Sponsored Content & Brand Deals Medium
Brands pay for a post, video, integration or review featuring their product, sold directly or through a creator marketplace.
- Typical earnings
- $200-5,000 per post; $10-60 RPM equivalent
- Per 1,000 visitors
- $10-60 (US, general niche)
- Traffic needed
- From 10k/mo
- Cost to start
- $0
- First payout
- 2-4 months
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Effort
- Hands-on
- Family
- Advertising revenue
- Metrics
- Rate per post, Deals per month, Sponsor click / conversion rate, Audience retention on sponsored pieces
Estimate sponsored content & brand deals earnings for your traffic →
Who pays for sponsored content & brand deals
Networks and programs that send the money, platforms you run it on, and marketplaces where you sell it directly.
What is Sponsored content & brand deals?
What it is
Sponsored content is a piece you make about a brand for money: a review post, a YouTube integration, a sponsored newsletter issue, a series of Instagram posts, a dedicated podcast episode. Unlike an ad unit, it carries your voice and your recommendation, which is exactly why brands pay so much more for it and why the rules about disclosure exist.
How the money flows
Brands and agencies reach you three ways: inbound from your media kit and "work with us" page, through creator marketplaces (Collabstr, Aspire, Impact's creator platform, YouTube BrandConnect, TikTok Creator Marketplace, Grin's network) that list your rates and audience, or through talent managers who take 15-25%. Pricing is per deliverable, often anchored on audience size and engagement, with usage rights (the brand reusing your content in its own ads) priced separately. Payment is NET-30 after delivery unless you insist on a deposit, which you should.
What it pays
A blog with 50,000 monthly readers charges $300-1,500 per sponsored post; a YouTube channel with 100,000 subscribers charges $2,000-10,000 per integration; a 20,000-subscriber niche newsletter charges $500-2,000 per dedicated send. Expressed per thousand visitors it is $10-60, several times display, but it does not scale linearly: you can only run so many before the audience notices.
Requirements and who pays
Nothing formal, but brands buy proof: audience demographics, engagement rates, past results, a professional media kit. Marketplaces typically list creators from a few thousand followers or readers. Niche matters more than size; B2B software, finance and professional tools pay the most per reader.
Pitfalls
Take only sponsors you would mention unpaid. Label every piece clearly (FTC in the US, ASA in the UK, and their equivalents elsewhere require it) and mark paid links rel="sponsored". Keep a rate card so you do not negotiate from zero each time, ask for 50% up front on first deals, and cap sponsored pieces at a share of your output that keeps the free ones worth reading.
Properties Sponsored content & brand deals suits
Pros
- Pays far more per audience member than any ad network, because the brand gets your voice and your trust
- Works at small scale in a valuable niche: 5,000 engaged readers in B2B beats 100,000 in entertainment
- Marketplaces and platforms (creator programs, brand-deal networks) bring inbound offers
Cons
- Each deal is a negotiation, a brief, a draft, revisions and an invoice
- Disclosure is required by law in most countries and paid links must be rel="sponsored"
- One wrong sponsor damages the trust everything else runs on
Sponsored content & brand deals: frequently asked questions
How much does Sponsored content & brand deals pay?
Typical earnings from sponsored content & brand deals are $200-5,000 per post; $10-60 RPM equivalent (about $10-60 per 1,000 visitors for a US-heavy audience in a general niche). Finance, insurance, software and B2B audiences earn several times more than entertainment or gaming; a mostly non-US audience earns a quarter to a half of these figures. Use the calculator on this site for your own traffic and niche.
How much traffic do I need for Sponsored content & brand deals?
It starts to be worth doing at around 10k visitors a month. Cost to start: $0.
How long until the first payout from Sponsored content & brand deals?
Expect the first money in 2-4 months. Difficulty: medium. Hands-on.
What kind of property does Sponsored content & brand deals work for?
It suits blog / content site, youtube / video channel, social account, newsletter / email list, podcast.
Which metrics should I track for Sponsored content & brand deals?
Rate per post, Deals per month, Sponsor click / conversion rate, Audience retention on sponsored pieces, Repeat rate.
Who pays me for Sponsored content & brand deals?
This directory lists 1 networks and programs that pay for it, 6 platforms to run it on and 18 marketplaces where you sell it directly. Start with a network or platform that has no traffic minimum; move to the ones with minimums (and better terms) once you qualify.
Sponsored content & brand deals in practice: case studies
All case studies →
Ali Abdaal
▶️ YouTube · General · 3.0M/mo
Ali Abdaal is a former NHS junior doctor who started posting study-technique videos on YouTube in 2017 and, by the time he crossed 3 million subscribers in…
adamenfroy.com
📝 Blog · Tech & SaaS · 500k/mo
Adam Enfroy's blog is the fast-growth counterpart to the slow-and-steady content cases on this site. He launched adamenfroy.com in early 2019 with a stated…
ryrob.com
📝 Blog · Tech & SaaS · 500k/mo
Ryan Robinson's site, ryrob.com, is about starting and growing a blog, and for several years he published monthly income reports with the revenue broken down…
Methods to combine with Sponsored content & brand deals
All alternatives →
Newsletter Sponsorships Medium
Sell the primary slot, a secondary placement or a classified in each send, priced per thousand opens.
Display Advertising Easy
Banner and responsive ad units sold by the thousand impressions: the default first dollar for any content site.
Podcast Sponsorships & Host-Read Ads Medium
Pre-roll, mid-roll and host-read spots priced per thousand downloads, the highest CPMs in media.
Mobile App Advertising Medium
Rewarded video, interstitials and banners inside an app, auctioned across networks by a mediation layer.
Video Advertising (Instream, Outstream & CTV) Medium
Pre-roll, mid-roll and outstream ads inside a player on your pages or channel, at CPMs several times higher than display.
Direct Ad Sales Hard
Sell your own banner, takeover and sponsorship inventory straight to advertisers at fixed prices, keeping 100%.
Compare Sponsored content & brand deals
Verdict
Sponsored content & brand deals scores 8.5/10 in our advertising revenue ranking. Pays far more per audience member than any ad network, because the brand gets your voice and your trust.
Sponsored content & brand deals networks Sponsored content & brand deals platforms Sponsored content & brand deals marketplaces