If you have ever asked for the price of a placement on an African news site and been told that prices are on request, you may have wondered whether the answer was evasive. It is not. A placement is not a standard product with a shelf price. It is an arrangement with a specific site, for a specific article, at a specific moment — and each of those variables changes the quote. This article explains what actually shapes a quote, the three formats you can buy, how long publication honestly takes, and why a public price list for other people’s newspapers should worry you rather than reassure you.
Start with the principle that runs through everything below: a quote is only useful if it is for a real site, a real article, and terms confirmed in writing before you pay. Anything less is a guess dressed up as a price.
1. What shapes a quote
Four things move a quote, and they are the same four things a serious provider will ask you about before quoting.
The site itself comes first. An established national news title and a smaller specialist blog do not cost the same, because they do not offer the same thing: different readerships, different editorial standards, different demand from other buyers. Sector matters too. A site that rarely publishes in your sector may charge more for the editorial work involved, or may decline the article altogether. That is a sign of a site protecting its readers, not a problem to negotiate around.
The topic comes second. A straightforward, useful article that fits the site’s coverage is easy for an editor to approve. An article on a sensitive or heavily regulated topic — licensed gambling, regulated crypto and forex, health claims, financial promises — needs more checking, proof of licensing or regulation where the site’s policy requires it, and sometimes a rewrite before it can run. The extra work is real, and it shows up in the quote or in the timeline, or both.
Timing comes third. A single placement with a flexible date is simpler to arrange than a coordinated set of placements that must all go live in the same week, or a placement needed for a launch date that cannot move. Urgency does not change the editorial process — an editor still has to read the article — but it does change how much coordination the order needs.
Volume comes fourth. Ordering several placements at once, or buying a set of sites in one market as a country pack, is quoted as one order rather than as a string of separate ones. That is why agencies that buy regularly ask for a priced list for the whole directory rather than quoting site by site: one conversation covers every placement they will need for a client, and volume and credit arrangements can be discussed in the open.
None of this means a quote should be mysterious. A good quote names the site, the format, what the order includes, and the payment and replacement terms, and it arrives quickly — we reply within 24 hours on business days. What it cannot do is name a figure before it knows the site, the topic, the timing and the volume, because at that point the figure would be invented.
2. Guest post, link insertion, or publisher-written feature
Buyers often use “guest post” to mean any paid placement. It helps to separate the three formats, because they suit different jobs and editors treat them differently.
A guest post is a new article, written by you or for you, published as a new piece on the site. It suits a new story: a market entry, a launch, a guide, an opinion piece that has not been said before. You control the angle and the context, subject to the editor’s judgement and the site’s labelling policy. Most of the orders we handle are guest posts, and the briefing article on this blog explains what editors want to see in one.
A link insertion adds a link to an article that already exists on the site. It suits a case where the coverage already says what you want said, and the link simply connects readers to the relevant page. It is faster to arrange when it fits, because there is no new article to write or edit — but fit is everything. The existing article must genuinely be about the topic, and the link must make sense to a reader of that article. Availability is per site and confirmed on request, never assumed: not every site accepts insertions, and not every existing article is open to one.
A publisher-written feature is a new article written by the site’s own writers or contributors, rather than supplied by you. It suits a buyer who wants the site’s voice and local knowledge, or who has a story but not a writer who knows the market. You brief the topic and the facts; the site writes it in its own style, under its own editorial control. It usually takes longer than a supplied guest post, because the writing itself is part of the order, and you should expect to see the piece before publication where the site’s process allows it.
Which format fits is a question to ask at the quoting stage, not after the order is placed. Tell the provider the story, the page you want readers to reach, and whether you have an article ready or need one written. The format follows from those answers.
3. How long it honestly takes
Two clocks run on every order, and confusing them is the most common source of disappointment.
The first clock is the quote clock. From your enquiry to a confirmed quote, the honest answer is a working day in most cases — we reply within 24 hours on business days. If a provider takes a week to quote, that tells you something about how responsive they will be when an editor asks a question mid-order.
The second clock is the publication clock, and this is the one that matters. Our guarantee is that an article goes live within 24 hours of receiving your final article, or the order is refunded in full. Notice the starting point: the final article, not the first enquiry, not the first draft, not the day you paid. The time between enquiry and final article — briefing, writing, revisions, checking claims — is not dead time. It is the work that makes the article publishable.
Within that 24-hour window, the variable is editor review. An editor reads the article, checks it against the site’s standards, and may ask for changes. That review is the reason the guarantee is measured in hours rather than minutes, and it is also the reason instant publication on an established news site is a claim to distrust. A site with editors on duty publishes quickly. A site with no editor involved publishes instantly — and you should ask what exactly you have bought.
Plan around this honestly. Brief early, send a final article rather than a draft you are still revising, and agree before ordering what happens if an editor asks for changes. One round of edits is included in every order with us, so an editor’s request is a normal step in the process, not a crisis. If your campaign has a hard launch date, work backwards from it: allow time for writing and approval, then add the publication window, and do not promise your client a live date that leaves no room for an editor to do their job.
4. Why a public price list for other people’s newspapers is a warning sign
It is tempting to prefer a seller who publishes a price for every site, including well-known national newspapers. Resist that temptation, and ask a simple question: who agreed to that price?
The sites in our directory are owned and run by other people. Their editors set their own terms, their own labelling policies, and their own decisions about what to publish. No placement provider can fix a price for someone else’s newspaper and expect it to hold, because the newspaper was not a party to it. A published price for a named national title is either a guess, a stale figure from an old arrangement, or a price for a different kind of placement than the one you think you are buying. In each case, the surprise arrives later — in a different site, a different format, or terms that change once you have paid.
That is also why our quotes are confidential and given privately. The priced list we send agencies is a working document for a real buyer, not a public advertisement. It can be kept current, corrected when a site changes its terms, and quoted against for a specific order. A public list cannot do any of those things without misleading the next reader.
The same logic applies to any seller who publishes a list of sites they do not actually hold. If a price list names titles you cannot verify as part of that seller’s directory, ask how the arrangement works and who the counterparty is. One order, one invoice, one provider who answers for the whole order — that is the arrangement that protects you. A list of famous names with no one accountable behind it does not.
5. How to get a useful quote
A quote request that gets a fast, accurate answer contains five things: the sites you are interested in, or the market and sector if you have not shortlisted yet; the format you want, or the story if you are unsure which format fits; the article itself, or a clear brief if it is not written yet; the timing you need; and the number of placements in the order. That is enough for a provider to quote properly, and it is also enough to reveal whether the provider is quoting properly — a reply that ignores half of it and names a figure anyway has not done the work.
If you ran the nine checks in our previous article on how to evaluate an African news site before you pay for a placement, bring the sites that passed. Shortlisting first and quoting second saves a round of back-and-forth, and it means the quote you receive is for sites you have already decided are worth briefing.
The rest of the process is set out step by step in our guide to how it works and on our pricing page — what a quote covers, the payment split, the live-link report, and the replacement cover if a live link is later removed. Read those before you order, and ask about anything unclear while the quote is still just a quote. That is the moment when questions are free.
Request prices for your list
Tell us the sites, the story, and the timing, and we will quote for the order as a whole, reply within 24 hours on business days, and confirm the terms in writing before you pay anything.