In this post: Want to understand how much should a blogger charge for a sponsored post? Keep reading to learn how to determine your value and your influencer rate card.
How to Set an Influencer Rate Card to Get Paid for Sponsored Posts
Are you a blogger, influencer, and/or content creator and you feel ready to take the next step and start pitching to brands for collaborations? That’s so exciting!
If you’ve been around the blog, you know that La Belle Society is the hub where you will learn all the nuances of reaching out to for collaborations, from what services to offer in a brand partnership to how to write the perfect email outreach. If you want to know more about this topic, then be sure to visit this page.
For the purpose of today’s post, we will go over how to create an influencer rate card (or also known as a blogger rate sheet).
Determining your value as an influencer and/or content creator is easy once you’ve figured out some of the key components. To understand what are those, it is important to take the time to underline your brand’s core values.
Trust me, after a year of blogging I was all over the place because I had skipped this step myself. I always knew I wanted to monetize my blog, but I had never taken the time to really think about what I could offer and what made me unique. This not only hurt my social media engagement but also compromised the speed on which I grew my brand.
Once you’ve figured these elements, you can understand your influence (even when you don’t have a big audience), you gain confidence in your services and how much you can charge a brand.
Before we start What is An Influencer Rate Card?
If a company was to charge to advertise on their website, TV channel, or magazine, they would have to be able to inform the buyer how much it would cost for them to do so. In short, being paid to allow for ads in your community.
This is basically what you are doing for brands. What differs is that the outlet is your social media channel and blog, while the viewers being your devoted followers and fans.
If, in addition to being an Instagram influencer, you’re also a content creator, your services are even ore valued. This is because you can produce professional content to deliver brands from scratch, with a pinch of social media exposure due to your audience.
The more services you an offer a brand, the higher you can charge.
I’ve written an entire post on creative services that bloggers can offer brands to increase their value. Read all about it here.
What is the difference between a Media Kit and an Influencer Rate Card?
In short, one is used during pitching (Media Kit) while the other is necessary during the negotiation phase.
Media Kit
A media kit, in the blogger/influencer world, is a document that highlights key information and statistics about your blog that a brand would be interested in knowing. You usually provide a media kit to brands that you want to work with as a way to introduce yourself and show them why collaborating with you would be beneficial to their company’s goals and objectives.
Influencer Rate Card / Rate Sheet
An Influencer Rate Card, on the other hand, is a document used when selling products or services that determines their value/price. It typically includes details about the rate for each product or service you are offering the brand, and even potential packages or bundles.
You absolutely can include an overview of your services in your media kit to help sustain your value, but remember to not add a price tag just yet, so as to keep the conversation open.
When Should You Present Your Blogger Rate Sheet?
This is probably my biggest tip included in this post, so I urge you to pay attention.
Whenever negotiating with a brand, never (ever) send them your rate sheet before trying to understand their budget. The reason for this is that you might be charging much less than a brand is actually willing to pay (imagine asking for $250 when a brand was willing to pay $800?).
Don’t make the mistake of undervaluing your services or underestimating a brand’s budget to pay you. Ask for their budget many times and only send a rate sheet if they really insist.
Should You Send Your Influencer Rate Card to a Brand? (SEO?)
Ok now that we covered that you will only send a rate card as a last resort, this doesn’t mean it is not important to have one at hand.
In fact, every blogger and influencer should have a basic rate card that covers their cost per post (i.e. how much to charge for a sponsored Instagram post, how much to charge for a blog post, or even for an Instagram Story), etc.
However, the best bloggers tailor their rate sheets to the brand’s actual needs and the partnership opportunity. What you can do is determine your standard rates, then offer to create a custom package for the brand based on what they are looking to accomplish for the brand partnership or campaign.
As a tip, I would not include your rate sheet or prices in your blog. It is best to include services and a ‘’contact me for a personalized quote’’ (but that’s just my personal preference. As a Strategic Sales Executive, I’d rather leave room for negotiation rather than being rejected because I announced a price that was higher than my customer could afford).
What To Include In Your Influencer Rate Card?
Think of a rate sheet as a quote for a brand. A rate sheet should cover every item you are providing the brand and should give them different options to choose from.
A blogger rate sheet should be s based on the brand’s needs. You should aim to create packages that speak directly to them so you’ll increase your chances of getting hired and earn more income. You can also combine a variety of your offerings to create appealing options for brands too.
For example, if a brand wants you to write a blog post on its product you can offer other packages that include the promotion of the blog post on your social media channels. Another idea to increase your influencer rate card value is to offer distinctions on the type of posts you can create, such as a blog post mentioning the brand versus including a link in your bio for a month, committing to promoting it in your stories a few times a week, etc.
It always helps to entice the brand to spend more on your work by offering them different options they may have never considered.
Building Your Blog’s Rate Card
Let’s go over what to include in your blogger rate sheet:
Name and Contact Info
Even if your contact information was included in the media kit that you had already provided the brand at the start of your negotiation, make sure you include it again to make it easier for them to get in touch (always make it easier for them to find any information they might need. Aim to anticipate these needs)
Another reason for this is that you never know if they will forward your influencer rate card to someone else on the team and your contact information might get lost in the shuffle.
Imagine losing a partnership because the brand manager was too lazy to look up your contact in your initial email? Yikes, girl!
So make sure to include in your blogger rate card your:
- Name
- Website/Social Info (hyperlink these)
- Email Address
- Phone Number
- Partnership/Collaboration Opportunities
Be sure to include what services or promotional opportunities you offer within your social channels and your blog/website.
Break up the available opportunities by platform and dive deeper within each platform to create various options. If you have a killer email list, don’t forget to offer an email campaign too since typically brands get excited about emails, since these means extra targeted + engaged audience.
Many times the brand will already know what they want out of the campaign (or at least have an idea which can be built upon with your suggestions, thus incrementing your pay).
Other times, they might have no idea what they want. That’s when you’ll have to put on your expert hat and make some serious recommendations on what would be the best fit for them to achieve their influencer marketing goals and objectives.
As you know by now, the best way to go on about this is to understand the brand’s needs (instead of assuming it). To understand their goals, you should act as a consultant and ask strategic questions.
As a sales executive, this is my favorite part as it allows you to really dig into their problems and understand how to offer the best-tailored option. I’ve written an entire post on how to get the most out of a brand dal by acting as a consultant here.
Pricing
I strongly recommend you to be realistic and do some research on the brand before you put prices on any of your services. For example, if you’re pitching to a startup it’s unlikely they will have the same influencer budget as Urban Outfitters.
I always like to add prices in a range, as it gives you further room for negotiation.
GOLDEN TIP
Since most bloggers work with international clients, don’t forget to make sure you put the prices in the currency you expect to receive from the brand too!
Packages/Bundles
Bundling various services and offering a discount is a good way to incentivize a brand to spend more than what they initially intended. Think of it when you buy something and the company offers you a “special offer” where if you spend a little more, isn’t it tempting?
Aim to make your offer as appealing as possible b offering bundles that increment your services’ value.
Influencer Rate Card Examples
Be prepared to negotiate your brand partnership!
Just because you send your rate sheet doesn’t mean the brand will take those prices at face value. Be prepared for the brand to negotiate your services.
Yes, you heard me right, instead of negotiating your rates, I’d suggest trying to negotiate your service instead. So in lieu of charging 300 for a blog post, Instagram post, and 5 stories, you can charge 200 for an Instagram post and 5 stories (without the blog post).
Remember it is about determining your value and worth as a content creator.
But of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and if you feel comfortable reducing your rates to accommodate a brand that you really want to work with, heck, go for it!!!
Other posts on how to get more brands collaborations and be paid.
- How to Get Sponsored Collaborations as a Content Creator
- Brand Partnership 101 | The Ultimate Guide for Brand Collaborations
- How to Turn Gifted Products into Paid Opportunities
- How to Instantly Start Working With Brands as A Micro-Influencer
- Best Practices for Blogger + Brand Partnerships
- How I Stay in Luxury Hotels for Free as a Content Creator
- 6 Great Ways to Get Free Hotel Stays When You Have a Small Following
- Creative Services to Offer Brands in a Blogger Partnership (coming soon)
Other Game-Changing Blogging Resources:
Blog Income Tracker – Don’t make the same mistakes as I did and forget to track your income (and expenses). Trust me, this will make a huge difference in your life.
ShareaSale – Has been in business for 20 years, exclusively as an Affiliate Marketing Network. This is a place where you can sign up once, and get access to hundreds and hundreds of amazing brands’ affiliate networks.
Tailwind – If Pinterest or Instagram is part of your strategy and you feel you’re losing too much time with it (join the club), then Tailwind is a MUST. Tailwind is an approved tool for both Instagram and Pinterest to schedule your posts. This allows you to batch in advance and plan your posting schedule. Try Tailwind for one month free here and make up your mind on your own.
DepositPhotos – Stunning stock photos for every niche.
The Affiliate Programs Masterlist – This masterlist is a database of 500+ affiliate programs in over 17 different niches, giving bloggers a wide range of products and services to promote so they can increase their affiliate sales.
LongTailPro – A fantastic keyword search tool for Google SEO. I love it because they also include an in-depth course on understanding SEO, how to find the best keywords to make money and get traffic, and many other insider tips on how to best utilize keywords to boost your website. Perfect for both beginners and advanced SEO understanding.
The She Approach To Boosting Your Blog Traffic (eBook) -This eBook is a guide to helping new and established bloggers increase their blog traffic. It was y first book on how to increase my blog traffic and it slowly tuned into something of a bible for me. Every so often, I go back to it both for inspiration and to refresh my memory.
DON’T GO JUST YET!
If you ever have any questions, let me know in the comments below or hit me an email at labellesociety@gmail.com Alternatively you can find me on Instagram and also be sure to join our NEW ‘Bloggers + Brands’ Facebook group!
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