What is the Typical Rate for Content Marketing Writing?

June 10, 2013/Jennifer Goforth Gregory/

Everyone wants to know about money – including content marketing writers and potential clients. So, that’s what I am going to talk about today. Many writers mistakenly assume that content marketing writing is low paying, which I believe is partly due to the unfortunate similarity in the name with content mills (more on that in the coming weeks). Just like with other types of writing, you can easily earn $1/word with the right content marketing client or you can make $0.05/word with the wrong one.

Any freelance writer who makes a living wage with their words is skilled at weeding through low-paying clients and finding the ones that will pay for a high quality product. Content marketing is just the same. You can pretty easily find clients that will pay you a paltry $40 for 800 words of highly researched content on a technical topic. But if you look, you can find clients that will pay a similar rate to national magazines.

I believe that writers should calculate their rates based on the hourly rate that they earn, not the per word rate. A 1,000-word ghosting writing gig paying $1/word that takes 40 hours ends up paying $25 an hour. But a 1,000-word article paying 50 cents a word on a topic that you are familiar with and requires very little research may only take you 4 hours, which is $125 hour an hour. I actually prefer to bill by the project ideally, but I will talk more about that in a future post.

After spending the past years writing mainly content marketing deliverables, I can attest that there are definitely content marketing gigs out there that will earn you earn you at least $75 to $100 an hour. So, next time you are tempted to take a lower paying content marketing gig, keep looking. And if you are resisting adding content marketing to your writer services because of low pay, think again.  Just like with consumer and trade publications, it takes persistence, marketing and time to land the higher paying clients.

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6 Comments

  1. Sara Lancaster on June 10, 2013 at 1:33 am

    I think this is spot on. I appreciate you publishing rates. If all us content writers start to charge what we’re worth, then maybe customers will stop expecting great content for nothing…or at least close to nothing.



  2. Jennifer on June 10, 2013 at 1:53 am

    Thank you! I was a bit hesitant to publish them, so thank you for the encouragement. I grew up in a family where we didn’t talk about money, but I decided to go out a limb to hopefully help others. I totally agree with you about charging what we are worth! I’m glad you liked the post.



  3. Find a Content Marketing Writing Gig on the Job Boards on July 29, 2013 at 12:54 am

    […] scanning several freelance writing job boards to see if there is anything interesting that looks worth my time to apply. Job boards are not the most time effective way to land jobs since most jobs get hundreds of […]



  4. Setting Your Content Marketing Rates on December 9, 2013 at 4:21 pm

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  5. JESSICA HENRY on May 23, 2018 at 5:05 pm

    I would love to be able to work from home and write. I am struggling where and how to begin, but would like to comb through ad much information as I can to prepare me.