Most creators have no idea what to charge for a sponsorship. They ask a friend, look at a forum post from 2021, or just pick a number that feels plausible. Then a brand pushes back, they fold immediately, and they never know whether they left money on the table.
The problem isn't confidence — it's information. Brands have it. Most creators don't.
Why "rates per 1,000 subscribers" is misleading
The most common benchmark you'll see quoted is a CPM (cost per thousand) based on subscriber count. A newsletter CPM of $20–$30 sounds tidy. But it's almost meaningless.
A 50,000-subscriber newsletter with a 15% open rate delivers 7,500 actual eyeballs. A different 50,000-subscriber newsletter with a 45% open rate delivers 22,500. Same CPM, wildly different value. Brands aren't paying for subscribers. They're paying for attention.
The number that matters is effective CPM — your fee per 1,000 people who actually opened, watched, or listened. That's the metric that lets you compare yourself honestly to other creators.
Your peer group matters more than "the market"
"Market average" CPM figures are almost always dominated by a handful of giant creators. When a $80,000/issue newsletter is included in the same average as a $500/issue newsletter, the mean tells you nothing useful.
The right comparison is creators of a similar size, in a similar niche, on the same platform. A newsletter with 8,000 subscribers should benchmark against other 2k–10k newsletters — not against Morning Brew.
That's what peer-banded benchmarking does. Your rate sits somewhere in a distribution of creators like you — and you can see whether you're in the bottom quartile, the middle, or the top.
The three questions to answer
- What is your effective CPM right now? (Average fee ÷ typical opens/views × 1,000)
- What is the p25–p75 range for creators in your band?
- If you raised to the median, what would that mean annually?
The third question is usually the most clarifying. Knowing that raising your rate by $200 per sponsorship would mean $3,200 extra per year at your current booking rate puts a concrete number on what underpricing is actually costing you.
Rates are negotiable — benchmarks give you a floor
You don't have to charge the median. Premium rates go to creators with higher engagement, better audience quality, a strong brand fit, or who've built a track record with sponsors. But knowing the market gives you a floor to negotiate from, rather than guessing whether $500 is too much to ask.
The goal isn't to find the magic number. It's to stop leaving money on the table by pricing below what the market has already shown it will pay.
Creator Rates is free to use. Submit your rates and see exactly where you sit in your peer band.