A rate card is not a price list. It is a structure that makes one option obviously reasonable.
Publish it
The most common mistake is "contact us for rates". Every extra step loses people, and a small business owner deciding whether to spend $300 will not send an email to find out.
Publishing prices also filters. Someone who arrives at your advertise page and leaves because it is $400 was never going to buy at $400, and you saved an exchange.
Three tiers, not five
Three options is the number people can hold in their head.
| Sidebar | In-content | Everything | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Placement | Sidebar 300×250 | Below header 728×90 + 320×50 | Both, plus newsletter mention |
| Monthly | $200 | $300 | $450 |
The third tier exists mostly to make the second look sensible. That is a legitimate structure, not a trick — bundling genuinely is better value, and most sponsors take the middle or the top.
Price the middle one properly
Sponsors anchor on the middle option. Set it at what you actually want to earn, then build the outer two around it: one modestly cheaper with clearly less, one meaningfully better value with more.
What each line needs
Placement, plainly named. "Below the header" beats "premium leaderboard position".
Size, including mobile. Listing 728×90 alone tells a sponsor you have not thought about phones.
Rough monthly impressions. A range is fine. "~20,000/month" sets expectation without promising.
The price, monthly.
Nothing else. Anything more becomes something to read rather than something to decide.
The discounts worth offering
Three months upfront, 10% off. Predictable revenue, and you stop re-selling the same slot every four weeks.
First month at half price for a new sponsor. Reduces the risk of trying you. Say clearly it is an introductory rate, so the second invoice is not a surprise.
That is enough. More discount structures make the card harder to read and signal your prices are soft.
What not to put on it
Every possible size. Offer the four that sell. A custom size means someone has to make artwork, which is friction exactly when you want none.
CPM pricing alongside monthly pricing. Pick one. Showing both invites arithmetic and arithmetic invites negotiation.
"Starting from". It reads as a bait price and everyone assumes the real number is higher.
Add the proof
Under the table, one line of evidence:
Last month: 43,000 ad impressions, 410 clicks, 0.95% average click-through rate.
Real recent numbers do more selling than any adjective. If you can show it live and current rather than as a static claim, better still.
Review it quarterly
Rate cards go stale. If traffic has grown 40% since you set the prices, you are underselling. Put a reminder in the calendar, check your actual delivery, and adjust.
Raising prices at renewal with three months of delivery data behind you is a conversation most sponsors simply accept.