The short answer: tech creators on X typically charge $250 to $5,000 per sponsored post at 10K to 50K followers, $500 to $5,000 and up at 50K to 250K, and $2,000 to $10,000 or more above 250K. Measured per thousand views, founders, engineers and technical creators usually price at a $40 to $50 CPM.
| Followers on X | Typical rate per post |
|---|---|
| 10K to 50K | $250 to $5,000 |
| 50K to 250K | $500 to $5,000+ |
| 250K and up | $2,000 to $10,000+ |
| Per thousand views | $40 to $50 CPM |
The band, and why it is narrow
B2B creator pricing clusters far more tightly than consumer pricing, and the range is not wide. The striking feature is how weakly it correlates with audience size: a 100,000-follower generalist and a 10,000-follower specialist in your category frequently land within the same range.
The reason is that B2B audiences are capped by reality. The total number of people who could plausibly buy an observability platform is not large, so a creator cannot charge for reach beyond that ceiling because the reach beyond it has no value.
Price converges on what the relevant slice of an audience is worth rather than on the whole thing.
This is the market arriving at a position we have argued from the beginning. The number that predicts performance is median post performance against audience composition, and follower count is close to the least predictive figure on a profile.
What actually moves a quote
Audience match. The proportion of the audience holding the job you sell to. This is the single largest factor and it should be.
Median performance. The middle of their recent distribution, not their best post. Anybody quoting from their best month is quoting from luck.
Usage rights. Whether you can run the post as an advertisement, put it on your site, or use it in a deck. This is frequently the most expensive item in the negotiation and it is rarely priced as such.
Exclusivity. Whether they will decline your competitors for a period. Genuine category exclusivity is expensive and worth it; a vague promise is neither.
Turnaround and timing. Posting inside a fixed window on a launch day is a real constraint on somebody's schedule and prices accordingly.
What does not move it, whatever you are told
Follower count on its own. If a quote scales linearly with audience size, you are being priced by a spreadsheet rather than by performance.
Their best post. Ask for median across the last twenty. A refusal is itself informative.
Impressions promised in advance. Nobody can promise impressions, on any platform. What a serious quote contains is a median and a range, which is a forecast rather than a guarantee.
Total audience across every platform summed together. A number combining X, LinkedIn, a newsletter and YouTube counts the same person up to four times and is used almost exclusively to inflate.
The line items that cost more than the post
The fee is often the cheapest part of a deal, and the terms around it are where money is genuinely lost.
Usage rights in perpetuity. A brand that can run a creator's face as an advertisement forever has bought something worth many multiples of a single post fee, and it is routinely conceded for nothing.
Approval loops. Unlimited revisions turn a defined piece of work into an open-ended one, and creators price the next engagement accordingly.
Non-disparagement. A clause preventing a creator from ever criticising the product binds their future opinion, which is the thing their audience is paying attention to. It also makes the endorsement worth less, because a captive endorsement is not evidence.
The creator-side view of all of this is in what to agree before you post, and reading both sides before negotiating is worth an hour.
Telling a fair quote from an anchored one
Four questions, all of which a serious creator answers without hesitation.
- What is your median across the last twenty posts? Not your best. Not your average, which one outlier distorts.
- What does your audience actually do for work? A creator who cannot describe their audience by role is guessing, and so are you.
- What is included beyond the post? Usage, exclusivity, revisions, the reply layer afterwards.
- What happens if it underperforms? The answer is usually nothing, and that is fine. The tell is whether they say so plainly or promise a make-good they will not honour.
How to think about total budget
The wrong question is what one post costs. The right one is how many touchpoints it takes before a buyer acts, which for B2B lands somewhere around fifteen and needs them to differ in kind rather than repeat. That count is in how many times a buyer needs to see you.
Practically this means a single post is an experiment rather than a programme. Budget for a quarter of presence or budget for something else, because the compounding is the entire mechanism and one post does not compound with anything.
The full cost picture, including what the same money buys as an in-house hire or a PR retainer, is in what a launch costs.
Questions we get asked
Do creators have to use the paid partnership label on a Doomers launch?
Yes, on every compensated post. It is an FTC requirement and X's own rule, it is written into every creator brief, and a creator who will not tag does not run in our launches. There are no exceptions, for any client or any creator.
How much do B2B creators charge per post?
On X, $250 to $5,000 per post at 10K to 50K followers, $500 to $5,000 and up at 50K to 250K, and $2,000 to $10,000 or more above 250K, or a $40 to $50 CPM. Rates cluster in a fairly narrow band and correlate weakly with follower count. A specialist with a tenth of the audience frequently quotes the same as a generalist, because B2B audiences are capped by how many people could plausibly buy the product. Price converges on what the relevant slice is worth rather than on total reach.
What should I ask a creator before agreeing a rate?
Their median across the last twenty posts rather than their best, what their audience does for work, what is included beyond the post itself, and what happens if it underperforms. A creator who cannot describe their audience by role is guessing. The honest answer to the last question is usually nothing, and saying so plainly is a good sign.
What costs more than the post fee itself?
Usage rights, most often. A brand that can run a creator's post as an advertisement indefinitely has bought something worth many multiples of the fee, and it is routinely conceded for free. Unlimited revision rounds and non-disparagement clauses are the other two, and the last one also makes the endorsement worth less because a captive opinion is not evidence.