A rate card is a published or shared price list for a publisher's advertising and placement options: the available formats and positions, their prices, the pricing model for each (flat fee per period, CPM, CPC, CPA, or hybrid), volume or duration minimums, and any packaging or discounts.
Definition
A rate card is a published or shared price list for a publisher's advertising and placement options: the available formats and positions, their prices, the pricing model for each (flat fee per period, CPM, CPC, CPA, or hybrid), volume or duration minimums, and any packaging or discounts. It gives buyers a starting reference for what an inventory owner charges and sets the baseline for negotiation on a specific insertion order.
Rate cards are list prices, not fixed prices. Actual deals routinely differ based on volume, commitment length, relationship, demand, and how much the buyer's brand or category is wanted.
For sensitive categories a rate card may also encode category loading — a higher price for gambling, or a note that the category is accepted only on certain placements or not at all.
In context
For an iGaming affiliate that sells placements — sponsored positions, review slots, newsletter mentions, tenancies — a rate card professionalises the offer and speeds up deals. It typically lists each sellable unit (homepage toplist slot, category tenancy, in-review link, newsletter feature), the period, the price, and the conditions (licensed operators only, market restrictions, mandatory disclosure and responsible-gambling messaging, no influence on editorial rankings).
Having this written down keeps pricing consistent across operators and makes clear which things are and are not for sale — editorial placement in the ranked list generally should not be.
For a buyer, a publisher's rate card is a planning input, not the final number: it frames what a placement should cost and what alternatives exist at what price, before negotiating a specific IO. In this sector, buyers should also read a rate card for compliance signals — whether the publisher accepts the category properly, restricts it to compliant placements, and requires disclosure — because a publisher that will sell a gambling brand any placement with no conditions is a brand-safety and regulatory risk.
A transparent rate card with clear category terms is a sign of a publisher that understands the space; an ad-hoc, negotiate-everything approach with no written terms tends to produce the disputes that IOs exist to prevent.
Worked example
An affiliate publishes a rate card listing four sellable placements with monthly prices, all marked "licensed operators only, labelled as sponsored, responsible-gambling footer required, editorial rankings not for sale". Operators plan budgets from it; each actual booking is then fixed on an insertion order, sometimes at a negotiated discount for a longer commitment.
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