PUBLISHER VALUE
What is a sponsored blog article worth?
The sensible price is not simply “your DR multiplied by a number”. A sponsored article is a bundle of writing, publishing, audience access, distribution, brand fit and sometimes usage rights.
Price the editorial work first
Factor in research, writing, editing, images, revisions, administration and publication. A brand supplying finished copy is a different product from asking you to create the article from scratch.
Audience and niche can matter more than raw traffic
A smaller site with a concentrated, commercially relevant audience can be more valuable to an advertiser than a larger general-interest site. Use real analytics where possible rather than authority scores as a substitute for audience data.
Add distribution separately
Newsletter inclusion, homepage promotion, social posts, display duration and featured placement can be priced as additions instead of being silently bundled into one article fee.
Consider exclusivity and usage rights
Charging more can be reasonable when a sponsor asks for category exclusivity, long-term placement, rights to reuse your content, or unusually extensive revisions.
Do not sell unqualified links as the product
Google permits advertising and sponsored content, but paid links should be marked with rel="sponsored" or nofollow. Selling links that pass ranking credit primarily to manipulate search results can violate Google's spam policies.
A useful rate-card structure
Set a base editorial fee, then add clearly priced options for writing, newsletter promotion, social distribution, featured placement, exclusivity and extended usage rights. This is much easier to defend than pricing from DR alone.
Google reference: qualifying sponsored outbound links.