What a LinkedIn ghostwriter costs in the US
Updated 24 September 2026 · 8 minute read
$32 an hour at the marketplace floor. $2,000 to $6,500 a month from agencies that publish their rates. $15,000 and up at the top. Same three words in the job title.
A disclosure before the numbers, because you should weigh them accordingly. Inklined sells software that does part of what a ghostwriter does, so this is not a neutral page. Every figure below comes from the provider's own published page rather than from a survey of ours or an estimate, every provider is named, and all of it was checked in September 2026.
The floor and the ceiling
Upwork publishes a median hourly rate of $32 for ghostwriters, with most sitting between $20 and $45. At the other end, several agencies describe a full-service tier at $15,000 a month and above.
Those two things are not the same job, but they are sold under the same three words, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you start comparing quotes. The range is wider than almost any other professional service you will buy, which means the job title tells you close to nothing about what will actually arrive.
What US providers actually publish
Providers with a real price on the page rather than a call booking form.
| Provider | Published price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Underdog Ghostwriting | $2,000, $3,500 and $6,500 a month, billed quarterly | Weekly posts through to 100 pieces a month, 90-day minimum |
| Column Content | $2,000 a month | Around 15 pieces a month plus ads management. Page published 2024, last updated March 2025 |
| Upwork | Median $32 an hour, most between $20 and $45 | Individual freelancers, no agency layer |
Three is not many, and that is the finding. Search this question and you will get dozens of detailed pricing guides, nearly all of them published by agencies that do not publish their own prices. The guide ranks, the price stays behind a call, and you are some way into a sales process before anybody gives you a number.
The bands those guides do publish are worth having anyway, because they were written by people selling into this market and they are dated.
| Source | Published band | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Foundera, 21 May 2026 | Freelance $500 to $700 a month at one post a week, rising to $2,500 to $3,500 at daily. Agencies $2,000 to $4,000, then $4,000 to $7,000, then $8,000 to $15,000+ | Freelancer and agency tiers |
| Mylance, 31 May 2026 | $500 to $1,500, then $2,000 to $5,000, then $5,000 to $15,000+ a month | Budget, mid-market and premium |
| Clash Creation, June 2026 | LinkedIn ghostwriting $2,000 to $5,000 a month, founder programme $5,000 to $15,000 | Their read of the US market |
They converge on the middle. Every one of them puts a real agency retainer between $2,000 and $5,000 a month, which matches the only two agencies in the first table that publish anything.
Per post is the comparison that works
Monthly retainers are hard to compare because the output volume moves underneath them, so divide one by the other and work in the unit you are actually buying.
Foundera publishes per-post rates of $300 to $400 for a beginner, $500 to $650 mid-level and $700 to $1,000 for a senior writer. Mylance puts entry-level per-post work at $50 to $100 and premium at $300 to $500. Those two sets barely overlap, which tells you the word senior is not being used consistently.
Run it against the retainers where a provider publishes both the price and the volume. Underdog's top tier is up to 100 pieces a month at $6,500, which is $65 a piece. Column publishes around 15 pieces at $2,000, which is $133. The larger number buys the cheaper unit, which is what volume pricing always looks like, and it is also the point at which one person has stopped writing all of it.
A retainer that gets cheaper per post as it gets larger is telling you where the writing stops being bespoke. That is not a criticism, but it is worth knowing which side of the line you are buying on.
Why the US number is around three times the UK one
Set the two side by side at the same tier. Done-for-you LinkedIn writing is £1,000 to £3,000 a month in the UK and $2,000 to $5,000 in the US, by the same agency's own published reckoning. Even before the exchange rate that is a different price for a description that reads identically.
Clash Creation, which publishes both sets, gives the reason directly:
"US personal branding costs more because US buyers expect larger teams, broader channel coverage, and bigger commercial upside."
That is a statement about what is being bought rather than about writing quality, and it matches what the deliverable lists show. The US packages at a given price carry more channels, more production and more people. They also sit in a market where speaking fees, media relationships and the size of the addressable audience make the return on all that plausible in a way it often is not in the UK.
The practical consequence: if you are UK-based and quoting off US pages, you are anchoring high. If you are US-based and tempted by a UK provider, check whether the thing you value is in the package at all.
What the fee does not cover
Your own time, which is the line item nobody quotes and the one that decides whether any of this sounds like you.
Then a list of things commonly priced separately. Foundera puts video production at $500 to $2,000 per video, brand photography at $2,000 to $5,000, profile overhauls at $500 to $1,500 and additional engagement work at $50 to $150 an hour for freelancers or $75 to $150 for agencies. Ads management is typically 10% to 20% of the spend on top.
None of that is unreasonable. It is only a problem when you compared two retainers on the headline figure and one of them included the profile work.
Commitment terms are the other thing to establish early. Underdog publishes a 90-day minimum billed quarterly, which is common in the US market and rarer in the UK. A three-month minimum is defensible, since nothing in this category produces a signal in under a quarter, but it is money you cannot get back if the voice is wrong by week three.
What you are actually choosing between
Underneath the tiers there are two products, and the pricing pages do not distinguish them.
→ Someone who writes from your material. They book time with you every week, take what you said, and turn it into something you would have said. The output is yours. The cost is that weekly hour, and the fact that when you go quiet the content goes quiet with you.
→ Someone who writes instead of you. They take a brief, research the topic and produce posts about your subject. No recurring call required. The output is competent, it is not yours, and people who know you will notice something they cannot quite name.
Price does not tell you which one you are buying. Cadence does. Underdog's tiers all list weekly sessions, which is a signal in the right direction. A package that never asks for your time is the second product whatever it costs.
The bands, in plain terms
→ Under $500 a month. Marketplace rates. One writer, no conversation, no knowledge of your market. Presence rather than voice.
→ $500 to $2,000. A freelancer with a real process, one to three posts a week. The band where the difference between the two products above matters most and shows least.
→ $2,000 to $7,000. The agency retainer proper. A team, a strategy layer, engagement and reporting. Where every published band converges.
→ $8,000 and up. Multi-channel programmes with video, press and speaking support. You have stopped buying writing and started buying a communications function.
Where Inklined sits, and what it does not replace
Inklined bills in pounds at £49 or £129 a month, which puts it below the floor of everything above whichever way you convert it. That is not the same product at a discount, and pretending otherwise would be no use to you.
A ghostwriter takes the work away. Inklined does not. It takes the calls you are already running, keeps what you actually said, and does the retrieval: finding the thing you explained well in March when you need it in September. You still write, and the only difference is where you start from.
What it does not do is chase you. A ghostwriter with a standing slot in your calendar produces content in the weeks you are too busy to think, and that is a real service worth real money. If your constraint is hours rather than material, buy the person.
The two are set against each other properly, cost and control, on the LinkedIn ghostwriter comparison page.
Common questions
How much does a LinkedIn ghostwriter cost in the US?
Agencies publishing their own prices in September 2026 sit at $2,000 to $6,500 a month. Published market bands put freelancers at $500 to $2,000 and full-service agencies at $8,000 to $15,000 and above. On freelance marketplaces the median ghostwriter rate is $32 an hour.
What should I pay per LinkedIn post?
Published per-post rates run from $50 at the entry level to $1,000 for a senior writer, and the guides quoting them do not agree on where the line between the two sits. A more useful check is to divide a retainer by its output: agency tiers work out between $65 and $133 a post, and the cheaper per-post figure usually means more people are involved and less of it is bespoke.
Why is US pricing so much higher than UK pricing?
Because more is included and the return is bigger. One agency publishing both sets says US buyers expect larger teams and broader channel coverage, and the US market prices in speaking economics and a bigger addressable audience. It is a difference in what is being bought rather than in writing quality.
Are minimum terms normal?
In the US, yes. Ninety-day minimums billed quarterly are common and defensible, since nothing in this category produces a readable signal in under a quarter. It is still money you cannot recover if the voice is wrong in week three, so ask what happens if you want out and get the answer before you sign.
Is a cheap ghostwriter better than no ghostwriter?
Not reliably. Content in a voice that is not yours does a different job from no content at all, and people who know you tend to register the mismatch without being able to name it. If the budget only reaches the bottom band, writing one post a week yourself usually beats buying four that sound like somebody else.
What is not included in the monthly fee?
Your own time, first. Then video production, brand photography, profile overhauls and extra engagement work, all of which are commonly quoted separately, and ads management, usually charged at 10% to 20% of the spend. Compare two retainers on what is inside them rather than on the headline number.
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