Guest post prices: How much should you pay in the USA?

The Ultimate 2026 Guide to Paid Guest Post Pricing.

Introduction: Why Guest Post Pricing Is More Important Than You Think.

You need just to enter the search query of guest post price USA in the search engine and you will understand the confusion that comes with the results. Other websites will charge 50 dollars to place one position, but some will charge 2,000 dollars to place what appears to be an equivalent service. And what is it you are paying anyway, and how do you determine what a fair price is?

The fact is, the market of Guest Post Pricing in 2026 and Guest Post Pricing in the United States is open-ended. It is a fixed-rate card; there is no industry standard and no body that puts down rules. The cost is out of the scale depending on the authority of the site, the niche, the person writing the content, and the level of competition in the industry. It is easy to pay too much money on something that does not offer much in it, or it is equally dangerous to underpay and get a link that can be harmful to your site without knowing what makes those prices.

This manual dissects it all in your favor. The information you will be able to know by the time you complete the reading process is the average guest post price in the USA, which forces the costs to rise or fall, whether a specific site is worth the money, and how to get good placements without wasting away your entire content budget.

What are Paid Guest Posts? What are the reasons behind their use by businesses?

A guest post is a publication on a different site in which you pay to have an article of between 800 to 2000 words posted. In its turn, you will usually get one or two links to your site, not to mention the advantage of accessing the existing traffic of that site.

The businesses in the USA are willing to spend on paid guest posts because of several reasons:

• Development of domain authority by having superior quality backlinks.

• Raising the levels of organic search in Google and other search engines.

• Getting referral traffic through relevant and established websites.

• Building brand equity in a given niche or industry.

• Creating leads and sales out of the readers that have confidence in the host publication.
  

Guest posting is not a new concept in SEO strategy as it was more than 10 years old, and although Google has become more effective in discerning links, relevant, well-placed guest postings do have weight. The most important word in this case is relevant. A linkage with a U.S. based site that is respected in your industry would be highly worth much more than a foreign directory site that is irrelevant.

The Real Numbers: Guest Post Price USA

Now, let us get down to the point that the majority of the people are interested in. The following is a list of the guest post prices in the USA depending on the quality of the sites, domain authority (DA), and competitiveness in the niche.

These are ranges that are averages of existing market rates. You will have extremes on both sides with some underpriced to win customers and others being overpriced simply because they are a brand.

Budget Guest Posts ($50–$150)

Such placements are usually the ones that are placed by the websites with lower domain authority, reduced organic traffic, and even general or vaguely defined subjects. They may be handy with newer websites which only need to establish a link profile but you are well advised to screen them. It is better to pay a lot to have a cheap post on a spammy site than lose.

Mid-Tier Placements ($150–$400)

It is the usual sweet spot of small to medium-sized businesses. You receive valuable domain power, a certain natural organic traffic, and a more interested readership. Such sites tend to possess editorial benchmark, actual social media fans and sufficient search exposure to count the links.

Premium Guest Posts ($400–$800)

The special placements will be on websites that have good domain authority, high traffic, and enthusiastic and loyal customers. Such industries as SaaS, marketing, finance and real estate tend to work in this bracket. These connections are not trivial in the mind of Google and referral traffic can be actually valuable.

Authority and News Sites ($800–$2,000+)

Publications of this scale include such as: think industry journals, major news blogs or popular niche authorities and are priced at the top. When you have an opportunity to be placed on one of them, the SEO value and the credibility indicator can be worth its own weight. They are not guest posts that you can just purchase without a second thought but instead they need to be pitched, shaped to an article and in many cases have to be connected with the editor.

What Are the Determinants of Guest Post Pricing?

Price in itself does not convey much. The only thing that counts is what you are getting out of that price. The following are the drivers of actual cost (cost drivers of the guest post market) and value.

Domain Authority and Domain Rating.

Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are third-party measures that Moz and Ahrefs have developed respectively. They guess the level of the position of a site in search engines based on the quality of its backlink profile. A site that has a DA of 60 or more has gained much trust in the web and it is reasonable to pay more to get a link in such a site. Caution is necessary though - DA and DR are controllable. Comparing the data on organic traffic is always a good idea.

Organic Traffic Volume

A site that has 50,000 people in the USA who visit the site monthly is more valuable to you than a 50 DA site that has almost no search traffic. The information on the traffic can be frequently provided by such tools as Ahrefs, SEMrush, or SimilarWeb. When a site is receiving actual visits of actual people in your target market that is a good indication of quality.

Niche Relevance

A connection on a site on your specific niche is much better than that on a general interest blog. In the case of a legal tech start-up, a placement in one of the reputable legal technology blogs will be worth much more than a placement in a general business blog - despite the fact that the two may have the same DAs. One of the things that Google considers to evaluate the quality of a backlink is the niche relevance.

Quality of Content and Standards of Editing.

Does the site contain original and well researched articles? Does it actually have an editorial staff that goes through submissions? Better sites are ones that can uphold editorial quality, not only to the reader, but also to Google. Poor websites usually accept any material at a fee, this is an indicator.

Location and Target Market.

In the case of businesses that aim at customers in the United States, it is more advantageous to be placed on websites with a domestic audience compared to those with an international traffic. This premium is manifested in a guest post price in the USA. In cases where your audience is trendy, such as New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, you might want to pay a higher price to a site with readers mostly consisting of American professionals in your industry.

The Presence of Content Writing in the Post.

There are those services which include content writing and the placement fee. Others charge separately. In case you need someone to write the article on your behalf, then you would need to add another $75-300 basing on the experience of the writer and the size of the article. Niche markets such as medicine, law and finance tend to have higher writing fees since the material would need subject matter knowledge.

The Guide to Screening a Guest Post Opportunity Before You Pay.

Not all the sites that are paid to post your guest blog posts are worth your cash. Checklist Before committing to anything, go through this.

• Determine the domain authority and domain rating of the site with Moz or Ahrefs.

• Check organic traffic with SEMrush or SimilarWeb -target at least 5000 visitors per month to write in the middle range.

• Examine the new material on the site, is the content of the latest articles original and high quality or is it watery and canned?

• Determine whether the site is indexed in Google by entering the domain name of the website as site:domain.com in the search box.

• Examine the links that have been included in outbound links- are the links relevant or does the site connect to anything and everything?

• Look for a link farm, which can be too many sponsored posts, irrelevant categories or lack of an actual editorial presence.

• Ensure the presence and actual interaction of the social media is real and not faked follower numbers.

Another aspect that should be mentioned: the guidelines of Google technically do not encourage the sale of links. The likelihood of the well-positioned pertinent information on the legitimate sites is low, and should be noted. The most secure posts by a guest appear like an editorial piece - valuable, properly composed and actually useful to the visitors on the host site.

The Paid Guest Post Sources in the USA.

Locating good websites to post the guest posts is half the way. The following are the primary avenues of SEO experts and content marketers in the nation.

Guest Post Marketplaces

Sellers and publishers that use paid placements have their platform linked to such sites as Accessily, Authority Builders, Loganix, and FatJoe. Such marketplaces screen their inventory to a certain extent and usually present such metrics as DA and traffic initially. They make an easy point of beginning, but prices are usually a little more than direct.

Direct Outreach

A significant number of the good placements are made by merely emailing the owners of the web sites. Do some research in your niche, locate those that take guest posts and propose a polite invitation. You are likely to spend less by going direct and you have a greater control over the content. This method is time consuming yet likely to bring better quality relationships and placements.

SEO Services and Link Building Service.

Guest posting is also a service provided by many of the U.S.-based SEO agencies as an extension of a larger link building service. It may be effective in the case when you are outsourcing your whole SEO plan, but be sure that you know properly where to be placed and take a quick look at the websites to be sure you are not in the company of spammers.

Freelance Platforms

There are websites such as Fiverr and Upwork where there are vendors who provide services of guest posts. The quality is enormous, there are exceptional deals and horrible ones on the same platform. No matters go on without first getting a sample site list, examining the metrics, and verifying that the sites are not owned by a private blog network (PBN).

The Negotiation Guide to Prices of Guest Posts without Burning Bridges.

When one of the sites charges you 350 to place an advertisement, and your budget is at 200, there are subtle methods of negotiating and not hurting the relationship.

• Inquire about a multi-placement discount - purchasing in bulk is one of the popular types of discounting.

• Propose to supply the material themselves and this eliminates the cost of writing on their part.

• Enquire whether it will be included in a monthly or a quarterly program, which some publishers will do at a lower cost.

• Get open about your budget and inquire whether they have cheaper alternatives on sites related to them.

• Say you are seeking a long-term relationship- publishers are interested in repeat business.

What you do not want to do is to be too insistent about the price that the publisher feels like he is not valued. The relationships of the best guest posts are those in which the parties involved respect each other. A web site owner who is sincere about doing business with you will do a better job than one who accepted a lower bid reluctantly.