For agencies
What to charge for content inside a retainer.
Content is the line clients question most and agencies defend worst, because it is the one where the deliverable is invisible until it works. Four models, where the margin actually goes, and how to price it so the conversation moves from “what did you do” to “what is it earning”.
What the market charges, where it is published.
Per-word rates read from each supplier's own pricing page in October 2026. These are list prices for writing alone — not for the plan, not for publishing, and not for the review afterwards.
| What you are buying | Published rate | What comes with it | Where we read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI-assisted per-word service | $0.06 / word | Plus a $49.50/month platform fee, 1–3 day turnaround | Verblio pricing page |
| 100% human per-word service | $0.16 / word | No platform fee, subject-matter writers, unlimited edits | Verblio pricing page |
| Agency per-word plan | From $0.08 / word | Monthly subscription discount, unlimited revisions | WordAgents pricing page |
| An AI writer that posts into your CMS | $13 – $99 / month | A word or article quota you can exceed | Each vendor's own page, on /vs |
| Xt4b | 20€ / site / language / month | Plan, writing, images, hosting and publishing | Our pricing page |
The same post, in each column
A 1,500-word post is about $90 at the hybrid rate, $120 at the agency rate and $240 at the human rate — and the same 20€ on Xt4b whether the post is 1,200 words or 2,400. Survey-based freelance medians, if you want them, are published by the Editorial Freelancers Association.
Four ways to price it.
Each is defensible. The failure mode is the part worth reading, because it is usually the reason the line gets renegotiated in month three.
- Per post
- Cleanest to explain and easiest to compare against other quotes, which is exactly why it invites a per-post argument. It also rewards volume over results: the invoice counts posts, so a month of ten posts that answer nothing looks like a good month.
- Per hour
- Honest about effort and the easiest to audit, but it punishes the thing you should be selling — getting faster. Every efficiency you build shows up as a smaller invoice, so the incentive is to stay slow.
- Bundled in the retainer
- Content disappears into the monthly fee, which ends the argument about price and starts a different one about scope. It works when the retainer is large enough that nobody needs to itemise it, and fails the first time the client asks what the content line is contributing.
- A flat line with an agreed volume
- One number for an agreed range of posts per month, priced as a line rather than per unit. It survives a busy month and a quiet one, it is easy to renew, and it makes the report the thing the client judges rather than the count.
Where the margin actually goes.
Four costs sit inside a content line, and only one of them is producing the draft. Pricing the draft is how a line becomes unprofitable at the volume the client wants.
The brief
Deciding the query, the intent and the outline — the senior hour per post that no client sees and no invoice mentions. Multiply it by the client's monthly volume and it is usually the largest cost in the line.
Review and QA
Reading for facts, tone and product truth before it goes live. Skipping it is the cheapest month you will ever have and the most expensive quarter, because the client finds the error themselves.
Publishing and links
Images, metadata, internal links into the pages that should rank, canonical URLs, the sitemap. Minutes individually, an afternoon per client per month collectively — and the reason a finished draft can sit unpublished for weeks.
The report
Turning published posts into something the client reads: which queries the site is now present for, what moved, what is next. The cheapest of the four and the only one that protects the price.
Making content a line the client stops questioning.
The line survives on evidence, not on effort. Every post is a URL, and every URL has numbers attached — the work is putting those two facts in the same place.
- Every deliverable is a URL
- Unlike a strategy deck or an audit, content leaves a public artefact on the client's own domain. It also keeps working after the retainer month it was billed in, which is the strongest argument for the line there is — if the client can see it.
- Impressions and clicks per post
- Connect the client's Search Console read-only and each post reports the clicks, impressions and average position it earns. A monthly update becomes a screenshot rather than a claim about effort.
- One report across the client's sites
- If you run several clients, the same report shape per client per language is what makes renewals a formality — and what makes a new market an addition to a working line rather than a fresh negotiation.
If you automate the production.
Said carefully, because this is the part people get wrong.
Running the production side of a content line through a tool changes your cost, not the client's price. What you charge is still for the judgement — which queries are worth the client's domain, what gets discarded, what the report says about next quarter — and for standing behind what is published. The thing that should change is how much of a retainer you spend on briefing and publishing overhead, which is the headroom that lets you take on the next client without hiring. The line to hold: your review is what the client is buying, so it has to happen, and the answer about how the work gets made should always be one you are willing to say out loud. How client sites work in one account.
Questions agencies ask.
Four that come up in the first conversation about pricing a content line.
Per post or one flat retainer line?
Per post is easier to sell the first time and harder to defend every month after, because it invites a running argument about whether the last one was worth it. A flat line for an agreed volume is the better shape once trust exists: the client stops counting posts and starts reading the report. Price the volume as a range rather than an exact number, so a busy month is not a free month.
The client says content is too expensive. What do I show them?
The pages they already own. Content is the one line where the deliverable is a URL with its own impressions and clicks attached, so the argument is not about effort — it is about which queries the site is now present for and which ones it was invisible for a quarter ago. If that report does not exist, the price is the only thing there is to talk about, which is the real problem.
Do I mark up a tool subscription?
You price the outcome, which is what a retainer is for. What matters is that you can defend the number in the report and that you did the review yourself — the client is buying your judgement and your guarantee, not a licence. If a client asks how the work gets made, answer it plainly; a supplier relationship you would not describe out loud is not one worth building a retainer on.
How do I price a client who needs three languages?
As three lines, not one translated line. Each market needs its own queries and its own plan, so the work is per language and the price should be too — which is also what makes the third market easy to sell later, since it is an addition to a working line rather than a negotiation about scope.
Nothing here is a promise to your client of rankings, traffic or revenue — those are not guaranteed by any pricing model. What the retainer buys is the work and the report that shows what it did.
Related.
The cost side, the reporting side, and the buyer's version of this question.
- What SEO content costs — the three pricing models from the buyer's side, which is the page to send a client who says the line is expensive.
- SEO-Content-Reporting: Vorlage und KPIs (German) — which numbers belong in a client report and which are noise.
- Automated SEO content vs an agency — written for the client deciding between the two, not for the agency pricing the work.
- Running client sites from one account — how several clients look in a dashboard, a calendar and a report.
More on content
- What SEO content costs
The three pricing models, and what actually moves the number.
- Outsource blog writing
The five things that set the quote, and the five costs it leaves out.
Headroom for the next client
Move the briefing and publishing overhead out of the retainer.
Client sites in one account, a plan per site and language, approval before anything publishes, and clicks and impressions per post for the report you already send.
One login, every client site20€ / site / language / month3 days free, no card