How much do bloggers REALLY earn in 2026? (Statistics from the Blogging Income Survey 2026)

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Ever wondered how much bloggers REALLY earn in 2026? 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 2026.

Ever wondered how much bloggers REALLY earn in 2026? 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 plucked out of the sky by me, this is real data from real bloggers who completed the Blogging Income Survey 2026.

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 can earn more money with YOUR blog in 2026 and beyond!

Better still, as this is the fifth year I have run this survey, I have also been able to pull out insights about how blogging has changed, by comparing the data from the latest survey with the data from previous years’ surveys.

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 that there is a VERY strong correlation between length of time blogging and income. This shows that perseverance definitely pays off in blogging!

One important detail to note is that bloggers who have been blogging for less than 3 years are hardly earning anything and have very few pageviews… This very much supports the notion that the early years of blogging are a little like a ghost town!

But, if that’s you right now, just take a look at the 3+ years 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. (And keep reading for lots of things you can do to significantly speed up the process!)

Comparison with last year

While the general picture is similar to previous years, there are some notable differences in this year’s data, compared to the results from last year’s Blogging Income Survey.

Firstly, bloggers who have been blogging for fewer than 5 years are earning even less than they were last year.

This supports anecdotal evidence that it is getting harder to ‘break in’ to blogging and it’s taking longer to earn a full-time income from blogging.

Secondly, bloggers in both the 5-10y bracket and the 10y+ bracket are earning more than they were last year. In fact, bloggers who have been blogging for over 10 years are, on average, earning considerably more than last year.

This is very encouraging and shows that blogging really does reward hard work and patience. Blogging is certainly not dead!

When I dug into the data I also noticed an interesting detail which may also partly explain these 2 trends: bloggers who have been blogging for 5y+ tend to have more revenue streams than bloggers who have been blogging for less than 5 years and they tend to be monetizing via more lucrative revenue streams.

As you will see below in the “Revenue Streams” section below, number and type of revenue streams makes a big difference!

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 early days. 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!

That said, it’s clearly getting harder to ‘break in’ to blogging, and it’s taking longer to get to a decent full time income. The good news is, there is plenty you can do to speed up the process. Keep reading to find out how!

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 and/or unhelpful 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. If you are still monetizing mainly with ads, you will almost certainly see your income increase if you diversify into one or more of the better paying monetization methods. (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!)

Up to 999 blog posts, there is also a strong correlation between pageviews and number of posts on a blog. Ditto for average income per blog post and number of blog posts. However, it is interesting to note that, in both cases, there is a clear drop off after the 1000 blog posts mark.

It is impossible to know with 100% certainty why, but the most likely reason is that bloggers who have over 1000 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 pageviews and 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 2 trends among these outliers. Either they were mainly monetizing with digital products OR they described their niche as Food/Recipes. (And in some cases both were true!)

Comparison with last year

These figures are broadly similar to last year’s figures. But there are a couple of key differences.

Firstly, bloggers in the 100-299 post category are earning significantly more that last year ($1,987.52 vs 547.70 per month).

Similarly, bloggers at the higher end are doing also earning much more than last year. Bloggers with 500-999 posts are earning an average of $9,460.09 per month, compared to $6,315.79 last year. Bloggers with 1000+ blog posts are earning an average of $9,412.50 per month, compared to $7,981.67 last year.

This really underlines the benefit of writing more blog posts if you want to succeed in blogging.  

It is also highly encouraging that, whereas last year’s data showed a downward trend – with bloggers at most levels earning LESS than in 2024 – this year that trend is reversed.

Drilling into the data, the reason becomes obvious. While last year many bloggers were highly dependent on ads for the majority of their income, this year’s data shows that far more bloggers have diversified their income streams and, in particular, started monetizing via digital products, which is the most lucrative revenue stream BY FAR. (See below for more on this.)

Key takeaways

This data is great news! It shows that one of the best ways to increase pageviews and earnings is simply 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 do good keyword research, write truly helpful, high-quality content, and you must ensure that all the content on your website is high quality.

If you want to press the turbo boost button and dramatically increase the number of blog posts on your blog in a very short space of time, I recommend doing the 30 Day Blog Traffic Booster Challenge

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 by focusing on higher RPM monetization methods – such as digital products (see below).

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 last year

The data here is remarkably similar to the data from last year’s Blogging Income Survey.

The main difference is that bloggers in the 50,000-99,000 group is earning quite a bit less than last year: $3,489.50 vs $5,063.33.

Looking at the raw data is seems that bloggers in the 50,000-99,000 group are not as focused on monetizing via digital products as the equivalent group last year. So that could explain this difference.

Key takeaways

There is a very 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 money from their blog.)

Average RPM based on number of revenue streams

Analysis

There appears to be a very strong correlation between the number of revenue streams and average RPMs. Bloggers who have 4+ revenue streams are earning, on average, more than 4 times what bloggers who only have 1 revenue stream are earning.

Comparison with last year

This year’s data is even more clear cut. Last year’s data already showed this trend, but this year the benefits of adding more revenue streams is even starker.

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 entirely passive revenue stream, (especially when used in conjunction 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: the RPMs for digital products is over SIXTEEN TIMES the RPMs for ads. (And yes, that’s correct – I TRIPLE CHECKED my figures!)

Given that many bloggers monetize mainly via ads, this is HUGE! It means that, if you currently earn the majority of your blogging revenue from ads, you could be earning SIXTEEN TIMES AS MUCH if you diversified into digital products. (And actually a good deal more if you do a good job of it… see below).

This is also great news for new and/or smaller bloggers. It’s very hard for new/smaller bloggers to earn a decent income from ads and affiliates.

For example, a blogger with only 10,000 monthly pageviews is very unlikely to be able to get an RPM of $33.16 from ads… But even if they could, this would only result in a monthly income of $331.60.

However, it’s completely possible for a blogger with 10,000 monthly pageviews to get an RPM of $535.90 from digital products… and this would result in a monthly income of $5,359.00. For most people in the world this is a good full-time income.

Comparison with last year

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

• Ads: a very slight decrease from $33.80 to $33.16
• Affiliates: a slight increase from $40.24 to $34.66
• Sponsored Posts: an increase from $51.74 to $100.00
• Physical Products: a considerable decrease from $91.69 to $55.85
• Digital Products: a dramatic increase from $283.64 to $535.90
• Services: a considerable increase from $34.36 to $100.00

The data shows that digital product RPMs are quite a bit higher this year than last year… and that digital products are by far the most lucrative revenue stream for bloggers.

However, within this group there was huge variation – with some bloggers earning even higher RPMs, while other bloggers were earning much lower RPMs.

All this underlines that there is HUGE potential with digital products to earn an enormous amount of money, but most bloggers really underestimate what it takes to run a successful digital product based business.

It’s not sufficient to simply create a product and advertise it on your website. You need to do market research, create a product your audience is actually willing to pay for, build a high converting sales page, launch your product properly, build an evergreen sales funnel, do digital product specific SEO, grow your personal authority, harness the power of customer advocacy and convert your traffic into red hot leads with high converting lead magnets and new subscriber nurture sequences.

Those who understand this are absolutely killing it when it comes to digital product RPMs… but those who don’t, and think all you need to do is put together a basic ebook and pop it on your site somewhere, are very much underachieving in this area.

The other thing to note is that both sponsored post RPMs and services RPMs have increased quite considerably vs last year, while physical product RPMs have decreased quite considerably.

Key takeaways

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

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

However, it’s important to point out that both sponsored posts and services are much less passive than digital products – meaning they can be hard to scale. Digital products are a much more passive form of income and so are 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 and/or affiliates when you don’t have a lot of pageviews is hard – and seems to be getting harder and 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 rather large grain of salt. Due to the sheer number of niches represented in the survey data, there were relatively few bloggers within most niches. (Food, Lifestyle and Travel were the biggest data sets.)

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

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

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

The second is that, although the data sets are too small to say definitively 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
• Food / Recipes
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Pets
• Travel

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

• Arts / Crafts
• Food / Recipes
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Pets

And these are the only niches represented in the survey that included bloggers earning $10,000 or more per month:

• Arts / Crafts
• Food / Recipes
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Pets

One final observation I made was that there were A LOT of bloggers who described their niche as “online business” but were not making ANY money. It seems a little mad to be “teaching” online business when you are not earning money from your online business yourself!

This data highlights just how important it is to be really careful about whose advice you follow when it comes to online business – there are a lot of people out there who sound impressive… but don’t actually know what they are talking about!

Comparison with last year

Due to the size of the data sets, it’s not really possible to make much of a comparison with last year.

Key takeaways

It’s probably possible to make money in almost any niche, however if you want to make more than $5,000 per month, you will probably stand the best chance if you blog in one of the following niches:

• Arts / Crafts
• Food / Recipes
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Pets

However, the data in this survey suggests that your financial success in blogging is less related to niche and far 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, it is no great surprise that the USA comes out top. The USA is the richest country in the world and, in general, ad RPMs are highest in the USA.

One thing I did find interesting about this year’s data is that UK bloggers whose readers are mainly in the USA actually earn a LOWER average RPM than UK bloggers whose readers are mainly in the UK.

One possible explanation for this is that, it’s actually quite hard to target a US audience if you do not actually live in the US – unless you go all in and write in US English and use products, measurements etc. that people from the US would use, you risk ending up with a blog which doesn’t quite appeal to a UK audience or a US audience – and this may be the reason for those lower average RPMs.

When it comes to the location of the blogger, a similar pattern occurs, with USA bloggers a long way ahead of the UK and the rest of the world in RPM terms.

What is interesting though is that Canadian blogger have RPMs that are nearly as good as US bloggers. However, digging into the data, this seems to be entirely down to the fact that all the Canadian bloggers who completed the Blogging Income Survey this year listed the USA as the country where the majority of their readers came from.

Comparison with last year

The results from this year’s survey are pretty similar to the results from last year’s survey. However, what is encouraging is that bloggers in all countries appear to be earning higher RPMs, on average, than they were last year.

Key takeaways

The first key takeaway is that where you live matters far 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, it MIGHT be worth targeting readers from the USA.

HOWEVER, there is a big caveat on that, as the data around UK bloggers highlights…

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, measurements etc. that people from the US would use. This can be hard to do and requires a lot more effort than many bloggers realize. 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.

The final takeaway here is that your location / your readers location matters less than HOW you monetize. If you monetize solely with ads, you are likely to be earning a lot less than bloggers who monetize via higher paying monetization methods, like digital products, and/or have more than one revenue stream. This is especially important for bloggers whose audience is outside of the USA, where the ad RPMs are already much lower.

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 21 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, 21 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 12 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 actually start blogging with the intention of making money, so this would almost certainly have skewed the ‘mean’ figure upwards somewhat.

Comparison with last year

Last year the figures were remarkably similar – the ‘mean’ figure was 22 months, but the ‘median’ figure was the same – 12 months.

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 months (49 months) to earn a full-time income from blogging. The ‘median’ was similar at 48 months (4 years). But again, the good news is many bloggers in the survey started earning a full-time income much sooner: 24% of bloggers surveyed were achieving a full-time income within 2 years of starting their blogs.

Again, the average is almost certainly skewed slightly higher than reality for someone who starts their blog with the intention of making money, because many bloggers didn’t start blogging with the intention of making money.

Comparison with last year

Again, the data is pretty similar year over year. Last year the ‘mean’ figure was exactly the same: 4 years and 1 month (49 months). The ‘median’ figure was lower: 36 months (3 years). And 28% of bloggers surveyed were achieving a full-time income within 2 years of starting their blogs.

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 Raptive (Formerly AdThrive), very closely followed by Mediavine.  

The data suggests then that Journey by Mediavine 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 and BizBudding.

(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 last year

There has been some interesting changes since last year…

Firstly, Raptive and Mediavine are now neck-and-neck, in RPMs terms, according to the data. This is interesting as it seems to reverse the trend we have seen in recent years. In 2023, RPMs from Mediavine were nearly $3 higher than Raptive. In 2024 average RPMs from Mediavine were only $1.80 higher than Raptive. And in 2025 Raptive RPMs were over $3 HIGHER than Mediavine. But now Raptive’s RPMs are only $0.49 higher than Mediavine’s RPMs.

This is interesting as, until recently the blogging world seemed to be utterly convinced that Raptive’s RPMs were much higher than Mediavine’s. Recently however, some bloggers have begun to question that narrative, and there has been some anecdotal evidence that the grass is perhaps not always greener at Raptive after all.

The ‘best of the rest’ is still Journey by Mediavine, for the second year running. But this year the gap has opened up considerably. Last year average RPMs at Journey were just $11.15 vs $28.60 this year – that’s quite a jump!

One interesting detail is that Ezoic has completely disappeared. Last year Ezoic was in 4th place. This year, not a single blogger who completed the Blogging Income Survey 2026 was monetized via Ezoic!

And, finally, Google Adsense is no longer in last place! Google Adsense was in last place for 4 years in a row. But now there is an ad company that is EVEN LOWER – BizBudding. I had to look BizBudding up as I had never heard of them. Apparently they are a hosted website company who also offer monetization via ads.

Key takeaways

This data suggests that, really there is no difference between Mediavine and Raptive. While technically there is $0.49 difference, in reality – given all the variables at play and the size of the data sets, that’s not statistically significant.

A lot of bloggers are convinced that Raptive is WAY better than Mediavine. But the data doesn’t seem to support that. So, if you are happy at Mediavine, then there doesn’t really appear to be a compelling reason to make the move.

That said, I would add a caveat that everyone’s situation is different. RPMs vary due to a whole host of different factors. Anecdotally, many bloggers find their RPMs improve quite significantly when they move from Mediavine to Raptive. However, not everyone has this experience and some bloggers have reported that their traffic dropped when they made the move to Raptive. Given that income is dependent on both traffic AND RPMs. That is an important consideration too.

These results also underline that it’s really worth doubling down on your SEO efforts in order to get into Mediavine ‘proper’/ Raptive as the RPMs are, the data suggests, considerably better than any of the other options.

If you don’t have the pageviews yet to qualify for Raptive / Mediavine ‘proper’ (25,000 pageviews per month for Raptive and similar for Mediavine – though the requirements for Mediavine are more complicated), the data shows that your best bet is almost certainly Journey by Mediavine, which has a minimum requirement 1,000 monthly sessions.

Given this data, I am quite surprised anyone is still with SHEMedia, Monumentric, Google Adsense et al. (If that’s you, I’d love to know why… Do let me know in the comments!) But this may well explain why Ezoic has disappeared from the Blogging Income Survey results this year.

However, before you start throwing ads on your 1,000+ session blog, there is another thing to consider here… All ads will have something of a negative effect on User Experience, and therefore SEO. This means putting ads on a smaller site is very likely to 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 Mediavine ‘proper’ / Raptive level as fast as possible, before putting ads on your site.

The good news is, selling digital products will have no such negative effect on SEO. In fact, selling digital products is very likely to have a positive effect on your SEO. So, if you have a blog with less than 25,000 pageviews, the data suggests that the best plan of action would be to NOT put ads on your site, but instead to monetize via digital products and continue to work on your SEO until you reach the 25,000 monthly pageviews needed to join Raptive or Mediavine ‘proper’.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that there were outliers, earning well above the average RPMs, with almost 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.

(And even if you are not with Mediavine, it may be worth reading that post, as a lot of the advice will work with other ad companies too!)

How much do bloggers charge for sponsored posts?

Next, 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 easy to find out, as not many 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 AVERAGE sponsored post rate, based on monthly pageviews. And 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 individual countries this year as the number of bloggers monetizing via sponsored posts was so much smaller this year than in previous years.)

Average sponsored post rate based on pageviews (all countries)

Highest sponsored post rate based on pageviews (all countries)

Analysis

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

Secondly, while it seems there is definitely some correlation between number of pageviews and sponsored post rates, it’s worth pointing out that sponsored post rates are often more dependent on social media followers and/or engagement rates than website pageviews, these days.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that at almost every level of pageviews, the highest charging blogger was NOT the blogger with the most pageviews in that group.

Comparison with last year

Looking at the overall figures, it seems that sponsored post rates are pretty similar at the top and bottom end, though there has been some movement in the middle. Last year, the average sponsored post rate for 50,000 to 99,000 pageviews was $1,339.73 vs $938.00 this year. And last year, the average sponsored post rate for 100,000 to 299,000 pageviews was $1,123.07 vs $1,674.00 this year

When it comes to highest sponsored post rates, I can’t really make year over year comparisons as I did not publish an “all countries” version of highest sponsored post rates last year.

Key takeaways

The first, and most obvious takeaway is that, if you are charging less than the average, you are undercharging! And you may want to consider increasing your fees.

It’s also worth taking a look at the highest sponsored post rate for your 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 digital products. 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 sponsored posts occasionally, but those I do pay very well! Only doing the occasional sponsored posts means I can spend the majority of my time creating and marketing digital products… thereby maximizing my income earned per unit of time. Meaning I can work less, but earn more!

What do successful bloggers do differently?

Finally, this year I added two new questions to the Blogging Income Survey with the aim of understanding what successful bloggers do differently. And the results were very interesting…

Strategies employed: Bloggers earning under $2,000 vs bloggers earning over $2,000 per month

Strategies that had the biggest positive impact on income in the last 12 months

Analysis

The first question I asked was: “Which of the following have you done over the past 12 months in order to grow your blog / blogging income.” I then compared the data between bloggers who were earning under $2,000 vs bloggers who were earning over $2,000. This gives us the first graph. From this first graph we can make a few interesting observations…

Firstly, successful bloggers are doing more of everything. Successful bloggers are not putting all their eggs in one basket. Instead they are building a diversified ecosystem where different strategies support each other.

Secondly, email marketing is the biggest differentiator between lower and higher earning bloggers. In fact, I drilled a bit further down into the data and found that on average, bloggers who do email marketing are earning TWICE AS MUCH as bloggers who do not do email marketing! Successful bloggers are not relying on borrowed traffic – they are building an audience they own – one that no random algorithm change can take away from them.

Thirdly, despite all the hype around AI and short-form video, SEO and Pinterest are still incredibly important in 2026.

The second question, I asked was: “Which ONE of those strategies has had the BIGGEST POSITIVE IMPACT on your income over the past 12 months.” This gives us the second graph. Again, we can make a few interesting observations…

Firstly, SEO is still #1 income driver for bloggers in 2026 – which just goes to show SEO is definitely NOT dead yet, despite what the “gurus” are telling you! This is closely followed by Pinterest, email marketing and then keyword research.

Secondly, most social media platforms have a fairly small effect on blogging income. Many bloggers spend a great deal of time on social media, yet the data suggests their time may be better spent elsewhere.

Thirdly, despite all the hype, AEO/GEO does not seem to have much of an effect on blogging income. Of course, it may do in future years, but right now, focusing a lot of effort and energy on AEO/GEO does not seem to be a great use of time.

Comparison with last year

I did not ask these questions last year, so unfortunately I can’t make any direct comparisons with last year.

Key takeaways

The most striking takeaway from these two charts is that the fundamentals still win. If you want to succeed at blogging in 2026, then focus the majority of your time, energy and efforts on:

• SEO
• Pinterest
• Email Marketing
• Keyword Research

Secondly, there is no single “magic bullet”. Successful bloggers are not doing one thing incredibly well and ignoring everything else. Successful bloggers are not putting their eggs in one basket, but rather they are tapping into multiple strategies to grow their blogging income.

However, given that time is finite and you can’t do everything, it makes sense to concentrate on the strategies that move the dial the most. Namely SEO, Pinterest, email marketing, keyword research and perhaps Facebook.

Thirdly, if you are not already doing email marketing… start doing email marketing! The data is clear that email marketing is one of the biggest differentiators between higher and lower earning bloggers AND it is essential if you want to future-proof your blog against future shocks.

Finally, avoid chasing new shiny strategies just because they are new and shiny. Everyone is obsessed right now over AEO/GEO and short-form video, but the data shows there is far more financial benefit to be found in focusing on the “old and boring” strategies than the “new and shiny” ones.

Conclusion – How can bloggers increase their income in 2026?

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

1. Write more more blog posts (based on high quality keyword research, of course!)
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 have not reached the minimum monthly pageview requirements for Mediavine ‘proper’, Journey by Mediavine looks like your best option from this data. (Though you may want to keep ads off your site so you can get into Mediavine ‘proper’ sooner.)
7. Review your current sponsored post rate and consider charging more if you are currently charging less than the average rate / highest rate for your level of pageviews. (And if you do not currently charge for sponsored posts, start charging!)
8. If you want to succeed in blogging, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but also don’t spread yourself too thin chasing every new shiny object. Focus primarily on the strategies that deliver the highest return, namely: SEO, Pinterest, email marketing and keyword research.
9. If you are not already doing email marketing… start doing email marketing! And if you are already doing email marketing, start taking email marketing more seriously. Email marketing is the single biggest differentiator between higher and lower earning bloggers.
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, members of the Digital Product Success Academy OR 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, Australia and New Zealand) 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 16 questions.

Data was given anonymously.

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

Responses were gathered between 2^nd January 2026 and 29^th April 2026.

There were 129 responses. While not a huge data set, it is sufficient to give statistically significant results, which seem to correlate well with other reliable blogging data/advice and anecdotal evidence. The data is also very consistent with previous Blogging Income Surveys (even though the respondents are likely to be largely different each year!)

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

All income data is in USD.

I converted income data given to me in other currencies, based on Google’s stated exchange rate for the day I analysed the data (4^th May 2026), which were:

• GBP: 1.36
• EUR: 1.17
• CAD: 0.74
• ZAR: 0.06

Thank you to everyone who took part!

More on this topic…

• How to START a profitable blog in 2026
• How to turn your BLOG into a BUSINESS in 2026
• Why every blogger should diversify into digital products NOW – before it’s too late!
• How to 10x your blogging income in 2026: step by step
• 10 ways to increase your blogging income in 2026

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