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What a content programme costs

Most content budgets price the writing and forget everything else. This prices the full programme: drafting at market per-word rates, editing, and the distribution work that decides whether anything gets read. Distribution is usually the largest line and the one nobody budgets for.

Last reviewed 27 August 2026

$/word

Market range for blog work is roughly $0.25 to $0.45 per word.

Posting, adapting per channel, and answering replies.

$

Result

Cost per piece, fully loaded

$863

Monthly programme cost

$5,175

6 pieces a month

Where the money goes

Where the money goes
StagePer piecePer monthShare
Writing$525$3,15061%
Editing$113$67513%
Distribution$225$1,35026%

Distribution is 26% of the cost here. Budgets that price writing alone are understating the programme by roughly that much, which is why so much content gets published and never read.

How this works

What the numbers mean.

  • 01Writing is priced per word. The Editorial Freelancers Association 2026 rate chart, based on over 1,100 respondents, puts blog and article work at roughly $0.25 to $0.45 per word, which is the default range here.
  • 02Editing and distribution are priced in hours, because they do not scale with word count. A short post can take as long to distribute as a long one.
  • 03Distribution covers adapting the piece per channel, posting it, and answering what comes back. It is the step that turns a published piece into a read one.

Assumptions and limits

  • Per-word rates vary widely with subject-matter difficulty. Deeply technical writing sits above this range.
  • The monthly figure excludes strategy, briefing, and design.
  • Distribution hours are our operating estimate. Yours will differ by channel mix.

Questions about this tool

Why is distribution priced so high?
Because it is genuinely most of the work and it is the part that determines the return. Publishing a piece takes minutes. Adapting it for three channels, posting it where the audience actually is, and answering the replies takes hours, and skipping that step is why most content programmes produce nothing.
Where do the per-word rates come from?
The Editorial Freelancers Association publishes an annual rate chart from a survey of professional writers and editors. The 2026 edition drew over 1,100 responses and puts blog and article work in the $0.25 to $0.45 per word band. It is guidance rather than a mandated rate.
Can I just publish more cheaply?
You can lower the per-word rate, and quality usually falls with it in ways that show. The more effective lever is publishing less and distributing each piece properly, because the distribution cost per piece is roughly fixed while the return is not.

Related

This tool is free and there is nothing to sign up for. If you would rather have the work done than calculate it, that is what Zway does.

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