How much do bloggers REALLY earn in 2023? (Statistics from the Blogging Income Survey 2023)

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Ever wondered how much bloggers REALLY earn? Which are the best ways to earn money with a blog? And how long it takes to make a full-time income blogging? Here are the results from the Blogging Income Survey 2023.

Ever wondered how much bloggers REALLY earn? Which are the most lucrative blogging niches? How long it takes, on average, to start earning a full-time income from blogging? How much other bloggers charge for sponsored posts? Which is the best paying ad company for bloggers? If bloggers with more revenue streams earn more? Or if there is a correlation between the number of posts on a blog and income?

I have the answers to all these questions and more!

But these are not airy-fairy numbers picked out of the sky by me, this is real data from real bloggers who completed the 2023 edition of the Blogging Income Survey.

I’ve taken the raw data and compiled the numbers into helpful graphs, provided analysis AND – most importantly – pulled out key takeaways, including concrete action steps you can implement now so you earn more money with your blog in 2023 and beyond!

Better still, as this is the second year I have run this survey, I have also been able to pull out insights about how blogging has changed in the last 12 months, by comparing the data from the 2023 survey with the data from the 2022 survey.

Note: RPM stands for Rate Per Mille, that is, earnings per thousand pageviews. All income data is given in USD, except where specified.

Do bloggers who have been blogging longer earn more?

The first thing I wanted to understand was whether there is a correlation between earnings and the age of a blog. The results are very interesting…

Average monthly income based on age of blog

Average monthly pageviews based on age of blog

Average RPM based on age of blog

Analysis

From the data, it appears there is a strong correlation between length of time blogging and income. This shows that perseverance definitely pays off in blogging!

One very important detail to note is that bloggers who have been blogging for less than 1 year, are hardly earning anything and have very few pageviews… This very much supports the notion that the first year of blogging is a little like a ghost town! But, if that’s you right now, just take a look at the 1-3 year numbers for encouragement. Many bloggers give up too soon. But these figures show that, if you stick at it long enough, you are likely to reap the rewards!

One interesting detail, though, is that after the first year there seems to be an inverse correlation between RPM and age of blog. While it’s impossible to know exactly why, my guess would be that bloggers who have been blogging longer have more ‘dead wood’ content… in other words, many blog posts on their site that are earning little to no money… and so dragging the overall average down.

What is very encouraging, however, is that – if you manage to persevere through the early ‘ghost town’ phase – this suggests that it’s completely possible to earn a $30-40+ RPM. (Though *spoiler alert* it is unlikely you will achieve this kind of level with ads and affiliates alone – see below.)

Comparison with 2022

Comparing the data with last year’s Blogging Income Survey, it shows bloggers at most levels are earning more than last year – which is a very good sign. Blogging is certainly not dead!

However what is particularly interesting to note is that bloggers in the 10+ years bracket are earning considerably more and are now the group with the highest earnings.

Last year I hypothesised that this group was probably underperforming because bloggers who have been blogging for over 10 years are likely to have a lot of poor quality, out of date and/or unoptimized content on their sites, which could be dragging down their overall search engine rankings and RPMs. (Google has repeatedly said that overall site quality is an important ranking factor.) My guess is that many in this group have spent a lot of time updating content and improving overall site quality over the last year, which has had a significant impact on their income!

It is also possible that this group has added additional income streams over the last year, which again would have a significant impact on income.

Key takeaways

If you have not been blogging for very long and are feeling a little depressed by your numbers, don’t be! It’s totally normal for bloggers to have very low pageviews and very low earnings in the first year. The good news is, if you persevere, it is very likely your earnings and pageviews will increase more and more each year. So, whatever you do, don’t give up too soon!

If you have been blogging for a long time and are feeling a little depressed by your numbers, one possible explanation is you have poor quality content dragging down your overall search engine rankings and earnings. If you take time to clean up, improve and optimize your older blog posts, it’s likely to pay dividends in terms of higher traffic, higher RPMs and, ultimately more income! Another possible explanation could be the revenue streams you have chosen. (See below for more on this.)

Do blogs with more blog posts earn more?

The next thing I wanted to test was whether there was a correlation between the number of blog posts on a blog and income…

Average monthly income based on number of blog posts

Average monthly income per blog post

Average monthly pageviews based on number of blog posts

Analysis

This data shows that there is a very strong correlation between earnings and the number of posts on a blog. Broadly speaking, the more blog posts you write, the more you will earn!

This is great news as writing more blog posts is something you can actually ‘do’. (Whereas you can’t speed time up!)

There is also a strong correlation between pageviews and the number of posts on a blog.

Up until 999 blog posts, there is also a strong correlation between average income per blog post and overall number of blog posts. However, it is interesting to note that over the 1,000 blog posts mark, there is a clear drop off. Again, it is impossible to know with 100% certainty why, but the most likely reason is that bloggers who have over 1,000 blog posts are not able to keep all of them up to date. As a result, the presence of so much poor-quality / poorly-optimized blog content is dragging down the average income per blog post.

One additional point that I noticed when analysing the data was that there were outliers earning much more per blog post than these averages. I noticed two trends among these outliers. Either they were mainly monetizing with digital products and/or services OR they described their niche as Food/Recipes. (And in several cases both were true!)

Comparison with 2022

In general there is good news here! Bloggers in almost all of these groups are earning more compared to the same group last year.

However, it should be noted that bloggers in the lowest 2 groups (0-49 posts and 50-99 posts) are earning considerably less than last year. Suggesting that writing more blog posts is EVEN MORE important than last year if you want to increase your pageviews and earnings.

One final very striking detail is that bloggers at the higher end are doing MUCH better than last year. In 2022, there was quite a stark drop off, showing bloggers with 500+ posts were actually earning LESS than bloggers with 300-499 posts. This year there is no such drop off.

Again, my best guess would be that bloggers with 500+ blog posts have been working hard this year to improve overall content quality – and have been rewarded for their efforts with higher pageviews and higher earnings.

Key takeaways

This data is great news! It shows that one of the best ways to increase pageviews and earnings is to write more blog posts. While the age of your blog is not something you can do very much about (other than being patient), the number of blog posts on your website is something you have direct control over.

However, there is a big caveat… Just creating more blog posts will not guarantee more revenue. In order to increase your income, you must write high-quality content and you must ensure that all the content on your website is high quality.

If you have a lot of old, poor quality, unoptimized content on your blog, you are likely to reap dividends from updating and optimizing that content.

The final important takeaway is that it is possible to earn much better RPMs than these averages by focusing on higher RPM monetization methods – digital products and/or services.

Do blogs with more pageviews earn more?

The next thing I wanted to look at was whether there was a correlation between earnings and pageviews…

Average monthly income based on number of pageviews

Analysis

The data here shows a very strong correlation between number of pageviews and blog income. This would suggest that, as a general rule, the more pageviews you have, the more money you will earn. Although, interestingly, there were outliers at all levels.

Comparison with 2022

The data here is remarkably similar to the data from the 2022 Blogging Income Survey.

The main difference is that bloggers in the top group – with 500,000+ pageviews per month are earning EVEN MORE in 2023… On average $16,563.57 vs $14,830 per month last year.

My guess is this is probably due to a combination of spending time optimizing existing content over the last year and also diversifying revenue streams.

Last year there was also a rough correlation between pageviews and RPMs. (In other words, the more pageviews you had, the more you would earn PER PAGEVIEW.) However, this year there was no such correlation and the data was all over the place, so I left this graph out, as it really didn’t tell us anything useful.

Key takeaways

There is a strong correlation between pageviews and blog income, so working on your SEO to increase pageviews is a smart move if you want to maximize your blogging revenue.

Additionally, if you want to maximize the amount of money you make per pageview, it makes sense to diversify your revenue streams and / or focus on higher RPM revenue streams. (See below for more on this!)

Do bloggers with more revenue streams earn more?

Next, I wanted to find out if there was a relationship between number of revenue streams and average earnings. I also wanted to understand which were the most lucrative revenue streams.

(It’s important to point out here that for these graphs I removed anyone who was not earning any from their blog.)

Average RPM based on number of revenue streams

Analysis

It appears there’s a something of a correlation between the number of revenue streams and average RPMs.

Comparison with 2022

What is interesting is this correlation is nowhere near as clear cut as last year. Digging into the data I think the reason for this is that last year most bloggers who only had 1 or 2 revenue streams monetized with ads and/or affiliates. This year some bloggers who only had 1 or 2 revenue streams monetized exclusively with digital products and/or services.

Key takeaways

On the face of it, it would seem that the takeaway here is pretty obvious… if you want to earn more from your blog, add more revenue streams!

However, there is another option that it would be remiss of me not to give on a productivity blog, and that is, you could just focus on higher RPM revenue streams – especially digital products. Given the high RPMs on digital products, coupled with the fact that, once they have been created, they are an almost passive revenue stream, (especially when coupled with an evergreen sales funnel) this should in theory give you the most income per hour spent working!

Average RPM based on main revenue stream

Analysis

The data here is very stark: RPMs for digital products is nearly 10 times the RPMs for ads. Given that so many bloggers monetize almost exclusively with ads, this is HUGE. It means that, if you currently earn the majority of your blogging revenue from ads, you could be earning nearly TEN TIMES AS MUCH if you diversified into digital products.

It’s also great news for new and/or smaller bloggers. It’s hard for new/smaller bloggers to earn a decent income from ads and affiliates. Partly because of the low RPMs and partly because they don’t have access to higher paying ad companies (see below).

For example, a blogger with only 10,000 monthly pageviews is unlikely to be able to get an RPM of $26.19 from ads… but even if they could this would only result in a monthly income of $261.90.

However, it’s completely possible for a blogger with 10,000 monthly pageviews to get an RPM of $213.02 from digital products… and this would result in a monthly income of $2130.20. For many people in the world this is a full-time or near full-time income.

Comparison with 2022

There has been a lot of movement here and it is well worth taking a moment to look at last year’s graph. But the summary is:

• Ads: slight increase from $22.06 to $26.19
• Affiliates: significant increase from $20.21 to $37.58
• Sponsored Posts: significant decrease from $74.48 to $43.57
• Digital products: HUGE increase from $109.99 to $213.02
• Services: significant increase from $104.70 to $160.71

Key takeaways

The big takeaway here is, if you want to maximize revenue create and sell digital products!

If you are mainly dependent on a mix of ads, affiliates and sponsored posts (as so many bloggers are), the data shows you will almost certainly find you can get much better RPMs from digital products and/or services.

However, it’s important to point out that services is not a passive revenue stream – meaning they can be hard to scale and only earn you money when you are actually doing the service. Digital products are a much more passive form of income and so may be your best option if you want to increase your passive income and have a revenue stream that can easily grow as your blog grows!

This data is also good news for smaller bloggers. Achieving a good income from ads / affiliates / sponsored posts when you don’t have a lot of pageviews is hard – and seems to be getting harder, but if you focus on the revenue streams with higher RPMs, you may still be able to make a very good income, even with a small blog!

Which is the best paying niche?

Next, I wanted to understand to what extent niche affects blogging income…

Average RPM based on niche

Analysis

The first thing I would say about this graph is you should take it with a grain of salt. Due to the large number of niches represented in the survey data, there were relatively few bloggers within most niches. (Food, Décor, Lifestyle, Travel were the biggest datasets, but even they were quite small.)

In fact, drilling down into the data suggests to me that other factors (age of blog, number of blog posts, revenue streams) have much more of an effect than niche.

However, looking across the data, I can still make three important observations…

The first is that there does not appear to be any one niche which is vastly outperforming any of the others.

The second is that in almost every niche there are outliers who are vastly outperforming the rest of the bloggers in that niche.

And thirdly, although the data sets are too small to say which niches are the best paying, it is worth noting that the highest earning bloggers all seem to be concentrated in just a few niches…

These are the only niches represented in the survey that included bloggers earning $1,000 or more per month:

• Arts / Crafts
• Beauty / Fashion / Hair
• Education / Home-schooling
• Food / Recipes
• Gardening
• Home décor
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media*
• Parenting
• Real Estate
• Travel
• Weddings

And these are the only niches represented in the survey that included bloggers earning $5,000 or more per month:

• Beauty / Fashion / Hair
• Food / Recipes
• Home décor
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Real Estate
• Travel

Food/Recipes was the only niche represented that included bloggers earning $20k + per month.

(*I did not include either of my blogs in the survey results, but I can assure you it is completely possible to earn a lot more in the online business / blogging / productivity niche!)

Comparison with 2022

The results from the 2023 survey are pretty similar to the results from the 2022 survey. The main difference was that there were more niches represented in the survey that included bloggers earning $1,000 or more per month.

Key takeaways

It’s probably possible to make money in almost any niche, however if you want to make more than $1,000 per month, you will probably stand the best chance if you blog in one of the following niches:

• Arts / Crafts
• Beauty / Fashion / Hair
• Education / Home-schooling
• Food / Recipes
• Gardening
• Home décor
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Parenting
• Real Estate
• Travel
• Weddings

However, the data in this survey suggests that your financial success in blogging is less related to niche and more related to other factors such as length of time blogging, number of blog posts and revenue streams.

Does location impact earnings?

The next thing I wanted to understand was whether there was a correlation between location and earnings: both the location of the blogger AND the location of their readers.

Two important things to mention… Firstly, I removed anyone who was not earning any money from their blog from this analysis. And secondly, the data below reflects the countries represented in the survey. My respondents were mainly from the USA, the UK and other English-speaking countries. Therefore, I am only able to show individual country data where I had sufficient respondents.

Average RPM based on the country the blogger lives in

Average RPM based on the country the majority of the blogger’s readers live in

Analysis

When it comes to location of readers, there are no great surprises here. RPMs are highest in the USA, followed by the UK and then the rest of the world. This very much correlates with the information I see in my own Mediavine dashboard.

(For the benefit of those not in Mediavine, Mediavine gives RPM information broken down by country. In my Mediavine dashboard the highest RPMs are always from the USA, UK RPMs are considerably lower than US RPMs and most other countries have RPMs that are lower than those in the UK.)

The more interesting graph is the one that shows RPMs based on location of the blogger. While USA, UK and rest of the world roughly correlate with the data on location of the readers, I had enough data to be able to separate out Canadian and Australian bloggers and their RPMs are even higher than those of US bloggers.

Digging into the data the reason for this seems to be that there is a higher percentage of Canadian and Australian bloggers with really stellar RPMs. And again, that seems to be because the majority of these bloggers are monetizing with products and/or services.

Comparison with 2022

The results from the 2023 survey are pretty similar to the results from the 2022 survey. The main difference is that Australian bloggers seem to be doing significantly better this year. However, I think this is more to do with the fact that a higher percentage of Australian bloggers have really stellar RPMs than the fact those bloggers live in Australia.

Key takeaways

The first key takeaway is that where you as a blogger lives matters less than where your readers live, when it comes to RPMs. I think this will come as no great surprise to most bloggers.

There is of course still something of a correlation between a blogger’s location and income, and that is likely to be because bloggers often target (either intentionally or inadvertently) readers from their own country. Again, this will be of no great surprise to most bloggers.

There is another obvious takeaway here, and that is that if you want to maximize your revenue, you should target readers from the USA. I would like to put a big caveat on that, though. It doesn’t always make sense to do that…

If you are from a country outside of the USA and you want to target US readers, you will need to really understand what readers from the USA actually want, write in US English and use products, measures etc. that people from the US would use. This can be hard to do and requires a lot more effort than many bloggers realise. If you are not careful, you can create a horrible halfway house that neither appeals to US readers nor readers from your own country!

It is also worth pointing out that you are essentially an expert on your own country’s way of doing things, so you will most likely be able to produce better quality content if you target your own country, than if you target another country. This could result in higher pageviews and therefore higher income, even though your RPMs might be lower.

Ultimately, you will have to make a judgement call based on your own situation. But it’s important to note that chasing after US RPMs will not be the right strategy for everyone.

How long does it take to make money from a blog?

The next thing I wanted to look at is how long it takes to make money from a blog. In the survey I asked this in two different ways… firstly how long it took for bloggers to make their first Dollar (or Pound or Euro) and secondly, how long it took for bloggers to make a full-time income from blogging. (‘full-time income’ was their own subjective definition of what they personally would consider a full-time income.) The results are very interesting…

How long does it take to earn the first $1 from a blog?

Analysis

According to the data, it takes bloggers an average of 20 months to earn their first dollar (or euro, or pound) from their blog. But the good news is that many bloggers start earning from their blogs much sooner.

In fact, 20 months is the ‘mean’ figure (adding all the data and dividing by the number of bloggers). But the median figure (the one in the middle when the data is ordered from smallest to largest) was much less than this, at 13 months, and just over one quarter of bloggers started earning some income from their blogs within 6 months of starting out.

Anecdotally, there were many bloggers who commented that they didn’t start blogging with the intention of making money, so this would almost certainly have skewed the data somewhat.

This correlates nicely with data in the very first graph.

Comparison with 2022

Last year the ‘mean’ figure was 24 months and the ‘median’ figure was 15 months, which suggests that on average bloggers are starting to earn some money from their blogs faster.

A likely explanation for this is that more people are starting blogging with the intention of making money and are more ‘business-focused’ from the start.

It could also be that more new bloggers are selling digital products and/or offering services. Both these revenue streams pay significantly better RPMs than ads and affiliates – especially when a blog is new and still has very little traffic.

How long does it take to make a full-time income from a blog?

Analysis

According to the data, it takes bloggers an average of 4 years and 1 month (49 months) to earn a full-time income from blogging. But again, the good news is many bloggers in the survey started earning a full-time income much sooner. The median was 36 months (3 years) and 38% of bloggers surveyed were achieving a full-time income within 2 years of starting their blogs.

Again, the average may be skewed slightly higher than reality, because many bloggers didn’t start blogging with the intention of making money.

Again, depending on what you could as a full-time income, this correlates nicely with data in the very first graph.

Comparison with 2022

Last year the ‘mean’ figure was 4 years and 5 months (53 months) and the ‘median’ figure was 48 months (4 years), with less than one third of bloggers surveyed achieving a full-time income within 2 years of starting their blogs. This suggests that on average bloggers are starting to earn a full-time income faster too.

Again, the likely explanation for this is that more people are starting blogging with the intention of making money and are more ‘business-focused’ from the start. But also, it may be down to monetizing with more lucrative revenue streams.

Key takeaways

The first important takeaway here is that blogging is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme! However, it also shows that it is possible to start making money from a blog within the first 6 months and to earn a full-time income from blogging within 2 years.  

If you are a brand-new blogger, worried about the fact that you are still not earning much/any money, take heart from these figures… It is unlikely that you will earn anything in your first 6 months and it is unlikely that you will be earning a full-time income until you have been blogging for around 2 years.

That said, there were bloggers in the survey who started earning their first dollar within just a couple of months blogging and started achieving a full-time income much earlier than 2 years, so it can be done.

While I can’t say exactly why it took some bloggers more time than others to start earning from their blogs, it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that bloggers who focus on earning money from the get-go are much more likely to start earning from their blogs sooner than those who don’t.

It is also obvious that many of the other factors in this survey come into play. For example, bloggers who create lots of blog posts, pursue multiple and/or higher paying revenue streams and work hard on their SEO (to increase their pageviews as fast as possible) are likely to be earning a full-time income far quicker than those who produce content more slowly, pursue lower paying revenue streams and don’t put much effort into SEO.

Which is the best paying ad company?

Here I wanted to look at a question that I know many bloggers would love to know the answer to… Which is the best paying ad company? And the results are very interesting…

Average RPM based on ad company

Analysis

The survey data suggests that the best paying ad company for bloggers is Mediavine, followed by AdThrive.  

The data suggests then that Monumetric is the ‘best of the rest’, followed by SHE Media.

The data also seems to confirm that the lowest RPMs are to be found with Google Adsense.

(It’s important to point out that data in this chart is based solely on ad income, not total income, which is why the RPMs look lower than on some of the other charts.)

Comparison with 2022

The results differ quite dramatically to the data from the 2022 income survey. Last year average RPMs from AdThrive and Mediavine were almost identical. This year average RPMs from Mediavine are nearly $3 higher.

Additionally, last year Ezoic were in third place after AdThrive and Mediavine on $19.75. This year Ezoic is second from the bottom on $7.99.

Meanwhile Monumetric has shot up from second from the bottom last year on $9.57 to $20.00 this year.

What hasn’t changed is that Google Adsense still has the worst RPMs… in fact this year they are even worse than last year!

Key takeaways

This data would seem to suggest that, if you are currently with AdThrive, you *may* get better RPMs switching to Mediavine. However, I would add a caveat that everyone’s situation is different. RPMs vary due to a whole host of different factors and I certainly cannot promise that you will get better RPMs at Mediavine! It could certainly be worth exploring, though… perhaps hopping on a quick chat with Mediavine to discuss your specific circumstances.

Likewise, the data would also seem to suggest that if you are currently with Mediavine, you should probably stay where you are. (But with the same caveat!)

These results also underline that it’s really worth doubling down on your SEO efforts in order to get into Mediavine / AdThrive as the RPMs are, the data suggests, considerably better.

(Current requirements are a minimum of 50,000 sessions for new sites joining Mediavine and a minimum of 100,000 monthly pageviews for new sites joining AdThrive.)

If you don’t have the pageviews yet to qualify for Mediavine (or AdThrive), it looks like your best bet is probably Monumetric, which has a minimum pageview limit of 10,000 monthly pageviews.  

However, I must caveat this by saying that, as all ads will have something of a negative effect on User Experience, and therefore SEO, putting ads on a smaller site may slow your progress towards getting the minimum pageview requirements for a higher paying ad company. You may decide it’s a better option to focus on getting up to 50,000 pageviews as fast as possible, before putting ads on your site.

Finally, as I mentioned above, there were outliers, earning well above the average RPMs, with all ad companies. So, no matter which ad company you are with, it will almost certainly be worth talking to your ad company to find out how you might be able to increase your ad revenue. If you are with Mediavine, you might like to check out my post on 12 easy ways to grow your Mediavine income.

How much do bloggers charge for sponsored posts?

Finally, I wanted to look at how much bloggers charge for sponsored posts. This is something that most bloggers would love to know, but is not often shared as few bloggers are willing to publicly divulge their sponsored post rates. However, the beauty of an anonymous survey is that bloggers are much more willing to share their rates!

In the survey, bloggers were asked how much they charged for a standard sponsored post. I have shown the averages, based on monthly pageviews, for all countries represented in the survey.

I have also broken this down to show the averages for US & Canadian bloggers, and for UK bloggers.

Finally, I have also shown the HIGHEST sponsored post rates from the survey – so you can see what it’s possible to charge at all levels.

(Unfortunately, it was not possible to show data from any other countries as there was not sufficient data from other countries. I put the US and Canada together as almost all the Canadian bloggers represented in the survey stated that the majority of their READERS were from the USA. Anecdotally I understand that many of their sponsored post opportunities also come from the USA and putting these two countries together meant I had a bigger data set to work with, and so I could give more meaningful data.)

Average sponsored post rate based on pageviews (all countries)

Average sponsored post rate based on pageviews (US & Canadian bloggers only)

Average sponsored post rate based on pageviews (UK bloggers only)

Highest sponsored post rate based on pageviews (US & Canadian bloggers only)

Highest sponsored post rate based on pageviews (UK)

Analysis

Firstly, it’s important to point out that there was a HUGE amount of variation within each group.

Secondly, it’s quite obvious that, in general, the more pageviews you have, the more you can charge for sponsored posts.

Another observation is that in most cases, US/Canadian bloggers are charging more than UK bloggers at the same level of pageviews. This is likely to be down to two factors: firstly, US brands may be more willing to pay higher rates and secondly US/Canadian bloggers may be more confident about charging higher rates. This is certainly something that seems to be true from anecdotal evidence.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that at every level of pageviews, except ‘under 9,999’, the highest charging blogger was NOT the blogger with the most pageviews in that group. In fact, the highest charging blogger was almost always somewhere in the middle.

Comparison with 2022

Overall figures are fairly similar to last year. However I did spot one interesting trend. In the USA and Canada, average sponsored post rates are a little higher at the top end this year, compared to last year. While in the UK, average sponsored post rates are generally lower than last year – especially at the top end.

Main takeaways

The first, and most obvious takeaway is that, if you are charging less than the average for your level of pageviews / in your country, you are undercharging! And you may want to seriously consider increasing your fees.

It’s also worth taking a look at the highest sponsored post rate for your country / level of pageviews. There is someone who has a similar number of pageviews as you (possibly less if you are at the upper end of your pageview level) charging this rate! Again, in light of this, you may want to consider increasing your fees.

And if you are working for free (or ‘free product’), you should definitely start charging! (For more on this see my post on 21 reasons why bloggers should stop working for free.) Even bloggers with fewer than 10,000 pageviews are able to charge a fee for sponsored work, according to this survey data.

And next time a PR/brand tells you that you are charging too much – show them this post!

As you may be able to tell, I feel quite strongly about this! We as bloggers are offering brands something that is becoming increasingly difficult with traditional advertising routes – access to a highly targeted group of potential customers.

As privacy laws are becoming more strict and it is becoming harder for advertisers to use third party data to target their target market, what we as bloggers have to offer is going to become even more valuable. But if bloggers undercharge… or worse, if bloggers are willing to work ‘for free’, this doesn’t just hurt that one blogger… it hurts all bloggers.

If brands and PRs can get bloggers to work for free, there is no incentive for them to find marketing budget to pay bloggers. Consequently, they will spend the marketing budget they do have on different forms of advertising. But if bloggers start charging higher fees, brands and PRs will find and allocate more money to sponsored post campaigns, in order to access their target market.

One final takeaway is a reminder that, on average, sponsored work is much less lucrative that digital products and much more labour intensive. With a sponsored post, once you’ve created that post and received your fee, you receive no more money. You are trading your time for money. Whereas a digital product can be sold over and over again… making it much more lucrative over the long term. And – if you create an evergreen sales funnel for your digital product – your income from digital products is likely to be much more stable than income from sponsored posts which often comes in fits and starts!  

Personally… I prefer to focus on more passive revenue streams – especially selling online courses. I set my sponsored rates very high (I didn’t include my rates in these graphs, but they are higher than the rates listed above!) This ensures that I only do a handful of sponsored posts per year, but those I do pay very well! Only doing a few sponsored posts per year means I can spend the majority of my time creating and marketing digital products… thereby maximizing my income per unit of time. Meaning I can work less, but earn more!

Conclusion – How can bloggers increase their income in 2023?

From the results of the Blogging Income Survey 2023, it is possible to draw a number of conclusions about how bloggers can increase their income in 2023.

1. Write more high-quality blog posts
2. Focus on overall website quality and update/delete out of date and poor-quality content
3. Work hard on Search Engine Optimization to grow your pageviews.
4. Make the pageviews you do have work harder for you! If you are currently only monetizing via ads and affiliates, you are almost certainly leaving money on the table. Look to focus more effort on higher earning revenue streams – especially digital products (In fact, if you want to maximize your revenue per unit of time worked, it may make sense to focus solely on digital products!)
5. If you are a new or smaller blogger, monetizing via digital products may mean you can earn a full time income from your blog much sooner – even if you have low pageviews!
6. If you are not based in the US, it *may* make sense to target a US audience – but not always. (And only if you are willing to go ‘all in’ – a halfway house is likely to appeal to no one!)
7. If you are currently with AdThrive, it *may* be that you can get better RPMs at Mediavine. It’s certainly worth getting on a chat with them to find out more, based on your personal situation.  (Find out more about Mediavine here.)
8. If you have not reached the minimum monthly pageview requirements for Mediavine, Monumetric looks like your best option. (Though you may want to keep ads off your site so you can get into Mediavine sooner.)
9. Review your current sponsored post rate and consider charging more if you are currently charging less than the average rate / highest rate for your country and level of pageviews. (And if you do not currently charge for sponsored posts, start charging!)
10. And finally, if you are not yet earning money from your blog – don’t give up! Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme, but the results from this survey show that it is totally possible to make a good full-time income from blogging – if you are willing to put the work in! And – if you are serious about earning a full-time income from your blog – this survey gives you lots of concrete steps you can take to make that happen.  

Over to you!

I’d love to hear your reaction to this data, and what you plan to do differently as a result. Let me know in the comments below!

Methodology and data

This is a survey of individual bloggers, not companies or brands which happen to have a blog section on their website.

The respondents to this survey are a combination of subscribers to my Productive Blogging email list, students on one of my blogging courses and members of my Productive Blogging Community Facebook Group.

As a result of this, the data skews towards bloggers from English speaking countries (in particular the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia) and also bloggers who are focused on earning money from their blogs and blogging more productively.

Data was captured using a simple Typeform survey of 14 questions.

Data was given anonymously.

No one was incentivized to take the survey in any way.

Responses were gathered between 6^th January and 28^th February 2023.

There were 201 responses. While not a huge dataset, it is sufficient to give statistically significant results, which seem to correlate well with other reliable blogging data/advice and anecdotal evidence.

I did not take part and data from my blogs are not included in the results.

All income data is in USD, except where specified.

I converted income data given to me in other currencies, based on Google’s stated exchange rate for the day I analysed the data (1^st March 2023), which were:

• GBP: 1.199
• EUR: 1.067
• AUD: 0.676
• SGD: 0.745

Thank you to everyone who took part!

More on this topic…

• How do bloggers make money in 2023?
• How to START a profitable blog
• How to turn your BLOG into a BUSINESS
• Why you should STOP working for FREE
• How to make your blogging income more PASSIVE

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