How Much Do Ghostwriters Make? From Hourly Rates to Big-Project Earnings

Thinking of switching to ghostwriting? It’s a solid career choice, but here’s the tricky part: finding an “average salary” for a ghostwriter is almost impossible. Ghostwriters don’t work on fixed rates, and their income varies wildly depending on the type of content they create, the niche they specialise in, their experience level, and even how involved the client is in the process.

While there is no single number, in this article, I’ll break down the most common factors affecting ghostwriter rates, different pricing models, and how you can set (and then increase) your own prices.

What is ghostwriting?

First of all, what is ghostwriting? Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with ghosts, and the work itself is far from spooky. 

Ghostwriting is when a professional writer creates content that will be published under someone else’s name. The client, who’s often a public figure or a founder, appears as the author of the work, whilst the actual writer stays behind the scenes. Ghostwriters don’t just write stuff; they also help shape ideas, structure the material, and write it in the client’s voice. There are many different ghostwriting niches, such as:

• Books: memoirs, business books, nonfiction, how-to guides, and even fiction.
• Blog posts and articles: thought leadership, SEO content, industry commentary.
• Speeches and presentations: talks for conferences, company meetings, or events.
• Founder content: LinkedIn posts, newsletters, internal communications.
• Scripts: interviews, video scripts, podcast episodes.
• Personal branding content: interviews, bios, portfolio pieces.

People hire ghostwriters for a variety of reasons. For example, they want clearer structure, a stronger voice, consistent content, expert guidance, or simply because (realistically) they don’t have the time or the writing skills to do it themselves. 

At this point, you may be wondering, doesn’t generative AI make ghostwriters redundant? After all, you could whip up a coherent-sounding blog post via ChatGPT in a matter of seconds. But actually, according to research by Techradar, demand for human communications work is on the rise. Comms jobs grew by 25.2% in 2025, with freelancers being hired to craft contracts, edit manuscripts, and produce emotionally resonant writing that AI tools still struggle to deliver.

What affects ghostwriting rates?

As you can imagine, ghostwriting doesn’t really have standardised rates. After all, there are so many factors affecting how much ghostwriters earn, from location to deadlines. Let’s have a look at each of them in detail.

Here’s one thing to bear in mind: since not many ghostwriters may share their rates and works with the public because of the confidentiality surrounding them, rates may be subject to bias and aren’t accurate.

Experience level

As with every industry, your experience plays a big role in how much you can charge. According to Woodbridge Publishers, a beginner ghostwriter can expect to charge between $0.01 and $0.03 per word. New ghostwriters usually start with lower rates while they learn the process, build samples, and figure out how to work with clients. 

More established writers can charge significantly more. This isn’t because they necessarily write better, but because they have an established portfolio, work faster, need fewer edits, understand strategy, and know how to manage a full project from idea to final draft. 

Another thing that matters is whether you’re working for an agency or as a solopreneur. Freelancers can earn more than agency writers, since agencies take a cut, but it may take them a while to find clients as they’re getting started. At the same time, agencies sometimes handle higher-profile or more profitable projects, especially those coming from publishers or public-facing clients, which individual freelancers may not always have access to. So there are a lot of factors to consider.

For me, the work has been feast (I was almost instantly in high demand when I started at ForbesBooks), then famine (my first 6-12 months as an independent solopreneur), then feast again (I got better at marketing, started landing clients, and was recently featured in a story in the Wall Street Journal about memoir ghostwriters; I now have a six-month waitlist). 

{{Alec Quig}}

Niche & project complexity

No two ghostwriting projects are created equal. Short-form content, like blog posts, LinkedIn updates, and newsletters, tends to cost less because it’s quicker to produce and usually requires lighter research. Longer or more complex projects, such as books, technical articles, or anything that relies on multiple interviews, naturally come with higher fees.

Even within these formats, pricing varies. A business memoir, a self-help book, and a thought-leadership report all sit in “long-form,” but each has a different level of emotional, structural, or subject-matter complexity. I’ll get into the pricing of different niches and so on later in the article.

Another thing to bear in mind is that working with clients so closely is never easy. Since the final piece will be published under their name, they often have strong opinions, and sometimes those ideas aren’t the most effective or accurate. Part of the job is guiding them gently.

My biggest pain point: clients who want to sound like thought leaders but won't commit to specificity. Generic advice gets ignored. I learned to push back hard: "Don't write 'How to improve customer retention' — write 'The 3-email sequence that reduced our churn by 27% in 60 days.'" If they can't get specific, the content fails, no matter how well it's written.

{{Chris Hornak}}

Memoir projects also include emotional complexity that can shape the scope and fee. As personal and business memoir ghostwriter Alec Quig puts it:

A more interesting problem, particular to ghostwriting books, is that most people have at least one thing they'd rather not address or confront, but if you don't address or confront whatever that thing is, it tends to create an elephant in the room-sized hole in the finished book.

{{Alec Quig}}

Research, interviews, and client materials

You may think that the “writing” part of ghostwriting is the most important, but that’s not always the case. A large part of the work happens before any writing even begins. This includes things like interviewing the client, gathering background materials, reviewing notes, transcribing, and shaping messy thoughts into a structured narrative. Some of this work, such as interviewing, is a skill of its own.

This preparation work can easily become the most time-consuming part of the entire collaboration, which is why experienced ghostwriters factor it into their rates just as heavily as the writing itself.

People and interviewing skills are more important than writing ability. 
I was a tour guide in New Orleans for the better part of a decade. Conducting daily/nightly walking tours of the French Quarter to groups of 28 people, all at varying levels of inebriation, taught me how to spin a yarn in a compelling and effective way. I also conducted 4-8-hour private driving tours, and that job absolutely required that I figure out how to click with our high-performing/wealthy/celebrity clients within 60 seconds of meeting. Conducting in-depth long-form interviews for BOMB Magazine early in my career made tackling 50+ page transcripts my daily bread and butter, and doing man-on-the-street interviews for The Chicago Tribune's Redeye further sharpened my ability to rapidly click with and go deep with people of all kinds.

{{Alec Quig}}

Timeline and deadlines

Ghostwriting timelines can vary dramatically, and faster delivery almost always means higher rates. A short-form content piece might have a turnaround of a few days, while a book project can stretch across months or even a full year. Tight deadlines, rolling revisions, and overlapping client commitments can all raise the cost. Because book projects can differ hugely in size and pace, ghostwriters often juggle very different timelines at once, something Alec Quig describes from his own client work:

Managing hundreds and hundreds of pages of transcript a week is perhaps the most obvious pain point.
Half of my clients need a 50,000-word book on incredibly tight schedules, the other half need a 100,000-word book and want to spend 12-18 months getting them perfect; part of my job is being able to simultaneously accommodate both.

{{Alec Quig}}

Location and market

Where you’re based  (or which market you work in) can also influence how much you earn as a ghostwriter. Writers working with clients in the US, UK, or Western Europe usually charge more because budgets and market expectations are higher. In contrast, ghostwriters working in emerging markets or with clients who expect “content-mill” pricing may see lower rates.

Here’s a table of average ghostwriter salaries in USD internationally, with data provided by Salary Expert.

Common pricing models for ghostwriters

If you thought everything I outlined above sounds kind of confusing, I have bad news for you. Ghostwriters’ earnings are also dictated by the pricing models they’re using.

Hourly rate

Some ghostwriters charge by the hour, usually for short-form content, editing, consulting, or jobs where the scope isn’t fully clear yet. Hourly rates can look straightforward, but they’re unpredictable: one week you may have 10 hours of work, the next week 2. Clients also tend to prefer fixed quotes, because they can’t easily judge how long something “should” take.

Per-word pricing

Per-word rates are common in blogging, SEO content, journalism-style work, and sometimes fiction. They give clients a simple formula and help writers estimate their income more clearly. The downside is that per-word pricing doesn’t always reflect the real workload, because often you’ll have to spend hours doing research for a piece (something we covered already!). Despite everything, it’s one of the most transparent and widely used models.

Per-project flat fee

For most long-form or complex writing, like books, memoirs, whitepapers, and major thought-leadership pieces, flat fees tend to be the go-to format. This is because it covers the full scope of the project, like research, drafting, revisions, and project management. Each project is quoted individually depending on length, difficulty, and timelines, which is why book ghostwriting fees vary so widely.

How much do ghostwriters earn by project type?

Short answer: it depends. Check out this table listing various ghostwriting projects and their price tags.

For a more in-depth look at the whole thing, let’s examine actual ghostwriting rates of 2025, as shared with us by our experts.

Blog posts and articles

Most content ghostwriting sits between $150-$800 per article, depending on depth and research required. We've done retainers from $2K-$8K/month for ongoing content programs that include strategy, not just writing. The work stabilizes once you can show actual SEO results — when a client sees their traffic jumps from 400 to 45,000 monthly visitors, renewals become automatic.

{{Chris Hornak}}

Short-form content is usually the most affordable type of ghostwriting because it’s quicker to produce. Blog posts, thought-leadership articles, and basic SEO content don’t require months of interviews or deep personal storytelling, so the rates tend to be lower and more predictable. 

However, the time spent on an article can climb depending on research, strategy, and expected outcomes. To tackle this issue, many ghostwriters use monthly retainers or content bundles, which is what Chris is talking about in the quote above.

LinkedIn and founder ghostwriting

Founder and LinkedIn ghostwriting usually falls somewhere between blog posts and long-form articles in terms of pricing. The work is short, but it often requires interviews, capturing someone’s voice, and aligning posts with their personal brand or business goals.

Book ghostwriting

At ForbesBooks, we charged per word; I now charge a flat fee per project ($100,000). 

{{Alec Quig}}

Book ghostwriting is the part of the industry with the widest income range. It’s also where the real money is, because there is no upper limit on how much you can earn. Rates fluctuate dramatically depending on niche, visibility, audience size, and how hands-on the ghostwriter must be. 

Because these projects unfold over months (or years), book ghostwriters are often paid in instalments. For example: 25% at contract signing, 25% after the outline, 25% at the halfway draft, and the final 25% on completion. This is what we call milestone payments, a very common and important payment term.

But anyway, let’s get back to discussing the prices.

alt=A chart showing average ghostwriting costs by genre.

And then there’s the very top tier: projects written for high-profile clients, corporate leaders, founders with large audiences, or public figures whose books are guaranteed to attract attention. These fall into a category of their own. A famous example of a book like this is Spare by Prince Harry (a guilty-pleasure memoir I read in two days, with the intensity of someone studying for their final exams). 

Spare was ghostwritten by journalist J. R. Moehringer, who reportedly got an advance of $1 million. So, if you become a ghostwriter to the stars, the sky really is the limit. 

How to figure out your own rates

Did I inspire you to write the next celebrity memoir? I surely hope so! But maybe asking for an advance of $1 million isn’t the best idea if you’re just starting out. Here’s how to set your rates. And if you’re struggling, check out Solowise’s freelancer hourly rate calculator. 

1. Calculate your minimum needed income

This step isn’t unique to ghostwriting. Before you can price anything, you need to know the bare minimum you have to earn to cover things like living expenses, taxes, and business costs. Budgeting as a freelancer is never easy! 

Once you have this number figured out, break it down:

• Hourly rate: Divide your target monthly income by your realistic billable hours.
• Per-word rate: Convert that hourly rate into how many publishable words you can produce in an hour.
• Project rate: Estimate the total hours a project will take and multiply it by your hourly baseline.

2. Adjust based on scope and complexity

As we’ve established already, not all ghostwriting is created equal. A 700-word blog post and a 70,000-word memoir do not belong to the same universe, and you should adjust your rates based on how demanding the project actually is. 

Try to factor in things your client won’t even think about, such as research time, interviews, outlining, drafts, revisions, or any specialised knowledge.

3. Present clear deliverables

Once you’ve calculated your rate, you need to package it in a way that makes sense to your client, who might not be aware of all the intricacies of ghostwriting. The more specific you are, the easier it is to justify your rates. So, try to spell things out as clearly as possible, like the number of interviews, the number of drafts, the word count range, as well as any add-ons, like SEO, formatting for social media, and so on.

If you’re just getting started with ghostwriting, check out this simple tutorial to help you make sense of things.

How to increase your rates as a ghostwriter

As your experience and portfolio grow, you may be wondering what steps to take to earn more as a ghostwriter. Here are some ideas for what you can do.

Specialise in a high-value niche

We’ve established earlier in this article that not all topics are as profitable when it comes to ghostwriting. So one of the fastest ways to increase your rates is to position yourself in a niche where accuracy, reputation, and visibility are high-stakes concerns. This includes executive thought leadership, technical writing, or business books.

Make your value easy for clients to see

This one is more relevant for short-form content. If you’re writing things like LinkedIn articles, blog posts, newsletters, or SEO content, clients pay for outcomes like visibility, search performance, or audience growth, so it’s important to clearly show what your work achieves. Demonstrating measurable impact makes your rates easier to justify.

I stopped selling "content" and started selling outcomes. Instead of pitching blog posts, I'd show clients the specific keyword gaps killing their visibility, then propose content that directly fills those gaps. When you can say "this article will target 12 commercial-intent keywords your competitors are ranking for," you're not a writer anymore — you're a growth partner.

{{Chris Hornak}}

Build a portfolio that shows your process

A strong portfolio is important for any creative professional, and in the case of ghostwriting, it doesn’t need to reveal confidential client work. Instead of only posting final samples, include short case studies that outline your approach: how you structure a project, how you interview clients, how you turn raw material into a clear narrative, and how you handle revisions. Even a simple “before and after” example or a breakdown of your workflow helps clients understand your process.

Conclusion

The world of ghostwriting is definitely complicated, and it’s nearly impossible to put a universal price on work that varies so much by scope, niche, and client expectations. Still, I hope this article helped you make sense of the main factors that shape ghostwriting rates and gave you a clearer idea of how to set (and justify) your own.