Pricing sponsored content is one of the least-documented aspects of running a comparison site. Most guides tell you to "charge what the market will bear." That's not wrong, but it's not useful either.
Here's the actual math behind our three pricing tiers — what they cost to produce, what they're worth to the brand, and how we landed on $500, $1,000, and $2,000 per month.
What a Comparison Site Is Actually Selling
Before pricing, you need to know what you're selling. Brands pay us for:
- Comparison page presence — appearing on pages buyers use at the highest-intent moment in their purchase journey
- Narrative control — being able to present verified specs, official messaging, and positioning rather than letting third-party editors define them
- Category exclusivity — blocking competitors from owning the same slot
- Data access — monthly reports on comparison search volume, competitor positioning, and buyer sentiment in their category
This is different from display advertising (we're not selling impressions) and different from affiliate marketing (we're not selling clicks). We're selling sustained, structured presence in a high-intent channel.
The Value Calculation
For a brand spending $1,000/month with us, the implicit question is: what does that $1,000 buy vs. alternatives?
Alternative 1: Google Ads for comparison keywords
"Roomba vs Roborock" has ~30,000 monthly searches. Average CPC for commercial intent comparison keywords in consumer electronics: ~$1.80. If iRobot wanted to buy that traffic via Google Ads:
30,000 searches × 15% CTR for #1 position × $1.80 CPC = ~$8,100/month
Our page ranks organically for that term. A $1,000/month partnership gets iRobot preferred placement on that page for a fraction of the paid traffic cost — and organic comparison traffic converts at higher rates than paid because the buyer self-selected into the comparison.
Alternative 2: Sponsored content on review sites
Wirecutter-style affiliate sites charge $5,000–$25,000 for sponsored editorial placements, which typically run for 60–90 days. The content is static, clearly marked as sponsored (which reduces trust), and doesn't continue building over time.
Our model is month-to-month and grows with our page library. A brand that's been a partner for 6 months is featured across all new comparison pages we publish in their category — we build the page count, they get the distribution.
The Three Tiers
Tier C — $500/month
Target: Brands with under 1,000 monthly comparison searches in their primary category, or brands testing the channel before committing.
What they get:
- Enhanced Brand Profile on all comparison pages featuring their product
- Verified specs badge (signals official data to buyers)
- Priority placement in spec comparison tables
- Monthly category report (search volume, sentiment trends)
Our cost to serve: ~2 hours/month (profile updates, report generation). At $500, margin is ~80% after time cost at our internal hourly rate.
Who converts to Tier C: Emerging brands, DTC brands without dedicated partnership functions, brands in lower-CPC categories (mattresses, coffee machines). These are often $500–$2,000 average order value products where a single assisted conversion covers the monthly fee.
Tier B — $1,000/month
Target: Mid-market brands with 1,000–10,000 monthly comparison searches, or brands in high-CPC categories where comparison intent is valuable.
What they get:
- Everything in Tier C
- Featured comparison summary (we write a branded section highlighting their advantages, sourced from official specs)
- Quarterly competitive positioning review (where they're winning/losing in comparison data)
- Logo placement on category hub pages
- First-right-of-refusal on category exclusivity
Our cost to serve: ~4 hours/month. At $1,000, margin is ~70%.
Who converts to Tier B: Brands in electronics, home appliances, and fitness equipment where comparison search is meaningful volume and high intent. These brands typically have a marketing manager with a $10–50K/month digital spend who sees comparison placement as a complement to their search campaigns.
Tier A — $2,000+/month
Target: Brands with 10,000+ monthly comparison searches, high CPC categories ($2+), and an active partnerships or brand marketing function.
What they get:
- Everything in Tier B
- Category exclusivity (no competing brand gets an Enhanced Profile in their primary competitive matchups)
- Co-branded comparison data reports (shareable assets they can use in sales decks)
- Custom landing page integration (their comparison pages link to a product-specific landing page, not just their homepage)
- Quarterly strategy call with our team
Our cost to serve: ~6 hours/month. At $2,000, margin is ~75%.
Who converts to Tier A: Premium brands (Apple, Sony, Nespresso-tier) where comparison search volume is high enough that category exclusivity has real strategic value. A brand spending $50K/month on Google Ads for brand defense will see $2,000/month for comparison exclusivity as a clear win.
The Unit Economics Check
At 4 active partners averaging $812/month, our current brand partnership revenue is ~$3,250/month on roughly 20 hours of monthly servicing time. That's $162/hour — which works at our current scale.
The model improves at scale. Tier B and C partners mostly self-serve after onboarding. The monthly work is report generation (increasingly automated) and profile updates. A single person can manage 20–25 active partners without quality degrading.
At 20 partners (our 6-month target), the unit economics look like:
20 partners × $900 avg/month = $18,000 MRR
Monthly servicing time: ~35 hours
Effective rate: ~$514/hour
The leverage comes from the page library. Every new comparison page we publish creates new potential value for existing partners — they get included automatically. We're not doing incremental work for incremental partner revenue.
What We'd Price Differently
The $500 tier is underpriced. We included it to make the channel accessible to emerging brands, and it's generated goodwill. But the cost to onboard a Tier C partner (first 30 days of integration, brand profile setup, initial report) is roughly 5 hours — nearly the entire first month's margin. We're effectively subsidizing new partner onboarding.
In month 2+, Tier C becomes profitable. But we've had to think carefully about volume at this tier — too many $500 partners and we're running a low-margin services business, not a scalable media product.
Lesson: If you're launching a comparison site partnership program, price Tier C at $750 minimum, or require a 3-month minimum commitment to recoup onboarding costs.
SmartReview and aversusb.net build structured product comparison tools. See our comparisons at aversusb.net.
