How long does it take to write a blog post?

Last updated: July 2026

For a researched, professionally written 1,500-word article: 4 to 10 hours. The typing itself is maybe a third of that. The rest is the work that separates an article from a wall of words.

In short: a researched 1,500-word article takes 4 to 10 hours; the writing is about a third, with research, editing, SEO and revisions carrying the rest. Per-word prices hide exactly that.

The assumptions: a real topic that needs research, a client brief that exists, one revision round, and a writer who has covered the subject area before but is not recycling an old piece.

The task list

The per-word trap

Writers are often paid per word, and the table shows why that model quietly punishes good work.

A well-researched health article and a light listicle can have the same word count and completely different hours. If you price per word, calculate your real hours for each type of piece at least once, then check what the per-word price pays per hour. Many writers discover their "good" per-word rate translates to less than half of their target hourly rate on research-heavy topics.

A note on AI drafts

Some clients now ask writers to "just edit" a machine-written draft, expecting a small price. Be careful with that quote: checking facts, fixing structure and rewriting flat sentences often takes as long as writing from a good outline, because verification is the slow part of writing and it does not disappear. Then there's also the risk of letting mistakes and hallucinations slip. If you accept this work, estimate it like a rewrite, not like proofreading.

What moves the estimate

Up: interviews or expert quotes, technical or regulated topics (health, finance, law), no brief, more than 2,000 words, custom graphics or screenshots.

Down: a series in a subject you already master, strong briefs with sources provided, an established voice guide for the client.

This means you can afford lowering your quote; it doesn't mean you have to. For example, you could argue that even though you know the topic and you can work faster, that expertise has value.

Price your version

Adjust the lines, total them, and put the number into the calculator. At a mid-range 7 hours and the default $50/h with a 20% buffer, a researched article quotes around $420.

Words are the visible part of writing. Hours are the real unit, and they hide in the research.