This Is How Many Articles You Need To Make $5K Each Month

My personal calculations, the math, and how you can do it, too

The math in this article will show you exactly how many articles you need to make $5,000 per month.

Just a moment ago, I ran some simple calculations.

Then, I double-checked the formulas and surprised myself with the results.

In this article, I’ll show you how I did the math, my personal calculations, and how you can figure out exactly how many articles you need to make $5K.

This Math Is Worth $5K

First things first, I’m not a numbers guy. I like knowing the numbers, statistics, and data that make my writing machine work.

However, I’m terrible at math.

That’s why the math that is worth 5K is very simple math. Brainless, really. Don’t worry: the math will still show you how to make $5,000 per month writing online.

Here is the math I used for my calculations:

Average Monthly Earnings divided by #of Published Articles = ROI of each article

Plugging my data into the formula looks like this:

$2,000 divided by 369 = $5.42 per article.

In other words, right now each article I write makes me an average of $5.42 each month. That’s the monthly spread of earnings.

Of course, some articles perform much better than others. Some articles make me next to nothing (or literally nothing). But, overall, each article I write is roughly worth $5.42.

That number can change over time for a myriad of reasons.

That’s why it’s good to do this simple math once per month or once every quarter of the year.

Now that you know the average earning from each of your articles, the next step is to use that number to get to $5K.

This Is How Many Articles You Need To Make $5K Each Month

Here is where the math starts to get fun (I really can’t believe I said that).

Using your average earnings per article, you can figure out approximately how many articles you need to make $1K, $2K, $3K, $5K, or $10K per month.

For example, I currently make around $2,000 from 369 articles. Each of my articles makes me $5.42 dollars per month.

The simple math becomes:

Target Monthly Earnings divided by Average Earnings per Article = # of Articles You Need to Write

Here is how the formula might look with example numbers plugged into it:

$1,000 divided by $2.50 =400 articles

To make it hopefully even more clear, here are my current numbers:

$3,000 divided by $5.42 = 553
$4,000 divided by $5.42 = 738
$5,000 divided by $5.42 = 922
$10,000 divided by $5.42 = 1845

That’s pretty dang cool.

Even cooler is that compounding earnings over time (along with any referral affiliate commissions) will likely get you to your goal monthly earnings much faster than you think.

This Math Will Tell You How Long It Will Take You To Reach $5K Each Month

By now, you know how much each of your articles earns per month and how many articles you need to write to make $5K per month.

You might also want to know how long it will take to get there.

Like all of the math in this article, this math is vulnerable to change at any moment (for better or worse). It still might motivate you with concrete clarity.

The math formula for timing is a two-parter:

The first step looks like this:

Total # of Articles You Need to Make 5K minus Current Total # of Articles = How Many Articles You Need To Write

Here are my numbers plugged into this first step:

922 minus 369 = 553 More Articles To Write

Then, you take that number and insert it into the second step of this formula:

Total # of Articles You Need to Write divided by the Average # of articles you publish per month = How many months to reach 5K

Here is the timeline formula with my current numbers:

553 divided by 25 = 22.12 months to reach 5K

In other words, at my current pace, it might take me close to two more years to make 5K per month. Projecting that out, it could take me four years to reach 10K per month.

5 Good Ways To Get To 5K Even Faster

There are a few things you can do to speed up this process.

Here are five good ways that I recommend:

Write longer, more in-depth articles (to make more money per article). Shoot for 7 minutes per article.
Motivate readers to read more than one article. You can add links to your other articles in each article. I usually do this at the bottom of my articles (see the bottom of this article for an example).
Write and publish more articles. Even a few more articles per month can significantly shorten your timeline.
Get readers to read more of each article. Use every writing tool and technique in your “writer’s box” to motivate readers to read more of your article. The longer they read, the more money you can make.
Add referral affiliate links to your articles. As long as you abide by the affiliate guidelines of the platform, you can include affiliate links in your articles. I usually add a referral link at the end of my article (like the one at the end of this article).

As a bonus tip, study your data to know which type of content earns you the most money. Write more of that kind of content.

The 5K Math Formulas In One Place

Here is a list of the formulas:

Average Monthly Earnings divided by #of Published Articles = ROI of each article
Target monthly earnings divided by Average Earnings per Article = # of articles you need to write to make 5K each month
Total # of Articles You Need to Make 5K minus Current Total # of Articles = How many more articles you need to write
Total # of Articles You Need to Write divided by the Average # of articles you publish per month = How many months it will take you to reach 5K

You can do the math quickly by copying and pasting the formulas with your numbers into the Google Search Bar.

It looks like this:

Screenshot by the author of Doing Math in Google Search

How Accurate Is This Math

Once again, I’m no numbers guy.

However, if my mathematical formulas are correct, the resulting calculations are general guidelines. They give you a light at the end of the tunnel, a target, and a concrete goal.

Keep in mind that the math can change at any time.

You might start to earn more or less money per article. You might earn affiliate commissions from referrals. You might post more or fewer articles each month.

The platform itself can (and almost certainly will) change — for better or worse.

You can’t control all of the variables. Therefore, focus on your earning and other number targets, analyzing your data, and producing quality content. Those are things you can control.

Final Thoughts

You might get to $1K, $3K, or $5K per month faster than you think. Compounding earnings can scale quickly in later months and years.

Another important factor is the continued publishing of content.

Keep adding new content each month. If you stop, your earnings will eventually decline to nearly nothing. If you want an AI writing tool to help with generating thousands of words of original content in minutes, the one I use is Jasper (not an affiliate link).

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