» April 13, 2008 in
There have been a few Make Money Online Blogs sold recently so let's have some fun guessing what each one is worth again. Last time we guessed the price people were paying per subscriber when buying a blog was a $30.98.
What Blogs Have Sold Recently
Most of the blogs that are sold do not publish the exact amount they sell for however we can take good guesses based on the "buy it now" prices and comments. The recent blog sales were OneMansGoal, Shylockblogging, Johncow, and bloggingexperiment.
Here is a screen grab that shows each blogs subscriber count, their estimated selling price and cost paid per subscriber. You will notice the going rate for a subscriber is $18.42 on average:
How Do You Value A Blog?
To get the rate of $18.42 per subscriber I take the sale price and divide it by the feedburner count then average them all.
There is no real way to value a blog so I like to do price paid per subscriber. It's not perfect, but nothing is.
How Much Are Other Make Money Online Blogs Worth?
Here's the fun part. Now that we have the guess that make money online blogs might sell for $18.42 per subscriber I went and grabbed most of the blogs with a public feedburner count from the Make Money Online Top 100 and made the calculations below:
Note 1 - These prices are for entertainment only.
Note 2 - Would You sell For this price?
Note 3 - This is also the Top 100 based on subscriber count ;)
Current Value Of Make Money Online Blogs 4-13-08
Subscribers
44753
$824350.26
Subscribers
26056
$479951.52
Subscribers
23351
$430125.42
Subscribers
15636
$288015.12
Subscribers
14234
$262190.28
Subscribers
10640
$195988.8
Subscribers
8811
$162298.62
Subscribers
3668
$67564.56
Subscribers
3216
$59238.72
Subscribers
3204
$59017.68
Subscribers
2730
$50286.6
Subscribers
2692
$49586.64
Subscribers
2457
$45257.94
Subscribers
2352
$43323.84
Subscribers
2310
$42550.2
Subscribers
2227
$41021.34
Subscribers
2209
$40689.78
Subscribers
2169
$39952.98
Subscribers
2065
$38037.3
Subscribers
1959
$36084.78
Subscribers
1954
$35992.68
Subscribers
1681
$30964.02
Subscribers
1631
$30043.02
Subscribers
1389
$25585.38
Subscribers
1366
$25161.72
Subscribers
1358
$25014.36
Subscribers
1320
$24314.4
Subscribers
1288
$23724.96
Subscribers
1107
$20390.94
Subscribers
1075
$19801.5
Subscribers
1062
$19562.04
Subscribers
945
$17406.9
Subscribers
919
$16927.98
Subscribers
880
$16209.6
Subscribers
854
$15730.68
Subscribers
850
$15657
Subscribers
833
$15343.86
Subscribers
829
$15270.18
Subscribers
826
$15214.92
Subscribers
821
$15122.82
Subscribers
775
$14275.5
Subscribers
773
$14238.66
Subscribers
686
$12636.12
Subscribers
673
$12396.66
Subscribers
658
$12120.36
Subscribers
590
$10867.8
Subscribers
589
$10849.38
Subscribers
566
$10425.72
Subscribers
565
$10407.3
Subscribers
562
$10352.04
Subscribers
521
$9596.82
Subscribers
519
$9559.98
Subscribers
513
$9449.46
Subscribers
503
$9265.26
Subscribers
467
$8602.14
Subscribers
458
$8436.36
Subscribers
430
$7920.6
Subscribers
422
$7773.24
Subscribers
405
$7460.1
Subscribers
385
$7091.7
Subscribers
364
$6704.88
Subscribers
353
$6502.26
Subscribers
344
$6336.48
Subscribers
328
$6041.76
Subscribers
309
$5691.78
Subscribers
308
$5673.36
Subscribers
307
$5654.94
Subscribers
301
$5544.42
Subscribers
287
$5286.54
Subscribers
286
$5268.12
Subscribers
283
$5212.86
Subscribers
260
$4789.2
Subscribers
259
$4770.78
Subscribers
248
$4568.16
Subscribers
246
$4531.32
Subscribers
244
$4494.48
Subscribers
239
$4402.38
Subscribers
238
$4383.96
Subscribers
238
$4383.96
Subscribers
227
$4181.34
Subscribers
218
$4015.56
Subscribers
217
$3997.14
Subscribers
217
$3997.14
Subscribers
209
$3849.78
Subscribers
205
$3776.1
Subscribers
203
$3739.26
Subscribers
203
$3739.26
Subscribers
193
$3555.06
Subscribers
188
$3462.96
Subscribers
186
$3426.12
Subscribers
183
$3370.86
Subscribers
181
$3334.02
Subscribers
175
$3223.5
Subscribers
175
$3223.5
Subscribers
174
$3205.08
Subscribers
172
$3168.24
Subscribers
172
$3168.24
Subscribers
170
$3131.4
Subscribers
169
$3112.98
Subscribers
168
$3094.56
Subscribers
165
$3039.3
Subscribers
165
$3039.3
Subscribers
159
$2928.78
Subscribers
153
$2818.26
Subscribers
150
$2763
Subscribers
147
$2707.74
Subscribers
141
$2597.22
Subscribers
140
$2578.8
Subscribers
130
$2394.6
Subscribers
124
$2284.08
Subscribers
112
$2063.04
Subscribers
111
$2044.62
Subscribers
109
$2007.78
Subscribers
109
$2007.78
Subscribers
109
$2007.78
Subscribers
106
$1952.52
Subscribers
104
$1915.68
Subscribers
103
$1897.26
Subscribers
103
$1897.26
Subscribers
93
$1713.06
Subscribers
93
$1713.06
Subscribers
92
$1694.64
Subscribers
89
$1639.38
Subscribers
87
$1602.54
Subscribers
86
$1584.12
Subscribers
84
$1547.28
Subscribers
83
$1528.86
Subscribers
82
$1510.44
Subscribers
76
$1399.92
Subscribers
75
$1381.5
Subscribers
74
$1363.08
Subscribers
74
$1363.08
Subscribers
73
$1344.66
Subscribers
71
$1307.82
Subscribers
71
$1307.82
Subscribers
69
$1270.98
Subscribers
67
$1234.14
Subscribers
64
$1178.88
Subscribers
62
$1142.04
Subscribers
60
$1105.2
Subscribers
59
$1086.78
Subscribers
59
$1086.78
Subscribers
57
$1049.94
Subscribers
56
$1031.52
Subscribers
56
$1031.52
Subscribers
56
$1031.52
Subscribers
54
$994.68
Subscribers
52
$957.84
Subscribers
50
$921
Subscribers
49
$902.58
Subscribers
48
$884.16
Subscribers
48
$884.16
Subscribers
47
$865.74
Subscribers
47
$865.74
Subscribers
46
$847.32
Subscribers
46
$847.32
Subscribers
45
$828.9
Subscribers
43
$792.06
Subscribers
42
$773.64
Subscribers
41
$755.22
Subscribers
40
$736.8
Subscribers
38
$699.96
Subscribers
34
$626.28
Subscribers
34
$626.28
Subscribers
34
$626.28
Subscribers
33
$607.86
Subscribers
33
$607.86
Subscribers
29
$534.18
Subscribers
26
$478.92
Subscribers
24
$442.08
Subscribers
22
$405.24
Subscribers
20
$368.4
Subscribers
20
$368.4
Subscribers
19
$349.98
Subscribers
17
$313.14
Subscribers
16
$294.72
Subscribers
13
$239.46
Subscribers
13
$239.46
Subscribers
13
$239.46
Subscribers
12
$221.04
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Bill says on April 13, 2008
Hey Mark...nice post.
Couple of points though here, there isn't enough sold blogs to really make an accurate assessment here plus I don't think Cow will actually sell for anywhere near 50k.
The alleged buyer has already backed out from what I heard, even if it does, it is statistically common to throw out the high and low and use the remaining numbers to calculate.
That one 50k dollar sale skus the numbers significantly.
Just my 2 cents.
TrishaLyn says on April 13, 2008
So you wanna pay me $421 for my little blog? :? Wow I never thought to look at it with this kind of metric... thanks for the eye opener!
Janette Toral says on April 13, 2008
Wow interesting analysis there.
On another note, Feedburner subscriber numbers sometimes confuse me. When you check on a blog subscriber's actual count in Google Reader and Bloglines, figures show up differently, small percentage of a blog's reported number. That makes me wonder as to how many subscribers are real persons.
Gyutae Park says on April 13, 2008
Hey Mark,
I definitely think that system is flawed, but like you said every other way is too. I think the pricing on blogs is taken on a case by case basis and there definitely hasn't been enough sales to really establish a baseline.
Still, the results are very interesting. Thanks for putting that together. Great link bait too. ;)
When is your top 100 list updated btw? The stats are a bit outdated.
45n5 says on April 13, 2008
@Gyutae Park - the top100 will update in the next 24 hours ;)
@all - I know it's not a perfect system, but it's better than just throwing darts at prices eh? At the least it shows the blogs ranked by feedburner counts ;)
Not John Chow says on April 13, 2008
Hey, my blog is worth $681.54 based on this estimating method. That's fun but, I won't retire yet.
Lori says on April 13, 2008
Hmmm, if my blog was really worth that much, I'd sell it right now!!!
Any takers?????
Alan from Zero and Up says on April 13, 2008
Very interesting! I think that compared to my earnings so far for this month, that sounds like a very reasonable price. Hopefully both my subscriber count and my earnings will increase as time goes, though :)
whydowork says on April 14, 2008
just a note, shylockblogging was sold for quite a bit less than quoted. (http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/33523)
That might lower your avg. sale price quite a bit.
It's interesting to see the difference a few months makes :)
45n5 () says on April 14, 2008:
@whydowork - thanks for the update, it brings the new average to $16.11, close enough for estimates ;)Ruck says on April 14, 2008
I didnt see mine in there but since I would never sell it, I guess it aint worth anything anyway :). Cool post Mark, neat way to kind of guage them a bit.
Homebizse.com says on April 14, 2008
I think you produced a good formula; folks subscribe to a blog due to the writer not the name. If ownership changes surely the content that made a person subscribe would change and the subscribers would decrease. I think the value listed is an inflated price and wishful thinking.
Ian Lee says on April 14, 2008
Hey Mark,
Nice post. As others have mentioned, subscriber ship is only one metric of a blog's worth. In fact, I have seen a blog with a very high subscriber ship (100,000 technorati ranking with).
In any case, cool post.
Patrick Altoft says on April 14, 2008
I would say the value is more like $50 per subscriber.
Stephan Miller says on April 14, 2008
I wouldn't sell mine, but then it would be hard anyway, since it's my name. But if I ever get up in the DoshDosh price range, I would consider getting a new name. :)
Joe@how-to says on April 14, 2008
This is very interesting post. I can use this as an exist strategy, Start a blog, get it rolling and if the market is not working, put it on sale. I don't know but by then hope it will be worth a few thousands!
Collin - Feed Flare says on April 14, 2008
I think Mark, you have to look at the amount of incoming links as well as the amount of readers.How many readers would stick around with a new owner though.
I would never put faith into how someone has monetized there blog, some people go heavy at it and some people don't really care about what they make.
Here is a question for you Mark, how do I subscribe to your comments. I have always wanted to follow some of your conversation but I can't seem to find a way. I know your going to say check back later but, DUDE I forget.....lol
MoneyBites says on April 14, 2008
Interesting post. One thing I'd be fast to point out though is that blogs don't sell purely based on their subscribers. There are other metrics to consider such as traffic (UV/day), ad revenue, and so on.
If you have tons of subscribers but a really low CTR and low traffic, you're blog won't be worth as much as one with less subscribers but a higher CTR and traffic.
It's all about earning potential, and subscribers are only one peice of the pie.
This being said, a large subscriber base does represent an earning potential, but only if they are monetized correctly (remeber, RSS is the hardest part of your blog to monetize).
Just my two cents.
45n5 says on April 14, 2008
@MoneyBites - "It's all about earning potential, and subscribers are only one peice of the pie."
not really, sites like onemansgoal removed most of the advertising after it was bought.
@Feed Flare - http://www.45n5.com/50commentsrss.php
@Ruck - sorry, must have got a little crazy with the spreadsheet ;)
@all thanks for the comments.
Jason says on April 14, 2008
Interesting stuff. Values TUK at around $5,47k... I've already had a bid above that turned down so think I'll keep it.
I think blogs are selling well, some of them exorbitantly so - however, there is saturation popping up (at the moment there are four medium sized MMO blogs for auction at Sitepoint - Gasmoney, InternetBabel, Blueverse, Tw3o) - the latter two should fetch mid $x,xxx but with the market so saturated you never know.
whydowork says on April 14, 2008
The question of whether or not subscribers will continue to follow post-sale is the big risk factor in the equation.
The reason I was following the sale of ShylockBlogging is because we were the purchasers! :P
I'm doing a series of posts on acquiring a site on my blog now, but it will be some time before we can determine how much the old audience likes the changes.
In any event, I think a passive income streams should fetch much higher prices than blogs. $50k for the cow was a little bit of a stretch in my opinion. It requires constant upkeep to maintain existing income levels.
Kevin says on April 14, 2008
Although this post is a bit 'tongue in cheek' as you say and I'm sure that the rate you give is too high for most blogs, blogs listed on sitepoint continue to be sold at premium prices. Many of them are being sold way over value in my opinion, particularly those sites who arent even making much money.
Take johncow for example. What started off as a piss take of john chow got pretty popular and the owner started writing some good posts and got a good following. I'm not sure if the sale of the site has fell through but $50,000 for that site is crazy money in my opinion. Think about what you could do with that money with a brand new site - you could get a fantastic theme for the site, hire some of the best known writers on the web and promote the blog to a few thousand subscribers within a year for about $10,000.
The problem I see is that these people are selling their sites way too early. They are selling the sites just when their blogs are ready to start becoming a viable business. It's no surprise that some of the owners who have sold their blogs have since started a similar blog and who can blame them.
digitalnomad says on April 14, 2008
Pretty much confirms that blogging is not the way to riches, nor the sport of the royals.
There's got to be millions of blogs on "How to Make Money" using blogs as a platform.
Blogging is destined to become a fine art.
Sapphire says on April 14, 2008
Hey, Mark, just to be a total pain in the ass, can I ask that you change "Affiliate Marketing Journal" to "Blue Mushrooms" whenever you get around to another update of your Top 100? I'm now going by that name. Thanks!
45n5 says on April 14, 2008
@sapphire - done - whenever the page refreshes from the cache it will show the new name (it's cached to speed it up ;)
@kevin - I agree 100000%. The money invested in advertising and sponsored posts etc. to build a new blog the way you want it would be so much better than buying an old dying blog.
California says on April 14, 2008
Thanks...my blog is worth in millions$$$ but ain't selling cos it is a cash cow!!!
Frank C says on April 14, 2008
$18.42 a subscriber, huh? Sounds like a way for some unscrupulous people to print money.
Matthew says on April 14, 2008
Thanks for ranking our blog. I wouldn't sell it at $10,000 though.
Dev Basu says on April 14, 2008
Thank's for the mention and price calculation for DailyMoolah. I'm actually considering selling the blog so anyone interested can throw me an offer at dev [at] dailymoolah.com. I've been having some really healthy traffic recently too!
Tim says on April 14, 2008
Cool, this is a fun post, and a neat experiment :) Pretty insane to think that subscribers are worth anywhere close to $18 each :O
Mubin says on April 14, 2008
I actually think that is the best method to valuate blogs, keep up the good work Mark, this post has actually lit a match under my butt to start posting more and build up my blogs worth.
To all the haters, you figure out a better way to evaluate the blogs!
WebDiggin says on April 14, 2008
The idea of selling a blog never occurred to us until we read this post. We always thought of blogs as a vehicle to drive cashflow, but ofcourse, it makes sense that you could sell the golden-egg laying goose at one point.
Subscribers is a neat metric to measure the price of a blog. But does the name of the blog impact the sale price?
If John Chow sells his blog, is he allowing other people to blog under his name? (Well, he does already with guest bloggers, but you know what I mean).
When you sell a blog, are you selling the domain name, or the content as well?
James says on April 15, 2008
So if I have a blog/site that has 20,000 subscribers what does that make my site worth?
I honestly do not think you can value a blog based on the subscribers. I think it would have to be valued on more traditional means such as how much money that site makes in it's current form, or at least eye the trends of the site to estimate it's value....
Max Davis says on April 15, 2008
Hey Mark,
Interesting analysis on the value of blogs. To be completely honest, we didn't put any value on the number of RSS readers whatsoever when we bought BloggingExperiment. (we assumed these readers may or may not stick around since they signed up to read Ben's content, luckily most have stuck, plus we added an extra 150 or so readers this week, so we're pleased with how things turned out).
Also, just FYI, you were a bit low on your "estimated" purchase price, but I'll give you an "A" for effort :)
Maybe we are not the "norm", but here is the criteria we use when buying websites and blogs:
What website buyer look for in a site
Keep on the great work on this site. I like the unique twist you are bringing...
Max
Jay says on April 15, 2008
Hey Mark,
This was definitely interesting, though, like many others already mentioned, I think it's more of a case by case basis. And on top of that, there are some people who artifically increase their RSS Feeds so it's hard to determine strictly by the number of subscribers.
But this was definitely interesting that you calculated my blog to be $4,000+ woohoo!
Jay
Carl says on April 15, 2008
My blog is worth $792.06?
That's a nice figure :)
I would be willing to sell my blog for like $250-$300!
Susan says on April 15, 2008
Good information to know but I doubt I'll be selling my blog anytime soon. I guess I'll try to increase my number of subscribers though, just in case.
Internet Marketing says on April 16, 2008
That is a great way of looking at things. If my blog was successful then I don't think I would ever consider selling it.
Collin LaHay says on April 16, 2008
Blue[Verse]
Subscribers
458
$8436.36
Blue[verse] was actually on sitepoint to, but its only at a $1500 bid, even though its got a very professional theme, seo'ed, and has wordpress templates.
I believe he hasn't got a lot of bids because he didn't direct link to the site and instead used a text file on a different domain. However, I added brackets to his name because I bet he doesn't want this post ranking for his blog if he took the time to hide it from the sitepoint thread.
At any rate, great post and thanks for the link Mark.
Blog Or Not To Blog says on April 17, 2008
Not bad list and price list as well, even though my blog is worth little bit more due to income :)
Thank you and talk to you soon.
Jim | BloggingStartup says on April 17, 2008
This is a very interesting exercise. As you said, it is very difficult to put a price on a blog, but this is one way to look at it.
Would I sell my new blog for $800+? Nah, there is still so much that I want to do on the blog.
Thanks for doing all this work to give us something to chatter about.
Nick Sullivan says on April 17, 2008
You didn't include my blog in the top 100 via sub count :(
I have 180 daily average... that's easily enough to be there!
Mogeilen says on April 18, 2008
Great post.
My blog http://www.icanearn.com is worth $165.78 based on your calculation with 9 subscribers. :)
Jon says on April 18, 2008
JohnCow.com never sold for $50k ... it is listed for sale at the moment at Sitepoint with a minimum bid of $25k (with zero bids)
http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/34101
theaffiliatepost says on April 22, 2008
This is a really great article and I appreciate the work thats gone into this post. Normally i just refer to dnscoop when looking to get a rough idea on a sites value. Interesting point about the value of a single subscriber but if I was to actually purchase a site then I would certainly do a lot more due dilligence as to it's true value.
p.s - Is anybody going to come close to Darren?
Seth says on April 23, 2008
I actually just wrote a critique about this post on my blog. Here's an excerpt:
"With a large sample size we may get a more accurate picture, but with 3 or 4 sites being averaged I don’t feel that it holds much weight. This is simply because the sites that sold probably had a comparable level of content, backlinks, etc. Once you try and apply it to a site with less content, backlinks, etc. then it starts fall apart."
Aurelius Tjin says on April 24, 2008
This is very interesting! I have enjoyed reading this very insightful post. Very engaging and informative. Thanks for sharing.
