table I have drawn up for suggested advertising rates, but keep in mind that you need to have the traffic… not just the subscribers. 
| 1-50 RSS Subscribers | $10-$20 per post |
| 50-100 RSS Subscribers | $15-$30 per post |
| 100-200 RSS Subscribers | $20-$45 per post |
| 200-400 RSS Subscribers | $30-$65 per post |
| 400-700 RSS Subscribers | $50-$85 per post |
| 700-1000 RSS Subscribers | $75-$125 per post |
| 1000-1500 RSS Subscribers | $115-$175 per post |
| 1500-2000 RSS Subscribers | $165-$235 per post |
Please keep in mind that this table is subjective, but I do feel that you should stay inside these subscriber/price brackets if you want to get as close as possible to that all-important equilibrium pricing point. The equilibrium point will occur when the price corresponds with an equal supply and demand. This is 
basic economics, and this will maximize your profits if you are a for-profit blogger.
We typically find that once a blog breaks out of the 2,500+ subscriber range, these super-bloggers will be able to use their pricing power to basically demand revenue as they please. So I am not going to continue the list upwards from 5,000 readers. 
As always, it is important to make and include an “advertise” page on your blog with a display of your stats in order to convince potential advertisers that you mean business. I would suggest the OIO Publisher plugin to manage your reviews, links, banners, etc. as it will definitely make things more organized and streamlined. You want to make advertisements as easy to order as possible, and this is the tool to do it.
Stay bullish on the net!
-Jimvesting
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I’d say this is also highly niche-specific. I have a particular blog that I won’t name, and paid reviews command an average of $350. Number of RSS subscribers? Roughly 80. Very high traffic, high quality of traffic, but simply low subscribers.
I totally agree with your Paid Review Rate Chart. It looks appropriate.
Interesting analysis. I like the pricing breakdown you provide. RSS is a good indicator of exposure.
Flimjos last blog post..Risk Is A Myth
Oooof! And I thought offering five dollars was good enough. I need to love myself a bit more, I think. Thanks for the tip!
Miss Writes last blog post..Good Things Happen to Those Who Socialize
I think for the average make money online blog those figures are a great guide. But I would just suggest trialling a price and working from there based on the response.
Tom – StandOutBlogger.coms last blog post..1 Month Blog Flipping Challenge
Twitter: @jimvesting
May 30, 2008 at 1:35 am #
@ Miss Write: Never sell yourself short! I like to think of $10 as the bare minimum for paid reviews. Otherwise, you’d just be better off building up content for better traffic/rankings/etc.
@ Tom: Yeah that’s generally what I like to do, trailing and adjusting is always a good idea.
These can’t be exact, because there is no exact (lots of variables). I think for the most part these guidelines are solid though
jim, what for you is a good number of UV’s per day?? say for a site that is 1-3 month/s old??
I didn’t have any subscribers at all, and my first review I charged $15.
Thanks for the guidelines… I am aiming to push my blog up to the 100 or so subscriber mark in the coming months and hopefully drive some paid posts to it. 2 to 3 a week would be nice.
Where do you go to acquire these posts or does OIO publisher kind of attract the right people?
Forest Parkss last blog post..Get yourself a FREE 3D Ebook Creator
Hmm…, so Jimvesting.com falls into this $30-$65 per post rate at this moment…
Thanks for the guide, might now have a clue how to charge with a better rate.
wilhb81s last blog post..Business Joke – 1
I think most bloggers are over charging for their paid reviews. You can always raise your price if you’re getting too many hits.
Carnival of Making Money Onlines last blog post..Taking your Blog to a Community
I loved your post. I didn´t know how much I could ask for a post, but now I see that the fair price is only $10
But that´s ok, because I use some programs like Payperpost and some others and sometime I make more money.
Good stuff Jim, nice little chart you got there.
Normal Joes last blog post..Blogs I read this week
Good technique for finding paying customers for reviews. Got to try it out.
Thanks!
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Thanks for the awesome write up! I shall use your entry as a guide for my blog charges!!! Thanks once again!
dblchin´s last blog ..Desire @ Central Treatment I
Thanks for the info! I had no clue, so this was a great look-to!
Amanda T´s last blog ..Review and Giveaway- Pretzel Petes Gourmet Pretzel Nuggets 1 Winner- Open Worldwide!- Ends 12-11
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August 4, 2008 at 11:39 pm #
I guess I needed to post “I found a free hat from the Net Fool’s 500 Subscriber Party!