Your link in bio is the one page every follower, client and recruiter opens. That makes it advertising space, and a single, clearly labelled sponsor slot on it can pay you every week without another post. You don't need a huge audience: brands that sell to a narrow group pay for attention from exactly that group. This guide covers what brands are buying, how to price a slot from your real traffic, what a rate card needs, how to land the first sponsor and how to stay on the right side of the disclosure rules.
Quick steps
- Check your last 30 days of link-in-bio visits and who sends them.
- Pick a niche CPM and work out a weekly price: monthly visits ÷ 30 × 7 ÷ 1,000 × CPM, with a $10–25 minimum.
- Publish a rate card with your price, placement, real stats, open weeks and rules.
- Pitch ten brands you already use, offering a discounted first week.
- Approve the exact ad, label it "Ad" with rel="sponsored", and send a results report when it ends.
What a brand is actually buying
A sponsor on your link in bio is buying two things: views from people who already chose to look at you, and a little of your trust. That second part is why a small page can be worth more than its numbers suggest. A developer-tools company would rather reach 3,000 engineers who follow a respected engineer than 300,000 random viewers.
So the question isn't "am I big enough?" but "is there a brand that sells to the people who click my link?" If you're a designer, think design tools, font foundries, courses and hiring platforms. If you coach founders, think software for small teams, accountants and newsletters for operators. Local businesses sponsor local creators. Newsletters sponsor anyone whose audience matches theirs.
How much to charge: price per week from your traffic
Sponsorships are usually priced on CPM, the cost per thousand views. beehiiv's guide to newsletter sponsorship puts typical CPMs between $10 and $75, with established, well-targeted audiences at the top of that range. A link in bio behaves like a short newsletter that never stops sending, so the same maths works.
Here's the formula: weekly views = monthly visits ÷ 30 × 7, and weekly price = weekly views ÷ 1,000 × your CPM. A page with 10,000 visits a month gets about 2,333 views a week. At a $40 CPM, typical for software and AI audiences, that's about $93, so you'd list $90 a week. A footer mention is less prominent than a card under your intro, so price it lower.
Two practical rules. First, small pages should charge a flat minimum rather than tiny CPM maths: $10 to $25 a week is a fair start, and it's still real money for one line on a page you already have. Second, sell weeks, not clicks. Click-based deals make you carry the risk of a weak ad; a weekly price is simple for both sides. Try the sponsorship rate calculator with your own numbers.
What goes on a rate card
A rate card is the page you send a brand. It should answer every question a marketer has before they reply:
- Your price per week and the currency, stated plainly.
- Where the ad appears, with a picture: a card under your intro, a featured link, or a footer line.
- Real numbers from the last 30 days: views, unique people and, if you have them, top countries and where visitors come from. Bots and your own visits should be removed.
- Who your audience is, in one or two sentences, in your words.
- What you accept and what you don't, including categories you'll never run.
- Which weeks are open, how much notice you need and your cancellation policy.
- A way to book: pick dates, write the ad, pay. A form beats "DM me for rates".
Finding your first sponsor
Start with tools you already use and genuinely recommend. You can describe them honestly, the brand gets a credible endorsement, and your audience gets something useful. Make a list of ten, find the marketing or partnerships contact and send a short note.
Keep the pitch to five lines: who you are, who reads your page, one number (views in the last 30 days), the slot and price, and a link to your rate card. Offer the first week at a discount so the brand can test you at low risk; beehiiv recommends the same tactic for new newsletter sponsors. When the week ends, send the results: views while the ad ran, clicks and click rate. A brand that sees its own numbers is far more likely to book again.
Put a quiet "Sponsor this page" link in your page footer too. Brands browsing creators in their niche will find it, and inbound requests are the easiest deals you'll ever close.
Disclosure: label it, every time
Paid placements must be clearly disclosed. In the US, the FTC's endorsement guides require it; in the UK the ASA and CAP code apply, and in India the ASCI guidelines do. The safe pattern is the same everywhere: a visible "Ad" or "Sponsored" label next to the placement, plus the brand's name.
Search engines care too. Google asks site owners to mark paid links with rel="sponsored", so the link doesn't pass ranking credit. A good sponsorship tool does both for you automatically, so a forgotten label never puts you or the brand at risk.
Running sponsorships without annoying your audience
One sponsor at a time is plenty. A few rules keep the page trusted:
- Approve the exact ad before it goes live: headline, line, button and link.
- Say no to categories that don't fit you. Most creators never run gambling, crypto trading or adult brands.
- Block competitors of your clients or employer by domain.
- Send every sponsor a results report at the end. It's how one-off deals become repeat bookings.
How featurd does it
featurd has sponsored slots built in. You set a weekly price, pick where the slot sits and which weeks are open, and featurd publishes a rate card with your real 30-day stats, bots and your own visits removed. Brands pick weeks, write the ad and see a live preview. You approve, ask for changes or decline. When you approve, the brand pays you directly through your own Stripe or Razorpay, or your own invoice, and featurd takes 0%.
The slot always shows an "Ad" label with the brand's name and uses rel="sponsored". Clicks are counted once per person per day, bots are ignored, and the brand gets a report when the run ends. See how sponsorships work on featurd or make your free page.