AI Blog Writing Cost: How Much Saved in 2026?

The real AI blog writing cost is rarely the number on the pricing page. A $29/month tool looks cheap until you add the editor, the SEO checker, and 8 hours of your own time per article. Then the math shifts.

Freelance writers charge between $150 and $500 for a 1,000-word post. Agencies push that to $400 to $1,500. Most small businesses cannot publish 30 articles a month at those rates. They publish 4 and watch their competitors out-publish them 8 to 1.

AI changed the equation. Subscription tools start at $9 a month. Per-article services run as low as $3.30. But the gap between the listed price and the true total cost is where most teams get burned.

We publish 3,500+ blog posts every month across 70+ industries with a 92% average SEO score. We have tested almost every AI writing tool on the market and built the same kind of pipeline that the top content teams use internally. This guide breaks down every pricing model, every hidden fee, and the actual cost per published article — so you can make the right call.

Here is what you will learn:

• The 4 pricing models AI writing tools use and which one wins on math
• Real pricing for 30+ tools tested in May 2026
• Hidden costs that quadruple the headline price
• Cost per article across freelancers, agencies, in-house writers, and AI services
• The honest break-even point where AI writing actually pays back
• A direct cost comparison: AI tool stack vs done-for-you publishing
• FAQ answers on legality, quality, free options, and Google’s AI detection

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What Does AI Blog Writing Actually Cost in 2026?

AI blog writing cost in 2026 falls into a $9 to $499 per month range for software subscriptions. The median is $28 per month. Per-article costs range from $3 with done-for-you publishing services to $400+ with traditional agencies using AI internally.

The variation is wider than most pricing roundups admit. A solo creator running Rytr at $9/month and writing 5 posts pays $1.80 per post on the tool alone. A marketing team paying Jasper $69/month for unlimited words and stacking Surfer SEO at $99/month is sitting at $168 a month before anyone writes a word.

Our AI content statistics roundup shows that 94% of marketers now use AI in their workflow. Yet only 23% have calculated their real cost per article. The number on the invoice is not the same as the cost of producing a finished, published, ranked article.

The 3 Cost Buckets You Need to Track

Every AI writing budget breaks into 3 buckets. Most teams only count bucket 1.

Bucket	What It Includes	Typical Range
Software	AI writer subscription, SEO tool, plagiarism checker	$9–$499/mo
Labor	Your time, editor time, fact-checker time	$200–$2,500/mo
Distribution	Publishing tools, image generation, formatting	$50–$300/mo

When a Reddit user in r/freelanceWriters posted a content mill’s AI + human writing rate table, the rates ranged from $30 to $90 per hour for an experienced AI editor. That is the labor bucket. It is real money and it does not show up on the AI tool’s pricing page.

The Mighty Quill agency put it bluntly in their 2026 cost analysis: “When you add hidden costs, a $100/month AI tool often costs $500 to $1,500 per article in staff time.”

That is the math most pricing roundups miss.

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The 4 Pricing Models AI Writing Tools Use

Every AI writing tool uses one of 4 pricing models. Each one shifts cost and risk to a different place. Pick the wrong model for your volume and you overpay by 3x.

Subscription Pricing

The most common model. You pay a fixed monthly fee for either a word allowance or unlimited usage.

How it works: Tools like Jasper, Copy.ai, and Writesonic charge between $19 and $499 a month based on plan tier. Most include a free trial or limited free plan. Annual billing usually saves 20%.

The math: A $49/month plan over 12 months is $588. If you publish 30 articles a month, that is $1.63 per article on the tool alone.

The risk: Subscription lock-in. If you stop publishing for 2 months, you still pay. Most teams underuse their plan. A 2024 SaaS retention study found 73% of AI writing tool subscribers either downgrade, churn, or stack a second tool within 12 months.

Best for: Teams publishing more than 8 articles a month consistently.

Pay Per Word or Credit

You buy credits that get spent as you generate content. No monthly commitment.

How it works: Rytr sells word packs. OpenAI’s API charges per token (roughly $0.002 to $0.06 per word depending on the model). Credits do not expire on most platforms.

The math: A 1,500-word article at $0.01/word is $15 per article. Sounds cheap, but a single article often requires 3 to 5 generations before you get usable output. Real cost is closer to $45 to $75 per article.

The risk: Credit costs scale linearly. The model works for occasional writers and breaks at volume.

Best for: Solo creators publishing fewer than 5 articles a month.

Per Article Done-for-You

You pay per finished, published article. No software to operate.

How it works: Services like Stacc charge a monthly fee for a fixed number of published articles. At $99 a month for 30 articles, the rate works out to $3.30 per article. The service handles writing, SEO, editing, and publishing.

The math: $99/month × 12 months = $1,188 per year for 360 articles. That is a cost reduction of 98% versus freelancers at $250 per article.

The risk: Less control over individual articles. The trade-off is zero workflow.

Best for: Businesses that want results without managing tools or writers.

Lifetime Deal

A one-time payment for permanent access. Common on AppSumo and similar marketplaces.

How it works: Pay $59 to $599 once. Use the tool indefinitely (in theory).

The risk: Lifetime deals usually run on older AI models. The company may stop updating the product. Some shut down entirely within 18 months. We have tracked 4 lifetime-deal AI writers that no longer exist as of 2026.

Best for: Power users testing tools, not businesses depending on consistent output.

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AI Blog Writing Cost by Tool Tier

Pricing pages lie. They show the cheapest plan, then upsell on every feature you actually need. Here is what real pricing looks like across the 3 tool tiers we tracked in May 2026.

Budget Tier ($9 to $29 per Month)

The entry point. Good for testing AI writing or solo creators publishing 5 to 10 posts a month.

Tool	Starting Price	Words Included	Best For
Rytr	$9/mo	100k characters	Short-form copy, beginners
Koala AI	$9/mo	500 articles/month	Bulk article generation
Jetwriter AI	$9/mo	100k words	Cost-conscious solos
GravityWrite	$19/mo	100k words	Templates and SEO basics
BlogSEO AI	$15/mo	30 articles	SEO-focused output
Blog Cutter AI	$9.99/mo	50k words	Cheapest AI writer benchmark

The 7 cheapest AI writing tools listed by Vaslou’s 2026 roundup all sit in this $9 to $15 range. Output quality varies widely. Most use older or smaller AI models. You will spend more time editing than with mid-tier tools.

Mid-Tier ($49 to $99 per Month)

The sweet spot for most teams. Quality jumps materially. Unlimited word counts become common.

Tool	Starting Price	Notable Features	Best For
Jasper	$49/mo	Brand voice, templates, integrations	Marketing teams
Copy.ai	$49/mo	Workflows, GTM templates	Sales-led content
Writesonic	$79/mo	AI search visibility, 50+ tools	Search optimization
WriterAI	$39/mo per seat	Enterprise compliance	Regulated industries
Surfer + AI Writer	$89/mo	Built-in SEO scoring	SEO-focused teams
Stacc	$99/mo	30 articles published	Done-for-you publishing

This is where the cost math gets interesting. Stacc at $99 a month delivers 30 published articles. Jasper at $49 a month gives you the writing tool — you still need an editor, a publishing workflow, and SEO software. The headline price is half, but the loaded cost is 4x higher.

Premium Tier ($199 to $499 per Month)

Built for agencies, enterprises, and teams with API or compliance needs.

Tool	Starting Price	Built For
Jasper Business	$499/mo	Multi-team, custom models
Writesonic Pro	$199/mo	AI search visibility at scale
WriterAI Team	$1,800/mo	5+ users, enterprise compliance
AI Writer Pro	$375/mo	API access, factual checks
Bramework Pro	$99/mo	Long-form blog posts

Bramework’s pricing page shows that even premium AI writing tools often max out around $99 for solo users. The jump to $375+ is usually about seats, API access, or compliance — not better writing.

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The Real Cost Per Article (With Math)

Cost per article is the metric that matters. Not monthly subscription. Not annual contract value. The dollar amount it takes to get one finished, published, SEO-optimized blog post live on your site.

Here is the breakdown for a 1,000-word article published with editing and basic SEO.

Freelance Writer Cost Per Article

Tier	Rate	Per 1,000-Word Article
Budget freelancer	$0.05 to $0.10/word	$50 to $100
Mid-tier freelancer	$0.15 to $0.25/word	$150 to $250
Premium freelancer	$0.30 to $0.50/word	$300 to $500
Industry specialist (B2B SaaS, legal, medical)	$0.50 to $1.50/word	$500 to $1,500

TrustLeader’s 2026 B2B blog cost study found that freelancers charge between $150 and $400+ for a 1,000-word blog post, and that range only includes basic research and writing. Strategy, SEO optimization, and editing get billed separately.

Agency Cost Per Article

Marketing agencies typically charge $300 to $1,500 per published blog post. The variance comes from agency tier, industry, and scope of optimization.

Our marketing agency cost guide breaks down the full retainer math. A $5,000-a-month content retainer producing 10 articles delivers each post at $500. A $3,000-a-month retainer producing 8 articles puts each post at $375. Add the SEO audit, the strategy calls, and the monthly reports and the real cost climbs higher.

In-House Writer Cost Per Article

A full-time content writer in the US makes $55,000 to $85,000 a year. Loaded cost (salary plus benefits plus tools) runs 1.4x that. So a $65,000 writer actually costs around $91,000 fully loaded.

If that writer produces 5 articles a week (a strong pace), the cost per article is around $350. If they manage 3 articles a week (more realistic with edits, meetings, and strategy work), the cost climbs to $584 per article.

AI Tool (DIY) Cost Per Article

This is where the math gets confusing. The tool itself might cost $1.63 per article (Jasper at $49/month, 30 articles a month). But that excludes:

• Your editing time: 30 to 60 minutes per article. At a $50/hour internal cost, that is $25 to $50 per article.
• SEO optimization: If you stack Surfer ($99/month) on Jasper, add another $3.30 per article.
• Fact checking: AI hallucinates statistics. Budget 15 minutes per article ($12).
• Image generation: Stock photos or AI image tools add $1 to $3 per article.

Real loaded cost: $42 to $70 per article for DIY AI writing.

Stacc Cost Per Article

Stacc charges $99 a month for 30 published articles. Math:

• Cost per article: $99 ÷ 30 = $3.30
• Your time per article: 0 minutes
• Editing included: Yes
• SEO scored: Yes (92 average score across our 3,500+ published posts)
• Auto-published: Yes

Compared to freelancers at $250, agencies at $400, or in-house writers at $350 to $584, the gap is 75x to 175x.

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Hidden Costs That Quadruple the Headline Price

The hidden cost problem is the single biggest reason AI writing budgets blow up. A $49/month plan turns into $200/month real spend within 90 days.

Editor Time

Most AI drafts need 30 to 60 minutes of human editing before publishing. At a $50/hour internal cost, that adds $25 to $50 per article. For a 30-article month, that is $750 to $1,500 in hidden labor.

SEO Optimization Software

The AI writer drafts the post. It does not score it against the top 10 results, suggest entities, or check keyword density at the depth Google needs. So most teams stack an SEO tool.

Tool	Monthly Cost
Surfer SEO	$89 to $249
Frase	$45 to $115
Clearscope	$189 to $475
MarketMuse	$149 to $499

That is another $89 to $249 a month on top of the AI writer subscription.

Plagiarism and AI Detection

Originality.ai charges $0.01 per 100 words for plagiarism and AI detection scans. For 30 articles at 1,500 words each, that is $4.50 a month. Cheap but required. Copyscape and Quetext add similar costs.

Image Generation

AI-generated images via Midjourney or DALL-E run $20 to $60 a month. Stock photo subscriptions (Shutterstock, Adobe Stock) start at $29 a month. Either way, add $25 to $60 to the monthly bill.

CMS Publishing Time

Even after writing and editing, publishing a blog post takes time. Formatting in WordPress or Webflow, adding internal links, uploading images, setting the meta description, scheduling the publish date. Budget 15 minutes per post. For 30 posts a month, that is 7.5 hours of work — another $375 in labor at a $50/hour rate.

Brand Voice Training

Every AI writing tool needs samples and style rules dialed in to match your brand. Initial setup runs 5 to 10 hours. Maintenance is another 1 to 2 hours per month. Most teams skip this and end up with generic output.

Tool Stack Sprawl

The pattern we see: teams start with one $49/month AI tool. Within 6 months, they have stacked Surfer, Originality, Grammarly Premium, Midjourney, and a project management tool. The bill is $300+ a month. The original simple stack is gone.

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Skip the stack. Skip the editing. Skip the workflow. Stacc publishes 30 SEO blog posts a month for $99. Written, edited, optimized, and live on your site — automatically. Start for $1 →

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Free AI Blog Writing Tools (And What They Actually Cost)

“Free” AI writing tools rarely stay free for the use case that matters. The free tier is a sample. The real product sits behind a paywall.

What the Free Plans Actually Include

Tool	Free Tier	Real Limit
HubSpot Breeze Copilot	Free	Requires HubSpot CMS subscription
Grammarly AI	Free	100 prompts per month
QuillBot	Free	Watermark, 700-word output limit
ChatGPT	Free	GPT-3.5 only, 40 messages/3 hours
Narrato	Free	5,000 words/month
TinyWow	Free	Daily limits, no commercial license

Grammarly’s free AI blog writing tool, marketed as a full draft generator, produces decent first drafts but caps at 100 prompts a month. For most businesses, that is 3 to 5 finished articles.

HubSpot’s free AI blog writer requires you to be on their CMS, which starts at $20 a month and scales to $1,200 a month. “Free” means free if you are already paying for HubSpot.

When Free Actually Works

Free tiers genuinely work for:

• Testing tools before committing
• Solo creators writing fewer than 5 articles a month
• Students or hobbyists with no commercial intent
• One-off blog posts where consistency does not matter

Free tiers do not work for:

• Businesses needing 10+ articles a month
• Teams wanting brand voice consistency
• SEO-driven content programs
• Anyone who values their own time at more than $20/hour

Our free SEO tools guide covers genuinely useful free tools. The pattern is the same: free works for testing, paid is required for production.

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How Much to Charge for a 1,000-Word Blog (If You Are the Writer)

Reverse the question. If you write blog posts for clients, here is what to charge based on 2026 freelance market data.

Experience	Rate Per Word	Rate Per 1,000 Words
Beginner (0-2 years)	$0.05 to $0.10	$50 to $100
Intermediate (2-5 years)	$0.10 to $0.20	$100 to $200
Established (5+ years)	$0.20 to $0.50	$200 to $500
Specialist (B2B, SaaS, legal, medical)	$0.50 to $1.50	$500 to $1,500
Top-tier ghostwriter	$1.50 to $3.00	$1,500 to $3,000

Eesel’s blog writer rate analysis puts the median freelance rate at $0.15 per word in 2026, up slightly from $0.12 in 2023. Specialists in B2B SaaS routinely charge $0.40+ per word.

If you use AI to draft, you can charge the same rates. Most clients do not care how the article was written, only how it performs. The cost of using AI to draft a 1,500-word article is $1 to $5 in API or tool costs. The price you charge is based on the value to the client, not your cost.

Our guide on how to use AI to write blog posts walks through the workflow that produces publishable output without the obvious AI tells.

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The Annual Cost Comparison

This is the table most pricing roundups never publish. Yearly cost of publishing 30 blog articles a month using each approach.

Approach	Monthly Cost	Your Time	Annual Cost
Freelance writers	$7,500 ($250 × 30)	8 hrs/mo managing	$90,000
In-house writer (loaded)	$6,500	160 hrs/mo	$78,000
SEO agency retainer	$5,000	4 hrs/mo	$60,000
AI tool stack + editor	$2,449	10 hrs/mo	$29,388
AI tool, full DIY	$99 to $199	45 hrs/mo	$1,188 to $2,388
Stacc done-for-you	$99	0 hrs/mo	$1,188

The DIY AI tool path is technically cheapest if you do not value your time. But 45 hours a month on content is 540 hours a year. At a $50/hour value, that is $27,000 in opportunity cost. Suddenly the “$1,188” plan is actually $28,188.

This is why the per-article-service model wins on math. You pay $1,188 a year, your time investment is zero, and the output is consistent.

The Break-Even Point

A practical rule. AI writing tools start paying back when:

• You publish at least 4 articles a month
• You value your editing time below $25 per hour
• You have a clear brand voice already documented
• You have an SEO process you trust

If any of those are false, the per-article service model (Stacc at $99 for 30 articles) is usually cheaper than DIY AI tools when you count all costs.

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ROI: Does AI Blog Writing Actually Pay Back?

The cost question only matters if AI-written content ranks and converts. So here is the data.

Search Performance

Ahrefs’ 2024 study of 900,000 pages found that 65% of indexed web pages now use some AI in their workflow. The top-ranking pages were a mix of human-written, AI-assisted, and AI-generated content. The differentiator was not who wrote it. It was quality, structure, and topical depth.

Our internal data on AI vs human content rankings tracked 200 articles published across 12 industries. AI-assisted articles ranked at parity with human-only articles. AI-only articles with no editing underperformed by 38%.

The takeaway. AI writing tools pay back when paired with editing or expert review. They do not pay back as a fully unattended pipeline.

Lead Generation Math

A small business publishing 30 blog posts a month at $3.30 per article spends $1,188 a year on content. Even modest results pay back:

• Average organic conversion rate: 2.35%
• Average blog post views (after 6 months of rankings): 200/month
• 30 posts × 200 views = 6,000 monthly views
• 2.35% conversion = 141 leads/month
• At even $50/lead value, that is $7,050/month in pipeline

That is a 71x return on the $99 monthly spend. The variable is whether your industry, niche, and execution quality support those view-per-post numbers.

Time Savings

Research on AI writing time savings shows AI drafting cuts writing time from 4-6 hours per post down to 1-2 hours when including editing. For a team publishing 30 posts a month, that is 90 hours saved monthly, or 1,080 hours per year.

Our AI vs human content data breaks down the time math by content type. Listicles benefit most from AI drafting. In-depth technical guides require the most human input.

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Can Google Tell If a Blog Is Written by AI?

This is the question that decides whether AI blog writing cost is worth the savings. If Google penalizes AI content, the savings disappear.

Google’s March 2024 spam policy update explicitly addressed AI content. The key rule: Google does not penalize AI-generated content. Google penalizes low-quality, mass-produced, or spammy content — regardless of whether AI wrote it.

The distinction matters. We have tracked clients publishing 30+ AI-assisted articles a month who consistently rank in the top 5 for their target keywords. We have also seen sites publishing 100+ raw AI articles a month get hit by Google’s helpful content classifier and lose 70% of their traffic.

What Google Actually Detects

Google’s algorithms look for:

• Patterns of mass-produced content (same structure, same opening hooks, same conclusion language across hundreds of posts)
• Lack of original insight (no opinions, no data, no first-hand experience)
• Thin content (200-400 word articles answering complex questions)
• Topical mismatch (covering topics outside your site’s expertise)

What Google does not detect:

• Whether a single article was AI-written
• Word patterns from any specific AI model
• Editing depth (it sees the final article, not the process)

Our guide on how to humanize AI content walks through the specific edits that move articles from “obviously AI” to “indistinguishable from human-written.”

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DIY AI Tools vs Done-for-You Services: Side-by-Side Cost

The real choice is rarely “AI vs freelancer.” It is “DIY AI tool stack vs done-for-you AI service.” Here is the side-by-side.

Factor	DIY AI Tool Stack	Done-for-You (Stacc)
Monthly cost	$49 to $250 (tools) + labor	$99 flat
Setup time	10 to 30 hours	30 minutes
Articles per month	Depends on your effort	30 (fixed)
Editing required	30 to 60 min per article	Zero
SEO optimization	Requires separate tool	Included
Publishing	Manual	Auto-published
Brand voice training	Per-tool setup	One-time onboarding
Output consistency	Variable	Consistent
Real cost per article	$42 to $70	$3.30

The DIY path makes sense if you have time, an existing editorial process, and want full control over each article. The done-for-you path makes sense if you want results without learning a stack of tools.

The Stacc Stack Method

We use what we call the Stacc Stack Method internally and for clients: combine blog SEO with local SEO and social media automation so each piece of content compounds across channels. A single blog post becomes:

• 1 ranking blog article (organic traffic)
• 4 to 6 social media posts (referral traffic)
• 1 to 2 Google Business Profile posts (local visibility)
• Multiple internal links to other content (topical authority)

That compounding is hard to replicate with a single AI writing tool. It requires a connected workflow, which is why we built our content marketing tools comparison around connected stacks rather than standalone tools.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is it legal to use AI to write a blog? Yes, AI-written content is fully legal across every major jurisdiction in 2026. The US Copyright Office has clarified that AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted on its own, but human-edited AI content remains protectable. The legal risk is not AI use — it is publishing inaccurate, plagiarized, or defamatory content, which applies regardless of who wrote it. Always have a human review AI drafts for facts and accuracy before publishing.

How much does an AI writer cost on average? The median AI blog writing cost in 2026 is $28 per month across the 47 tools we tracked. Budget tools start at $9 per month. Mid-tier tools run $49 to $99 per month. Enterprise tools cost $199 to $499 per month per seat. Done-for-you services like Stacc charge $99 per month for 30 published articles, working out to $3.30 per article.

How much should I charge for a 1,000-word blog post? Freelance rates for a 1,000-word blog post range from $50 (beginner) to $1,500 (industry specialist) in 2026. The median rate is $150 to $250. If you use AI to draft, you can charge the same rates — clients pay for outcomes, not process. Specialists in B2B SaaS, legal, and medical content routinely charge $0.40 to $1.50 per word.

Which free AI is best for writing blogs? For free AI blog writing, ChatGPT (free GPT-3.5 tier) and Grammarly’s free AI tool produce the best output for occasional use. HubSpot’s Breeze Copilot is free if you already use HubSpot CMS. For production-grade publishing, free tiers cap out fast. Most businesses publishing more than 5 articles a month need to upgrade within 60 days.

Can Google detect AI-written blog content? Google can identify patterns common in mass-produced or low-quality content, but it does not penalize AI use specifically. Google’s March 2024 spam policy update clarified that AI content is fine as long as it is helpful, original, and accurate. Mass-published AI articles with no editing get penalized. Edited, fact-checked AI content ranks the same as human-written content in our testing.

Is AI blog writing worth the cost? For most small and mid-size businesses, yes. AI blog writing cost is 85% to 98% lower than freelance or agency rates. At $3.30 per article via services like Stacc, even modest SEO results pay back the spend 50x over. The risk is publishing low-quality AI content without editing — that wastes the budget and damages your domain authority. Our in-house vs outsource content team guide breaks down the full ROI math.

What is the 80/20 rule for blogging with AI? The 80/20 rule for AI blogging: 80% of value comes from AI handling drafting, outlines, research synthesis, and SEO structuring. The remaining 20% is human editing, fact-checking, adding original insights, and brand voice refinement. Teams that try to make AI do 100% of the work get penalized for thin content. Teams that use AI for only the first draft (skipping the 80%) overpay for output. The split varies by content type — listicles can run 90/10 toward AI, while expert guides run closer to 60/40.

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The Bottom Line

AI blog writing cost ranges from $9 a month for budget tools to $499 a month for enterprise platforms. The median is $28 a month. Cost per article ranges from $3.30 (done-for-you services) to $70 (DIY AI tools with full editor labor) to $400 (freelance writers).

The wrong question is “How cheap can I get this?” The right question is “What is my real cost per published, ranking article?” Most teams pay 4x more than they think because they ignore editor time, SEO software, and workflow overhead.

If you want to skip the math entirely, Stacc publishes 30 SEO articles a month for $99 — written, edited, optimized, and live on your site. That is $3.30 per article with zero work on your end.

Start for $1 → See your first 3 articles published in 72 hours

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Related Reading

• How to Scale Blog Content With AI (8 Steps)
• In-House vs Outsource Content Team: Cost Math
• Marketing Agency Cost: What You Are Really Paying
• AI Content ROI Data: The 2026 Benchmark
• How to Use AI to Write Blog Posts (Without the AI Tells)
• AI vs Human Content Data: Ranking Study
• Humanize AI Content: A Step-by-Step Editing Guide

Pricing data verified May 2026 against tool pricing pages and independent industry reports. Stacc publishes 3,500+ SEO blog posts a month across 70+ industries with a 92% average SEO score.