Rate card
Definition
Your published prices for each placement.
Why it matters if you sell your own ads
Most publishers never build one because they have no data on what buyers will pay. Selling directly for a few months gives you exactly that data, which is something a network relationship never will.
What goes on a rate card
- Placements. Each slot by size and position, with the pages or sections it appears on.
- Price and model. A CPM, a flat price per week or month, or both.
- Audience. Monthly visitors, the countries they come from, the devices they use, and one line on who they are.
- Minimums. The smallest booking you will take, by budget or by length.
- Creative specifications. Sizes, file types, file weight, and what you will not run.
- How to buy. A link where the advertiser can book and pay, not just an email address.
How to set the prices
Start from what each slot earns today, not from what feels reasonable. If a slot runs AdSense or another network, its reports give you the slot's effective CPM. That number is the least a direct sale should pay, because selling below it makes you poorer.
Then add the premium a direct buyer pays for choosing your audience on purpose. Nobody publishes a reliable benchmark for that premium, so treat it as something to test: set it, watch who buys, and raise it when the good slots sell out.
Worked example. A sidebar slot shows 60,000 impressions a month and the network pays $1.20 per thousand for it, so it earns $72 a month. A rate card that prices it at a $6 CPM asks $360 for a month of that slot. Sold as a flat month, the advertiser has the slot and you carry no delivery risk. Sold on CPM, they pay for what is delivered.
CPM or flat rate
CPM is fairer when traffic swings and easier to compare across sites. A flat rate for a week or a month is simpler to buy and to sell, and suits small sites whose advertisers are paying for the audience more than the impression count. Many publishers offer both and let the buyer choose.
Publish it
A rate card sent only on request filters out the buyers who would have paid it. Published prices end the back and forth, let a small advertiser decide alone, and make discounting harder to slip into, because everyone can see the number.
How Pyrobid handles it
In Pyrobid the floor price on each slot is your rate card in working form. It is your price for 1,000 views from the United States, and every other country is priced as a share of it, so a buyer in a cheaper market pays the cheaper rate without you pricing the world by hand. Advertisers pick the slots, bid at or above the floor and pay from their balance. The free rate planner works out a starting price from what a slot earns today.
Common questions
Should my rate card show prices or say "contact us"?
Show prices. The advertisers who never ask are the ones "contact us" loses, and you never find out how many there were.
How often should I change my rates?
Review them whenever a slot sells out or sits unsold for a month. A slot that always sells is underpriced; one that never sells is overpriced or badly placed.
Should I offer discounts?
Offer more for the same price instead, such as a longer run or a second placement. A discount teaches buyers to wait for the next one.
Related terms
Put a floor price on your own inventory
Your advertisers sign up on your own branded portal, fund an account and bid above your floor. You keep one hundred percent, and your existing ads stay on as the fallback.
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