How much do bloggers REALLY earn in 2024? (Statistics from the Blogging Income Survey 2024)

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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 2024.

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 plucked out of the sky by me, this is real data from real bloggers who completed the 2024 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 2024 and beyond!

Better still, as this is the third 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 last year’s 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 fairly 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 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 3y+ 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 bloggers who have been blogging for more than 10 years are actually earning LESS, on average, than bloggers who have been blogging for 5-10 years.

It’s impossible to say for certain why this is, but my best guess would be that 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.)

It’s also important to point out this these are ‘average’ figures. There are plenty of bloggers in the 10y+ bracket that are earning much more than those in the 5-10y bracket. However, the averages are being pulled down by those bloggers who are earning much less.

Comparison with last year

While the general picture is similar to previous years, there are some notable differences in the 2024 data, compared to the results from last year’s Blogging Income Survey.

Firstly, bloggers in the 1-3y bracket are earning much less on average this year, compared to 2023. Last year bloggers in this bracket were earning $1,366.67 on average compared to an average of just $74.89 this year.

That’s a huge change! And really underlines the fact that blogging has got increasingly competitive over the last few years. (Though there is plenty you can do to buck this trend… read on for how!)

Secondly, bloggers in the 5-10y bracket are earning a lot more than last year. ($5,450.90 in 2024, compared to $3,919.96 in 2023.)

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

However, what is particularly interesting to note is that bloggers in the 10+ years bracket are, on average, earning considerably less than last year.

I do wonder if this group was more affected by the Helpful Content Update back in September 2023 than other groups.

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. (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 pretty 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 fairly strong correlation between pageviews and the number of posts on a blog.

Up until 499 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 500 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 500 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 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 50-99 post category are earning significantly less that last year ($205.31 per month vs $967.21 in 2023). This means that in 2024 it is even more important than before to write more high quality blog posts if you want to succeed in blogging.  

Secondly, bloggers at the higher end are doing MUCH better than last year. Bloggers with 1000+ blog posts are earning an average of $11,578.73 per month, compared to $8,103.50 last year. Again, highlighting the importance of writing more blog posts, if you want to earn more money.

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 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 Content Booster Challenge in SEO Jumpstart!

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 – 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 pretty 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.

I wouldn’t read too much into the slight dip for the 25,000 – 49,999 pageviews group. This was quite a small group, so the average has been disproportionately affected by a few bloggers who were earning very little from their blogs.

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 top group – with 500,000+ pageviews per month are earning EVEN MORE this year… On average $20,534.50 vs $16,563.57 per month last year. This builds on the trend from the previous year, where bloggers in the top group were earning $14,830 per month.

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 and focusing on higher RPM revenue streams.

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 money 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. There is clearly a big jump going from 1 revenue stream to 2 or more. After that it’s a little less clear cut.

Digging into the data, what seems to matter more is which monetize methods you choose. Some revenue streams pay a lot more than others!

Comparison with last year

Last year’s data showed a similar pattern – a loose correlation between number of revenue streams and average RPM, but a much stronger correlation between main monetization stream and RPMs (see below).

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 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: RPMs for digital products is OVER TEN 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 TEN 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 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 unlikely to be able to get an RPM of $27.86 from ads… but even if they could, this would only result in a monthly income of $278.60.

However, it’s completely possible for a blogger with 10,000 monthly pageviews to get an RPM of $365.94 from digital products… and this would result in a monthly income of $3,659.40. For many people in the world this is a full-time income.

Comparison with last year

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 $26.19 to $27.86
• Affiliates: slight decrease from $37.58 to $33.91
• Sponsored Posts: slight increase from $43.57 to $50.20
• Digital products: significant increase from $213.02 to $365.94
• Services: significant decrease from $160.71 to $117.75

The big mover here is, of course, digital product RPMs. To be honest, as someone who monetizes via digital products and knows how good digital product RPMs can be, this does not surprise me at all. But I should point out that this figure is just an average and there is a huge amount of variation. Some who monetize mainly via digital products achieve much more modest RPMs, while some are achieving RPMs of over $1,000!

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 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, are very much underachieving in this area.

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, 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 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 / 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 huge pinch of salt! Due to the large number of niches represented in the survey data, there were relatively few bloggers within most niches. (Food, Lifestyle and Travel were the biggest datasets, but even they were relatively 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 the most lucrative niches from an RPM perspective appear to be online business and personal finance. This does not surprise me, since both of these niches are focused on helping other people get richer. Generally speaking, you can earn a lot of money teaching other people to make money. (And if you make other people richer, they have more money to spend on your products and services, so it becomes a virtuous circle!)

What did concern me (though didn’t surprise me!) was how many bloggers in these 2 niches are 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!

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 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
• Beauty / Fashion / Hair
• Education / Home-schooling
• Food / Recipes
• Gardening
• Health / Fitness
• Home décor
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Parenting
• Personal Finance
• Travel

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
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Parenting
• Personal Finance
• Travel

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

• Beauty / Fashion / Hair
• Food / Recipes
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Travel

Comparison with last year

The results from this year’s survey are pretty similar to the results from last year’s survey. The main difference was that there were more niches represented in the survey that included bloggers earning over $1,000, over $5,000 and over $10,000 per month.

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:

• Beauty / Fashion / Hair
• Food / Recipes
• Home décor
• Lifestyle / Multi Topic
• Online Business / Blogging / Social Media
• Parenting
• Personal Finance
• Travel

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, 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. What is a little surprising is that ‘Rest of World’ now pays higher than the UK. But when I drill down into the data, I can see that this figure is somewhat skewed by the fact that a greater percentage of bloggers in the ‘Rest of World’ category earn their income from the higher paying revenue sources – like digital products. Whereas most UK focused bloggers earn the majority of their income from ads – which is the revenue source with the lowest 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.

With this data set, I had enough data to be able to separate out Canadian and Australian/NZ bloggers and their RPMs are higher than UK/RoW bloggers, but lower than US bloggers. This seems to be partly because more Canadian/Australian/NZ bloggers are focused on the USA as their target market and partly because they are less reliant on ads. A lot of UK bloggers get almost all of their income from ads.

Comparison with last year

The results from this year’s survey are pretty similar to the results from last year’s survey. The main difference is that bloggers who target the UK are now earning less than bloggers who target other non-US countries. But this is more to do with the fact that many UK focused bloggers monetize almost entirely with ads, whereas bloggers targeting other non-US countries are generally more diversified.  

Key takeaways

The first key takeaway is that where you as a blogger lives 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, 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, measurements 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.

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 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 pretty similar – the ‘mean’ figure was 20 months, but the ‘median’ figure was 13 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 3 years and 11 months (47 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 34% 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 very similar year over year. Last year the ‘mean’ figure was 4 years and 1 month (49 months), the ‘median’ figure was 36 months (3 years) and 38% 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 Mediavine, followed by Raptive (Formerly AdThrive).  

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

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 last year

The results at the top end are quite similar to last year, though Raptive has slightly closed the gap since last year. Last year average RPMs from Mediavine were nearly $3 higher than Raptive. This year average RPMs from Mediavine are only $1.80 higher than Raptive.

Last year Monumetric was the ‘best of the rest’, but this year none of the respondents used Monumetric.

Results from the other 3 ad companies are in the same order as last year, with SHE Media coming in next, followed by Ezoic. And, finally, Google Adsense coming in last place… and, for a third year in a row, Google Adsense RPMs have fallen!

It’s also worth noting that, while Google Adsense RPMs have fallen year over year, average RPMs from all the other ad companies have slightly increased since last year’s survey. The biggest mover being Ezoic which has gone from $7.99 in 2023 to $11.47 in 2024.

Key takeaways

This data would seem to suggest that, if you are currently with Raptive, 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 / Raptive 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 Raptive (or 50,000 pageviews for Raptive Rise).

If you don’t have the pageviews yet to qualify for Mediavine (or Raptive), the data shows that your best bet is probably SHE Media, which has a minimum pageview limit of 20,000 monthly pageviews.  

However, since I closed the survey, a brand new opportunity has opened up for smaller bloggers as Mediavine have recently launched ‘Journey’. Journey is Mediavine’s ad management solution for bloggers with 10,000+ sessions. As Journey is very new, it’s too soon to know how good the RPMs will be… and it’s unlikely that they will be as good as the RPMs from ‘regular’ Mediavine. However, there is a big gap between ‘regular’ Mediavine and current ‘next best’ SHE Media. I think there’s a good chance that Mediavine Journey will become ‘the best of the rest’ in future. #WatchThisSpace!

Of course, I must caveat all of 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 sessions 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.

(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?

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 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 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, while it seems there is some correlation between number of pageviews and sponsored post rates, the correlation is not especially strong – especially when you look at ‘highest’ sponsored post rates. My guess is that this is because sponsored post rates are often more dependent on social media followers and/or engagement rates than website pageviews. Though it could simply be that, because there are no ‘standard’ rates for sponsored posts, many bloggers are seriously undercharging.

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 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 a little higher at the bottom end this year ($350.60 vs $187.78 in 2023), but lower at the top end ($1,319.16 vs $2,500.00 in 2023).

There is a similar trend with US/Canadian average sponsored post rates.

However, in the UK, average sponsored post rates are all over the place, with rates at the top end considerably down on last year (£300.00 vs £1,250.87 in 2023).

When it comes to highest sponsored post rates, the figures from the USA & Canada, are broadly similar to last year, except for a dip this year in the 100,000-299,999 category.

However, in the UK, highest sponsored post rates are, again, all over the place this year. In 2023, there was a rough correlation between number of pageviews and highest sponsored post rates, but this year the highest sponsored post rate is in the 10,000-49,999 category!

Key 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 2024?

From the results of the Blogging Income Survey, it is possible to draw a number of conclusions about how bloggers can increase their income in 2024.

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 Raptive, 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, SHE Media looks like your best option from this data. However, Mediavine’s recent launch of Journey may prove to be a game-changer for smaller bloggers. (Though you may want to keep ads off your site so you can get into ‘full’ 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, 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 5^th January 2024 and 12^th March 2024.

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 (13^th March 2024), which were:

• GBP: 1.280
• EUR: 1.094
• CAD: 0.742
• AUD: 0.661
• ZAR: 0.054

Thank you to everyone who took part!

More on this topic…

• How to START a profitable blog
• How to turn your BLOG into a BUSINESS
• Why every blogger should diversify into digital products NOW – before it’s too late!
• How to 10x your blogging income: step by step
• 10 ways to increase your blogging income in 2024

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