By Calynn M. Lawrence
@fairytalefacebycalynn

Many people look at the oh so glamorous life of fashion bloggers and assume that everything is top knotch, including their pay. Well, for some this may be true but for the vast majority of fashion bloggers, they are earning a fair wage. There are a couple of misconceptions about the salary structure of a fashion blogger that may cause people to think this way. Speaking from experience myself, I can tell you that some of these myths need to be busted.

#1 AD REVENUE IS NOT SUBSTANTIAL INCOME

You might look at the fact that many blogs obtain a large following and display a lot od advertisements. This could then lead you to believe that they are making a killing from their ad revenue. Well, chances are that unless they have a high CPC (cost per click) or a lot of advertisement engagement, chances are the amount that you think they are pulling in from this is highly inflated. For example, someone could have 10,000 followers on their blog. Assuming this person’s only form of ad revenue is on a PPC (pay per click) basis, they may have 250 of those followers engage with the ads per week. Assuming that they have an average CPC of let’s say 75 cents to a dollar per click, they are only earning $187.50 to $250 per week from their ad revenue.

#2 SPONSORED POSTS DON’T ALWAYS PAY WELL

You might say that sponsored posts should put their income over the top, even if their ad revenue is not all that great. Some times this may be true, but many times it is not. Unless one has a huge social media following, chances are that companies are paying them a modest amount and likely allowing them to keep the products for free. For example, many companies follow the algorithm of paying about $5-10 per every 1000 followers that you have. Therefore, if a person has 10,000 followers, they may only be getting paid $50 to $100 per sponsored post. If they do three of these a month, that only adds up to $150 to $300 a month.

#3 THEY OFTEN COVER THEIR OWN TRAVEL EXPENSES

When you see fashion bloggers all across New York, LA, Paris or Milan for Fashion Week, you see the ultra glossy, celebrity like appeal that it has. Walking the red carpet, sitting front row or close to and meeting some stellar household names, sounds like a dream right? Well, it may be a great experience for them and it may be awesome for publicity, but most times they are covering their own travel fare. Considering that a cross country flight can cost up to $500 round trip, and hotels start off easily at $100 a night, they may be spending $600 or more out of pocket just to blog Fashion Week!

#4 THEY PAY HIGH TAXES

The last thing that you need to consider is that they pay high taxes. Let’s follow the same formula of this blogger who has 10,000 followers. She makes $1000 a month in ad revenue, $300 a month in sponsored content, and has to pay a yearly $600 to attend fashion week. Not including other expenses that may arise, that leaves her with a total earned of $15000. Because that $15,000 exceeds the threshold of being able to wave taxes, she likely will be forking over about 25 percent of her earnings to taxes. Thus leaving her with about $11,250 for her yearly income. Looks like a lot less than you though, huh?

As you can see, the real life finances of being a fashion blogger are nowhere near the massive numbers that the media may cause you to believe. Although it is a fun job, you obviously can not do this by itself until you have reached a very large audience who you can count on to pay your bills.