What a LinkedIn ghostwriter really costs, including your time

Sell in Public → B2B LinkedIn content agency → LinkedIn ghostwriting

Most published fee figures come from agencies that sell ghostwriting, and a cheaper writer tends to hand more of the work back to you.

Four things make up the real cost

1. The writing fee. Per post or per month. Forj Media lists the main drivers as how often you post, how much research and interviewing goes in, whether engagement and profile work are included, and how senior the writer is.
2. Your time. Interviews, reading drafts, approving them and replying to comments.
3. Extras. Design, video, comment support, profile work and paid distribution, if you want them.
4. Starting over. If the fit is wrong, you pay again in onboarding time, lost weeks and notice periods.

Proposals tend to show only the first. For each cost line, what drives it and what to ask, see LinkedIn ghostwriting costs, line by line.

Putting a number on your time

Even a very good ghostwriter needs raw material from you. Take a made-up month for a founder posting twice a week, after onboarding is done:

• Four interviews of 45 minutes: 3 hours
• Reading and approving eight drafts at 15 minutes each: 2 hours
• Replying to comments, about 15 minutes a post: 2 hours
• Total: 7 hours a month

Now give an hour of that founder's time a value. Pick a number that reflects what the hour would otherwise produce; this example uses $250. Seven hours × $250 = $1,750 a month. Set that next to an agency fee of $4,000 a month, the bottom of Foundera's agency tier for 8–12 posts, and the real monthly cost is $5,750, with your time making up about 30% of it.

For a rough check on the hours, Influent's guide budgets three to five hours a month for a participating executive. Other people's hours belong in the same sum. Influent budgets five to ten hours a month for whoever runs the program internally, and a regulated business may need a comms or legal reviewer on every post.

A few habits keep the hours down:

• Hand over what already exists: recorded sales calls, customer stories, internal notes, talks and podcasts.
• Keep one standing conversation a week instead of ad-hoc requests.
• Agree up front who approves what, and how quickly.
• Review drafts in one batch rather than one at a time.

Cheaper writer or pricier one: a worked comparison

The same arithmetic answers the question most buyers have: is the cheaper writer actually cheaper? Below are two made-up options for eight posts a month. The fees come from a published guide; the hours are assumptions for illustration, not measurements of any provider.

• A freelancer working from your notes at $1,300 a month, the top of Foundera's range for eight posts. You supply the ideas and rewrite some drafts: say 15 hours. At $250 an hour that's $1,300 + $3,750 = $5,050 a month. At $500 an hour it's $8,800.
• An agency that runs the interviews at $4,000 a month, the agency fee used above. Say 7 hours of your time, as in the month above. At $250 an hour that's $4,000 + $1,750 = $5,750. At $500 an hour it's $7,500.

The break-even is the fee gap divided by the hours gap: $2,700 ÷ 8 hours, or about $340 an hour, using Foundera's fees. If your hour is worth less than that, the freelancer is cheaper overall; above it, the agency is. Change either assumption and the answer moves, so track your real hours for the first month of whichever you choose.

Extras that sit outside the writing fee

• Design for carousels and images: $1,000–$4,000 a month when it isn't in the retainer, in Influent's estimate.
• Video: $300–$1,500 per finished piece, from the same Influent guide.
• Comment and reply support: $300–$600 a month, according to Creator.
• Profile rewrites and outreach: bundled into some plans, such as BAMF's founder plan with its profile redesign and outreach setup, and priced separately elsewhere.

Paid distribution is a different purchase rather than an add-on. Influent puts a complete single-executive program, with the writing, paid distribution and measurement all included, at $12,000–$20,000 a month before ad spend, against $5,000–$10,000 for agency content alone. So weigh a full-program quote against your whole budget, not as an add-on to it.

What it costs to start over

When a writer doesn't work out, the fees already paid aren't the only loss. A new writer has to learn your voice and business from scratch, you lose weeks of posting while they do, and you may owe notice: BAMF, for example, runs month to month with 30 days' notice. Before you sign with anyone, ask what happens to drafts, topic lists and voice notes if you leave.