LinkedIn ghostwriting pricing: how much to charge

Most LinkedIn ghostwriters charge a monthly retainer tied to how many posts go out, and the right price starts with your floor: the hours each client takes, the tools you pay for, and the income you need, worked out before you look at what anyone else charges. Published market rates vary so widely, and are so rarely verifiable, that they make a poor starting point. Your own arithmetic is a better one.

This guide covers the common pricing models, which ones hold up, and how to calculate a floor you should never go under.

The four common pricing models

• Per post. The client pays a fixed amount for each post. Easy to explain, easy to start with, and easy for the client to pause, which makes your income hard to predict.
• Monthly retainer by cadence. The client pays a fixed monthly fee for a set rhythm, for example three posts a week. This is the most common model and the one most ghostwriters settle on.
• Tiered retainer with calls. Higher tiers add more posts, a monthly strategy call, comment support or help with a newsletter. Useful once you know which extras clients ask for.
• Performance add-ons. A bonus tied to followers, impressions, leads or inbound messages. Tempting, and risky for reasons covered below.

Why a retainer by cadence works best

What a client buys from a ghostwriter is a steady presence on LinkedIn without the writing. A retainer tied to cadence prices exactly that. It also matches how the work runs: the intake, the voice notes and the theme planning are a fixed cost per client, and they are spread over every post in the month.

Per-post pricing tends to punish you for the setup. The first month of any client is the slowest, and a client who buys six posts and stops has paid for the easy part and left you the hard part. If you do sell per post, charge a setup fee or a minimum number of posts.

Why performance pricing is risky

LinkedIn does not publish how its feed ranks posts, and it changes over time. A bonus tied to reach or followers ties your income to a system neither you nor the client controls. A strong post can go quiet for reasons that have nothing to do with the writing.

• The client controls half the inputs. Whether they reply to comments, how often they approve on time, and whether they post other things in between all move the result.
• Leads are hard to attribute. A prospect who read ten posts and then booked a call after a referral will be counted differently by you and by the client.
• It rewards the wrong posts. Chasing reach pulls the writing toward broad, safe topics and away from the specific posts that bring the right buyers.

If a client insists on a performance element, keep it small, tie it to something you control, like posts published on schedule, and keep the base retainer at or above your floor.

How to calculate your floor

Your floor is the lowest monthly price per client at which the business pays you what you need. Work it out from four numbers.

1. Hours per client per month. Count everything: calls, drafting, revisions, scheduling, messages, the monthly report. Time yourself for a month if you can.
2. Your target hourly income. What you want to earn per working hour after costs, before tax.
3. Tool costs per client per month. Writing tools, a scheduler, image generation, a shared drive, divided across the clients you run.
4. Unbilled time. Sales calls, your own posting, admin and invoicing. Add a share of it to every client, because someone has to pay for it.

A worked example

The figures below are hypothetical, round numbers chosen to show the arithmetic. Put your own in their place.

For example, say each client takes 12 hours a month at twelve posts a month, and you want to earn 75 an hour. That is 900 a month of your time per client. Add a quarter for unbilled time, 225, and you are at 1,125.

Now the tools. Suppose you run eight clients on GoodSocials' Agency plan, which is $1,000 a month for up to 12 profiles. Across eight clients that is 125 a month each. Your floor becomes 1,250 a month per client at that cadence, and anything below it means you are paying to work.

The tool line also changes the hours line. If drafting took most of the 12 hours and an AI agent now writes the first draft, the hours drop, and the floor drops with them. That gives you a choice: lower the price to win more clients, or keep the price and take on more clients in the same week.

Setting the price above the floor

The floor is the lowest you go. Price above it according to what the client gets.

• Cadence. More posts a week means more ideas, more drafts and more approvals. Price each step up in the rhythm, not each extra post.
• Access to the client. A client who gives you a monthly call and shares real numbers produces better posts with less of your time.
• Your niche. A ghostwriter who knows a field deeply saves the client the time it would take to explain it.
• Extras. Comment support, a newsletter, or carousels each take real hours and belong in a higher tier.

How to raise your prices

Raise prices for new clients first. Once three new clients in a row say yes without hesitation, your price is probably low. For existing clients, give a notice period of at least a month and tie the change to something concrete, like a higher cadence or a new tier.

How GoodSocials handles this

The Agency plan is $1,000 a month for up to 12 client profiles, each with its own board, themes and principles, so the tool cost per client is a number you can put in the floor calculation. The agent writes the first draft, which is usually where the hours go, and you spend your time on review and on the client.

The dashboard for each profile leads with posts published this month and the current streak, which is the thing a cadence retainer promises and the thing you can show a client at the end of the month.