How do you price yourself as a blogger or influencer? How much should you charge for a sponsored post on Instagram?

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If you’ve asked yourself this question before, this blog post is for you. I’m sharing the lessons I’ve learned asking to be paid for brand campaigns and figuring out my price as a content creator. I’m also sharing the different factors you need to consider as you build out your price for a sponsored post on Instagram or your blog.

Why I’m sharing
this blog post:

The Influencer
industry is on its way to hit 15 billion by 2022 (source: Business
Insider). In 2019, major brands are aware of what influencer
marketing is. I’ve personally noticed that more and more brands outside of
fashion are starting to turn to influencer marketing. From band aids, to
laundry detergent, to airlines, and banks, various industries are starting to
allocate a piece of their marketing budgets to influencers.

As the influencer industry starts to mature, it’s time for influencers to recognize their worthy, their business, and not be afraid to ask to be compensated for the content they create. If you’ve built a real engaged audience, if you’re coming from a specific point of view, and if you’ve got great content, you have an opportunity to make some money from your influence.

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So why is it so
hard to figure out how to price ourselves as bloggers?

Well pricing is subjective.

It’s a combination of how much you think the work you produce is worth and how much brands value your work. Every person prices differently. And there’s a majority of influencers and bloggers out there not pricing or charging at all.

Secondly, the blogging industry isn’t transparent.

There are opinions in the space that think that there are limited opportunities and that you should be looking at the girl next to you as a competitor. There are plenty of bloggers and influencers keep silent about landing sponsored content or how they’ve learned how to navigate the industry as a content creator. As I referenced before, the influencer space is projected to hit $15 billion. There’s plenty of opportunities and money to go around to all aspiring influencers out there.

So where do you
even begin to price yourself?

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To help you figure out how much to charge for a sponsored post on Instagram, here are several factors you need to consider.

1. Your audience
size – the standard rule: 1 cent = 1 follower

Example: $100 per
10,000 followers

If you have 20,000 followers, you can start your rate at $200. If you have 30,000, you can start your rate at $300.

This is one of the few standards I’ve heard other influencers share. Personally, I recommend this as only a starting point. You should start at this rule and then add on to build your price.

2. Your price of
influence = your engagement rate

Aside from your
general audience size, you should factor in your engagement rate. This is
especially important if you’re a microinfluencer.

If you’re at
10,000 followers but have a 10% engagement rate, you can definitely charge
more. Brands are learning that more engaged audiences can absolutely bring
value to their brand even if that microinfluencer is under a 100,000.

Personally, I’ve heard that an engagement rate of over 2% is pretty good. I’ve also learned through experience that your engagement rate drops as your account continues to grow. I used to be at an 8-10% engagement rate when my audience size was under 10,000. But as I’ve grown my account, my engagement rate has dropped to about 4%.

However, this drop in engagement doesn’t mean I lower my price. I’m still bringing brands’ products and services to a community I’ve built on Instagram and my blog.

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3. Your Price of
Photography

Whether you hire
a photographer, or you shoot the content yourself, you can charge for the price
of photography.

Brands understand
that most photographers charge for content. If brands weren’t reaching out to
you and other influencers, they would be finding, hiring, and paying
photographers to shoot their products and services.  

If you pay $50, $100, or even $250 for photography, make sure you include that in your price.

4. Your Price of
Releasing Image Rights

If a brand
request perpetual (forever) rights to
use your images for other marketing purposes, you can charge more. I
typically will ask brands to remove that section of a contract or ask them to
pay more. Because I hire photographers to produce my brand campaigns, I usually
factor in Holly and Karya’s price to release image rights.

If you work with a photographer, I encourage you to discuss with them what they would charge to release image rights. If you take your own photos, you should also consider what you would charge to release image rights. I’ve learned from other bloggers to reference the Getty Image Price Calculator.

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5. Your Price of Exclusivity

When you agree to
non-compete clauses, you’re agreeing
that you will not work with any brands that the brand lists out. If a brand
requires that you can’t work with competitive brands for a week, a month, or
three months after that campaign is over,
you can charge more.

I’ve heard of bloggers and influencers adding on a price of a full campaign to their initial price to cover non-compete clauses.

For example, if you charge $100 for an Instagram post and you’re asked to not work with any competitive brands for 3 months. You potentially could add on $100 x 3 months = $300 to the price of the campaign.

6. The Turnaround Time or Timeline of the Brand Collaboration

If a brand
reaches out and wants you to deliver content in less than a week, that’s a
pretty quick turnaround time. I’ve learned through experience that most paid
campaigns require at least one round of submitting content drafts for approval
and edits.

It takes time to schedule a time with a photographer

  • Shoot the content
  • Edit
  • Write the caption
  • Submit the content for drafts
  • Accept the brand revisions
  • And then publish the content in your channels.

Your timeline is also dependent on how quickly brands can ship the product to you. If you’re looking for detailed steps on what goes on during a brand collaboration, make sure you read:

10 Steps of a Brand and Blogger Collaboration.

 I’ve charged $100-300 more for campaigns that require a quick turnaround time and had brands agree to the increased rates. My advice is to layout the timeline and have the brand/PR contact agree to a realistic timeline. I’ve had brands ask for content to be turnaround in two weeks when it takes two weeks for the product to get there. And then the whole campaign timeline slides to the right.

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There you have it friends. Six different factors you need to consider when building you’re price and figuring out what to charge for a sponsored post.

What are your tips for figuring out how much to charge for a sponsored post?

If you want to learn how to ask to be paid, make sure you check out: 7 Ways You Can Ask to be Paid for a Brand Collaboration. I hope this blog posts encourages you to charge for a sponsored post!

Thank you for reading!

Love,

Emma

Photos: Holly Phan