Ghostwriting for founders: the full research

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

These are examples of the claim, copied from our collection of 33 tweets on this scheme¹. View counts are as collected on 6 October 2026. Dates are worked out from each tweet’s ID number. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

“I’ve spent the last 3 months ghostwriting for $40,000 per month. I thought I would ghostwrite forever. Then I realized where the real money is…”

@TaylinSimmonds (Taylin Simmonds), 2 February 2023, 841,831 views¹. This opens a 13-tweet thread, which we read on a mirror site (a site that keeps copies of threads)⁶². It is described under “What people who tried it report”.

““Cha-ching” $5,000 hit my PayPal account. “This has to be a typo…” I thought to myself. So I messaged him. “Hey, did you mean to send $5,000?” His response: “Yeah, is that enough?” And just like that, Ghostwriting completely changed my life trajectory.”

@dickiebush (Dickie Bush), 26 September 2023, 542,803 views¹. This is the opening of a long tweet. The rest, read through a tweet-reading service, says the $5,000 was a single payment in 2020 for a week’s project (organising one person’s published material and outlining a book) with no price agreed beforehand. It ends by pointing to “the free Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint in the replies”¹. So it was not a monthly retainer for social posts.

“Ghostwriting is how I hit $20k/month in less than 60 days.”

@Nicolascole77 (Nicolas Cole), 22 February 2026, 9,782 views¹. This is the first line of a longer tweet, read in full through a tweet-reading service. It ends with a link to a free “Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint”¹. By his own account in another tweet, that income in 2016 came from ghostwritten articles charged per piece (“$100 per ghostwritten article”, later more), not monthly social-post retainers¹.

“Your fastest path to $10,000 per month: Ghostwriting. • You don’t need a huge audience • You don’t need “advanced” skills • You don’t need to invest in up-front costs It’s a career path with the least amount of risk.”

@Nicolascole77, 14 December 2025, 5,587 views¹

Three accounts wrote 16 of the 33 tweets and hold about 97% of the views (1,722,787 of 1,767,723, our count)¹. One of them wrote 12 of the 33¹.

What the scheme is

A ghostwriter writes text that goes out under someone else’s name. In this scheme the text is social media posts, mostly on LinkedIn and X, and the client is a company founder or executive. The founder wants to be visible to customers, investors or recruits and does not have the time to write.

The usual deal is a retainer: a fixed monthly fee for a set number of posts, often 8 to 12². Some packages add newsletters, replies to comments, or messages sent from the founder’s account. The writer works alone as a freelancer, or runs a small agency with other writers.

The mechanism is real. Founders do pay for this, and one agency’s revenue has been checked against its payment records (see “The upside”)⁴⁰. The question is how many clients a newcomer can win, at what price, and how long they stay.

The arithmetic

The claim multiplies two numbers: clients x monthly fee. Running costs are small. The hard figure is how many paying founders you can win and keep.

Step 1: the price per client

Prices vary more than anything else in this scheme.

Published guides. A September 2026 round-up of four price guides puts a freelance LinkedIn retainer at “about $500 to $4,000 per month for a freelance retainer of 8 to 12 posts”, and agency packages at $2,000 to $7,000². It gives $500 to $1,500 for the entry level and a common middle band of $1,500 to $2,000 for 12 posts². The same page also quotes a wider range, “$500 and $10,000 per month”, with most buyers paying $2,000 to $5,000². These are asking prices published by companies that sell ghostwriting or tools for it, not a survey. We did not open the four guides themselves.
Listings we opened. A newcomer’s listing on the freelance site Contra says “Starting at $200 /mo”. A listing on Whop for founder ghostwriting is $997 a month. An agency, Column, says its packages “start from $2,000/mo” for a full team³.
One documented solo writer. A marketing professional told Entrepreneur she started in 2022 at “$300 per client per month for a basic package of eight posts”, raised that to $800 by month six, and now, four years in, charges $1,200 to $2,500⁹.
A checked agency’s price list. Windmill Growth lists four plans: $650 a month for managed likes and comments, with no written posts; $999 for outreach to sales prospects; $3,999 for “Founder OS”, marked “Most popular”, which includes “Up to 5 posts a week”; and a custom plan⁴¹. Only the $3,999 plan and the custom one include written posts. Its payment records showed $121,947 a month from 81 subscriptions on 8 October 2026⁴⁰. That is about $1,500 per subscription (our estimate: 121,947 ÷ 81), but it blends all the plans, so it is not what a ghostwriting client pays. The site also says “We keep 30 on the books at a time”⁴¹. If there are 30 clients, the average is about $4,100 a client (our estimate: 121,947 ÷ 30), close to the main plan’s price. We cannot tell which reading is right.
Earlier reporting. In 2022 one established LinkedIn ghostwriter told Vox she offered 12 posts for “between $2,000 and $3,000”³³. The Ken reported Indian ghostwriters charging executives “anywhere from US$400 to US$1,000 a month”³⁴.
What the tweets say. The 60-day tweet says “a high-paying client can pay you anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000+ per month” and sets out the sum its author teaches: “3 high-paying clients • Paying you $2,700/month • To make $100,000+ per year”¹. Three times $2,700 is $8,100 a month, or $97,200 a year (our sum).

Step 2: the clients needed

Clients needed = income wanted ÷ monthly fee, rounded up. These are our sums.

Monthly fee per client	For $1,000 a month	For $10,000	For $20,000	For $40,000
$200 (a newcomer’s listing)³	5	50	100	200
$300 (the documented starting price)⁹	4	34	67	134
$800 (the same writer at month six)⁹	2	13	25	50
$1,500 (bottom of the guides’ common band)²	1	7	14	27
$1,750 (middle of the guides’ band)²	1	6	12	23
$2,700 (the figure in the tweet)¹	1	4	8	15
$4,000 (the checked agency’s main plan, which covers more than writing)⁴¹	1	3	5	10
$5,000	1	2	4	8

So $1,000 a month is one ordinary client. $10,000 is about six clients at mid-range prices. $20,000 is either about a dozen mid-range clients or four to five at prices that the guides put at the senior or agency level².

Step 3: the hours

The round-up of price guides works an example: “Four clients at $1,750 (the midpoint) is $7,000 a month and 48 posts to interview for, draft, get approved and publish”². Six clients is $10,500 and 72 posts². The guide then assumes the writer earns $100 an hour, which gives 70 hours for four clients, or about 1.5 hours a post². So the 1.5 hours is what the guide gets by dividing the fee by an assumed hourly rate. It is not a measured time.

On that figure, six clients is about 108 hours a month of delivery, before any selling (our sum: 72 x 1.5). $20,000 at $1,750 a client is 12 clients, 144 posts and about 216 hours a month (our estimate). A full-time month is roughly 170 hours (our estimate: 40 hours x 4.3 weeks). So $20,000 a month for one person needs higher prices, less time per post, or staff.

A second check: the Editorial Freelancers Association surveyed over 1,100 members on their 2025 rates⁴. For ghostwriting business and marketing material the middle range is $87.50 to $125 an hour⁴. At those rates $10,000 is 80 to 114 paid hours a month (our sum). The chart has no ghostwriting line for social posts. They fall under “Other” ghostwriting, at $77.50 to $100 an hour, and the chart’s separate line for social media work is $50 to $60 an hour⁴. At $50 to $60, $10,000 is 167 to 200 hours a month (our sum).

People’s own accounts imply fewer hours than the guide. The Entrepreneur writer runs six clients beside a full-time job⁹. Mr Cole described two people sharing 8 to 10 clients on “15, 20 hours a week”¹¹. The founder in Business Insider said his work “takes me only five hours a week”³². One tweet in our collection, from an account too small to name, says its author spends one to two hours writing per LinkedIn account; the period is not stated¹. None of these is a measured figure.

Step 4: winning the clients

Two measured figures exist, and they are far apart.

Cold email (email to strangers). Instantly, which sells an email tool, reports from its users’ campaigns “a average reply rate of 3.43%”, with the top quarter at 5.5%¹⁷. A reply is not a client. If one reply in ten became a client, six clients would need 60 replies, and 60 replies at 3.43% would need about 1,750 emails (our estimate; the one-in-ten is our assumption, not a measured figure).
Personal messages in fields you understand. The Entrepreneur writer says: “I made a list of 20 executives in industries I already understood, like real estate, marketing and professional services.” She sent each a short personal message on LinkedIn offering one free sample post: “six people responded, and two became paying clients within the first two weeks”⁹. The article does not say whether she knew any of them. That is one person’s account, at a $300 price.

One tweet in our collection, from an account too small to name, describes cold-emailing 1,000 founders of million-dollar companies as a new ghostwriter and winning none of them¹.

Step 5: keeping the clients

A retainer can be cancelled, so six clients do not stay six. We found no measured figure for how long a ghostwriting client stays. The nearest evidence:

Windmill Growth’s site says: “185+ founders worked with to date. We keep 30 on the books at a time.”⁴¹ That is the company’s own statement. It is not a measure of how long clients stay, and the site’s other lines do not fit it neatly: it also says “Forty founders a month, no more” and “We still take only three new clients a month”⁴¹. Three a month over 29 months is about 87 (our sum), not 185. We draw no retention figure from it.
Taylin Simmonds, who runs a ghostwriting agency, writes: “Churn is inevitable when running a ghostwriting agency.”³⁶ Churn means clients leaving. In the same piece he says the client in question left because the posts had helped him get the job he wanted³⁶.
Nicolas Cole wrote in 2021 about his own agency: “Every time a client fell behind, they would “pause” and then we’d be stuck with the balance of overdue articles, which ate into our profit margin heavily over time.”¹⁰

So selling never stops. The monthly figure in a tweet is a snapshot.

Step 6: the costs

The tweet’s line “You don’t need to invest in up-front costs” is broadly accurate for the work itself.

Tools. Taplio, a LinkedIn scheduling tool, is $39, $69 or $199 a month. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, for finding prospects, “starts at US$119.99 per month”. Apollo, a contact database, shows $49, $79 and $119 a month when billed for a year at a time. An AI subscription (Claude Pro) is $20¹⁸. Our estimate for one of each kind: about $230 to $460 a month, which is 2% to 5% of a $10,000 month (39 + 119.99 + 49 + 20 at the low end; 199 + 119.99 + 119 + 20 at the high end). Without Sales Navigator the low end is about $110.
Card fees. Stripe charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per card payment, about $292 on $10,000 in six invoices (our sum)¹⁹.
Marketplace fees. Upwork takes “0% to 15% per contract” if the client comes from there¹⁹.
Tax. The tweets quote revenue. In the United States, “The self-employment tax rate is 15.3%” of net earnings, before income tax²⁰.
Training, if bought. See “Who makes money from it”.

The launch cost in the Entrepreneur case was under $50⁹.

Step 7: how common these incomes are

No survey of social-media ghostwriters exists that we could find. The nearest figures are for wider groups.

Freelance writers. In a 2025 survey of 350 freelance writers in the US and Europe, “48.6% of writers (almost half) earn under $2,000 a month”, 19.4% made over $5,000 and “a mere 3%” over $10,000⁶. The largest group, 26%, made under $1,000⁶. People answered if they chose to, so it is not a random sample, and it covers all freelance writing. A second survey of 530 writers, run by a blogger who sells writing courses, reports “42% earn up to $5,000/month, while 30% earn up to $2,000/month”⁴⁵.
All US writers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives a median of $76,910 a year in May 2025; “the highest 10 percent earned more than $139,870”⁵. Median means the middle writer. $10,000 a month is $120,000 a year, a little under that top-tenth line. $20,000 a month is $240,000, far above it. These are wages of employed writers, not freelancers’ business income⁵.
Book ghostwriters. This is an older, different trade. A 2025 survey found a median income of $112,100 among 115 ghostwriters, whose average age was 55⁷. In a 2024 survey of 269, “one-third of respondents reported that they earn over $100,000 in annual income from ghostwriting books”; the report “did not specify the salary breakdown for the other two-thirds”⁸.

What the tweet text does not say

Almost every tweet gives an income figure. In the text we collected, a handful mention a price or a single payment from a client (one of them the $5,000 one-off payment quoted above), one gives a number of clients, one gives hours, one gives the number of emails sent, and none mentions clients leaving or tax¹. We did not view the images, videos or links attached to the tweets. We read one thread and the full text of four long tweets; the other texts are as collected, and several are cut off.

Mr Cole dates his result as “30 days later, I was making $20,000 per month as a freelance writer” in one tweet and “less than 60 days” in another; the two are compatible¹. Another tweet says “at least 800k per month” without naming a currency¹.

What people who tried it report

We found no dataset of outcomes for people who ghostwrite for founders: no platform statistics, no survey, no study of how many beginners win a client. What exists is individual accounts, nearly all self-reported.

One income total was checked by a journalist. In October 2022 Business Insider published a first-person account by an anonymous startup founder who said he made about $200,000 in a year writing tweets for venture capitalists. The article says “his identity is known to Insider, which has reviewed screenshots of wire transfers and bank statements to validate his claims”³². He had worked in venture capital and built a parody voice on Twitter that “got me up to 20,000 followers. That was when people started reaching out via DM”³². Investors who were funding his company also offered him the work: “Ghostwriting wasn’t something I knew anything about. I was just building relationships and using those relationships in my day job.”³² So he had both an audience and investor relationships, and clients came to him. His other figures are his own and were not said to be checked: “For $5,000 to $10,000, I’ll write 10 original tweets a month”, single jobs from “$100 tweets” to “$100,000 threads”, and “between 25 and 50 clients at any given time”³². Many clients paying per tweet would explain how 25 to 50 clients and $200,000 fit together; that is our reading. This was before AI writing tools were common.

One slower path is described in detail. The marketing professional profiled by Entrepreneur in July 2026 started at $300 a client in 2022. “By month three, I had three paying clients, and by month five, I had enough recurring retainers that I could predict what was coming in each month”⁹. Now: “I manage six clients at rates ranging from $1,200 to $2,500 per month”, and revenue “currently sits between $9,000 and $12,000” a month beside a full-time job⁹. The article does not say when she first reached that level. It shows no payment records, and the profile does not show her selling a course.

The author of the most-viewed tweet credits luck, supplied leads and a team. The rest of Mr Simmonds’s thread says: “The truth of my success: I got lucky”. A mentor, he writes, “OFFERED to teach me ghostwriting” and “even gave me 3-5 warm leads per MONTH”⁶². Warm leads are introductions to people already interested in buying. His timeline: “14 days = $10K per month 60 days = $20K per month 180 days = $40K per month”⁶². He adds “To make BIG money you need a team” and ends: “Ghostwriting is a short term cash play. The big money is in your personal brand.”⁶² So the $40,000 was an agency with a team and leads passed to him, and “the real money” in his tweet is his own audience. A January 2024 interview lists a co-founder and eight “Employees/Contractors/Freelancers”, and says he got first clients “through referrals from friends within my network”³⁷. His accounts differ on speed: 180 days to $40,000 in the thread, “about 90 days” in the interview³⁷⁶². In that interview he gave current monthly recurring revenue as “$20,000 on average with big paydays when we do product launches”³⁷.

Accounts of it not working.

A solo Twitter ghostwriter wrote in 2023: “Ran it for a 6 months, grew it to $10K+ and then shut it down.” He does not say whether that is a month or in total. His reason: “While they got engagement, follower growth was slow”, and “clients started to demand viral growth”³⁵.
The 1,000 cold emails with no client, described above¹.
Mr Simmonds describes a client who, before coming to him, had paid two other agencies “for roughly 18 months and got almost nothing in return”³⁶. Buyers who have had that experience are harder to sell to. He says his own agency then got that client a first paying customer within 30 days³⁶.

Two high earners in our tweets changed course soon after. @themattmic wrote in August 2023 that “my one-man ghostwriting operation was doing $15k/month” two months earlier, and that he had quit solo Twitter ghostwriting to co-found an agency that ghostwrites email courses and newsletters¹. Later in the same tweet, read through a tweet-reading service, he gives his reasons, among them: “Running a one-man Twitter ghostwriting and coaching business can pay well, but after awhile it felt stagnant.”¹ So part of that income was coaching, and he left working alone, not the trade. Mr Simmonds said in January 2024: “We then decided to reduce the size and scope of our agency and turn our focus to decentralized education” (his term for online courses and coaching)³⁷. His April 2025 newsletter says he had closed the agency for a time, and shows him serving clients with a team again³⁶.

Mr Cole’s agency was cut back by its founders. Digital Press sold ghostwritten articles for executives, not social-post retainers¹⁰¹¹. In a 2021 thread he wrote: “From 2017 to 2019, we scaled Digital Press from the two of us to a team of 20 full-time employees and more than 60 clients”, and “in 2019… my cofounder and I decided to scale the business back”¹⁰. In a July 2021 interview he gave about $2 million a year in revenue, about 20 full-time employees and 80 clients¹¹. An unofficial biography says 23 employees and 80+ clients, and a podcast’s show notes describe him “shutting down his business” and “the linear nature of agency growth, hiring woes, and the financial strain of overhead costs”¹². The sources differ on staff, clients and whether it closed or shrank; all rest on his own account, and we found no filings.

In that interview he described three stages¹¹:

Early, seven people (the two founders and five employees): “a little more than half a million in revenue. And we were profiting, you know, 25 to 40 K a month”. He says this is “where we probably should have stopped”.
At full size: “you have a $2 million company of which you’re the co founder and you’re earning a hundred K”.
After scaling back: “Just us two. And we work with like eight or 10 clients and they’re, you know, CEOs of publicly traded companies”, and “we’re probably doing about half a million a year”. The interviewer put that at a quarter of a million each; he answered “that’s one way of looking at it”. No profit figure is given for this stage.

Writing work and AI. A study in Management Science found “a 21% decrease in the number of job posts for automation-prone jobs related to writing and coding” on a freelance marketplace within eight months of ChatGPT’s launch; the jobs that remained were more complex and better paid⁴⁴. A second study found lower employment and earnings for freelancers, with “suggestive evidence that top freelancers are disproportionately affected by AI”⁴⁴. We read the abstracts only, and both cover marketplace jobs, not retainers with founders. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects no growth in writers’ jobs to 2035 and says AI “is projected to dampen demand for these workers”⁵.

Closer to this market, Rest of World reported in May 2026 that it “spoke to six Filipino virtual assistants and two agencies” who produce LinkedIn posts and comments for executives with AI tools⁶³. “Listings on job boards like Jobstreet and Indeed typically advertise $4 to $7 an hour” for such assistants’ work, and one agency’s head said clients “can save up to 80% on labor costs by hiring offshore”⁶³. So the generic, AI-drafted end of this market is supplied very cheaply. A newcomer’s price depends on offering something that work does not: knowledge of the client’s field and voice.

What the rules allow now

Writing for someone else is not banned. Nothing in LinkedIn’s User Agreement says who must draft a post. LinkedIn wrote in May 2026: “It’s ok to use AI to help you write, but your posts and comments need to represent your voice and your perspectives.”²⁵

Logging in as the client is against LinkedIn’s rules. The User Agreement, effective 3 November 2025, says: “You will not share your account with anyone else”²¹. LinkedIn’s community policies add: “Do not use or attempt to use another person’s LinkedIn account”²². LinkedIn “reserves the right to restrict, suspend, or terminate your account if you breach this Contract”²¹. The account at risk is the client’s. So the version that fits the rules is: the writer drafts and the founder publishes. A company Page can give a writer a “Content admin” role (permission to post for the Page) under the writer’s own login; the pages we read show no such role for a personal profile²³. We found no figures on enforcement and no documented case of a founder’s account being restricted because a ghostwriter logged in.

A draft-only service is a narrower product than the one the best-evidenced agency sells. Windmill Growth’s $3,999 plan is described as “We write it, post it”, with “Requests and messages, sent from your profile” and “Inbox handled: We reply, qualify, and put the meeting in your calendar”⁴¹. The site does not say how access to the profile is given, and we do not say any rule is broken. The point for a reader is that the checked revenue is for a fuller service than drafting posts.

X allows it by design. X’s Delegate feature lets an owner add contributors “without sharing passwords”, and “Account owners are responsible for the content posted to their accounts by authorized admins and contributors”²⁹. We read this in an archived copy from April 2026; the live page refused us.

Automation is where both platforms draw the line.

LinkedIn does not permit “bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions that scrape, modify the appearance of, or automate activity”, and users “risk having their accounts restricted or shut down”²³.
On 13 March 2026 LinkedIn said automated comments “aren’t allowed on LinkedIn” and that it had removed groups set up to trade likes and comments²⁴.
X prohibits “scripting the X website”, says this “may result in the permanent suspension of your account”, and requires its written approval for AI reply bots³⁰.
LinkedIn may restrict an account that sends “an excessive number of invitations” where it suspects automation²³. That limits a ghostwriter’s own search for clients there.

Generic posts now reach fewer people on LinkedIn. On 20 May 2026 LinkedIn announced systems that recognise generic AI-written posts and limit their spread, and said: “In our initial testing, we’re correctly identifying generic content 94% of the time.”²⁵ No method was published. A trade report says LinkedIn added a “Seems like AI slop” reporting option on 30 July 2026²⁶. A vendor’s own study of 40,937 posts from 660 creators reports posts “with no concrete detail and no lived experience” sitting “23% below their author’s average post” since late July 2026, against 13% before²⁸. It found that AI-sounding phrasing by itself cost only about 3% to 7%, and concludes: “LinkedIn does not penalize AI as such”²⁸. The vendor sells a LinkedIn writing tool and used its own scoring. So the risk lies with generic, detail-free posts, however they are drafted. That matters for the many-clients version of the scheme, where there is little time to learn each client: reach is what the client pays for.

Ordinary freelance law applies. We found no licence requirement.

Tax. US self-employment tax is described above²⁰. From tax year 2026 a US client need file a payment form for a contractor only from $2,000; the income is taxable either way²⁰. In the UK, trading income above £1,000 a year must be declared⁶¹.
Cold email. US law “makes no exception for business-to-business email”, with penalties “of up to $53,088” for each email that breaks it⁵⁶. Compliant cold email is lawful in the US. We did not check EU or UK rules.
Not being paid. In a UK survey of the self-employed, “almost a third of freelancers (31%) reported that they have completed work and not been paid for it” at some point in their self-employed career⁵⁴. That is all freelancers, not ghostwriters. New York City requires a written contract for freelance work over $800 and provides “double damages” for breaches, which the freelancer has to pursue⁵⁵.

Rules that fall on certain clients. These are our reading of general guidance; neither regulator mentions ghostwriters.

A listed company’s executive who discloses material news on a personal account can breach US securities rules⁵⁷. US brokerage firms are responsible for outside content they help prepare⁵⁷.
The US Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 rule “prohibits anyone from selling or buying fake indicators of social media influence, such as followers or views generated by a bot”⁵⁸.
In the EU, AI-generated text published to inform the public must be disclosed from 2 August 2026, unless it “has undergone a process of human review or editorial control” and someone holds editorial responsibility⁵⁹. Whether a founder’s post falls under this is untested.
The US Copyright Office says AI output is protected “only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements”⁶⁰.

Who makes money from it

In our 33 tweets. By the labels in our collection, 18 lead to a course, cohort (a group that takes a course together) or coaching offer, one offers a free PDF by direct message, one a paid community and one the author’s own ghostwriting service. The other 12 are labelled as showing nothing on offer¹. The 21 tweets with something on offer hold about half the views; the most-viewed tweet is among the 12 without¹. The labels record what was seen on the tweet or profile and were not all re-checked.

The accounts behind most of the views.

@Nicolascole77 and @dickiebush (14 tweets). Both profiles link to Ship 30 for 30, a writing course¹⁵. Its page says it “used to cost $800” and is now “included inside our AI Writing Skool membership for just $99/month”, and reports over 10,000 students in 24 cohorts¹⁵. Its refund asks the buyer to finish the 30-day programme and “send us your 30 pieces for the month”¹⁵. The same two people run Premium Ghostwriting Academy¹²¹³, and the two tweets quoted at the top of this page end by pointing to its free “Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint”¹. The academy’s sales page says “2,000+ Ghostwriters And Counting”, offers a refund “within the first 7 days”, and shows member wins from a $3,000-a-month client to “$42k MRR” (monthly recurring revenue)¹³. It gives no typical or median result and we saw no earnings disclaimer. The checkout page shows $300 a month, and the sales page says “You can cancel anytime” (both read 8 October 2026)¹³. A review site that promotes a competing programme says it “costs $6,800, according to several reviews”; we could not confirm that earlier price at source¹⁴. The page does not say how many of the 2,000+ currently pay.
The course business by its owner’s numbers. Mr Bush’s review of 2022 reports “3,193 new students” that year, at a price raised from $399 to $699¹⁶. That is roughly $1.3 million to $2.2 million of course sales before discounts (our estimate). In the 2021 interview Mr Cole said of the course business: “last month we just did a hundred grand in revenue”, at about six months old¹¹. Set that beside the roughly $100,000 a year each founder took from the $2 million agency¹¹. All self-reported.
@TaylinSimmonds (2 tweets, about 59% of the views). In the January 2024 interview he gave margins of 90% for education against 60% to 70% for client work³⁷. His 2025 newsletter invites readers to “apply to join my ghostwriting coaching program” to “land your first $3,000 - $5,000 per month ghostwriting client”³⁶. He is listed as a coach at Growth Ghost, a ghostwriting cohort run by Dakota Robertson³⁸. Its page shows no price, says it has taught “150+ members” and states: “We do not work with people who need a money-back guarantee or a get-rich-quick ROI.”³⁸ One review by an early member mentions a “$5,000 investment” made about two and a half years earlier; the current price is not shown³⁸. Mr Robertson’s own emails say clients pay “around $2,000-$5,000 a month” and also: “There are also many ghostwriters who aren’t making any money.”³⁹

Others who are paid when a newcomer signs up.

Skool, which hosts these communities, charges $9 a month plus 10% of sales or $99 plus 2.9%, and pays “40% of monthly recurring revenue for life” for referring new group owners⁴⁶.
Tool makers: Taplio pays “30% commission for a full year” to those who refer subscribers; Tweet Hunter starts at $49 a month; Kleo is $99 a month plus $49 for each extra client profile¹⁸.
Upwork, at 0% to 15%¹⁹.
Selar, a Nigerian platform with a built-in affiliate split, hosts low-priced ghostwriting courses; one is ₦3,500⁴⁷.

Agencies. A vendor’s write-up reports one agency’s public price list at “$4,999, $9,999 and $13,999 per month” with six- or twelve-month minimum terms⁴⁸. That shows what companies pay established teams, not what a newcomer can charge.

Regulators. We found no regulator or court action about ghostwriting courses or any account on this page. US rules do not require a coaching seller to give buyers an earnings statement; the FTC proposed such a rule in January 2025 and we could not confirm what became of it⁵². In other course markets the FTC has acted on income claims: Publishing.com agreed in April 2026 to pay $1.5 million, the FTC’s complaint alleging that “most consumers… never achieved the income the company promised”⁴⁹; Growth Cave and Lurn ended in settlements in 2026 and 2023⁵⁰⁵¹. All three were settled without a ruling on the allegations. In the UK, a law firm reports that the advertising regulator found five training-course ads with income claims misleading in late 2025⁵³. These cases concern only the companies named in them. None is about ghostwriting, and we do not suggest any connection to anyone on this page.

The upside

Some people earn well from this. Each case below is marked by who checked it.

Checked against payment records

Windmill Growth, a LinkedIn content agency for business founders. TrustMRR is a site that reads revenue from Stripe, the company that processes a business’s card payments. On 8 October 2026 it showed: “All-time revenue $2,215,105 … MRR $121,947 81 active subscriptions … Founded May 2024 … Revenue is verified with Stripe”⁴⁰. That is about $122,000 a month, about 29 months after its stated founding date. Over those 29 months the average is about $76,000 a month (our estimate: 2,215,105 ÷ 29). It is the strongest proof we found that founders pay monthly for this. It is a team, not a solo writer. Its main plan covers posting, outreach and the inbox as well as writing, and its cheaper plans include no writing⁴¹. Only revenue is checked: profit, staff numbers and owners’ pay are not shown. The figures change daily.

The anonymous founder in Business Insider. About $200,000 in a year from ghostwriting tweets for investors, with bank records seen by the publication³². He had 20,000 followers and investor relationships before the work came to him³².

People’s own statements

None of these was checked by a third party.

$9,000 to $12,000 a month from six clients, four years after starting at $300 a client, alongside a job⁹. No course on offer in the profile.
Two founders writing for 8 to 10 clients, among them “CEOs of publicly traded companies”, for “about half a million a year”; Mr Cole says “very few people can work 15, 20 hours a week and make a quarter million bucks”¹¹. Earlier, with seven people, the same agency was “profiting… 25 to 40 K a month”¹¹. He sells courses.
$20,000 a month within 30 to 60 days of quitting a job in 2016, from ghostwritten articles¹. Same person.
An agency at $40,000 a month, with a co-founder, a team and supplied leads³⁷⁶². A year later the same person gave “$20,000 on average”³⁷.
$15,000 a month from solo ghostwriting and coaching¹.
A personal-branding agency that began with $20 Upwork jobs: “We crossed $1.7M in revenue in 2025”⁴². The introduction says this followed “five years of losing money”; the rest is behind a sign-up we did not pass⁴².
Top Indian LinkedIn ghostwriters “earning up to Rs 7 lakh (~US$8,500) a month” across many clients, as reported in 2022³⁴.
Course testimonials such as “a $12,200 month”¹³.

What the top tenth and top hundredth earn

No such figure exists for this trade. The nearest: 3% of 350 freelance writers surveyed made over $10,000 a month and 19.4% over $5,000⁶. The top tenth of employed US writers earn over $139,870 a year⁵. A third of 269 established book ghostwriters earn over $100,000 a year from books⁸.

Why demand is there

LinkedIn data reported in the trade press in October 2024 showed “a 23% rise in posts from CEOs across the globe”, with engagement on their posts “four times higher” than on other members’⁴³. That is LinkedIn’s own figure, two years old.

A realistic good result, from the one detailed case (our estimate)

This restates one person’s unchecked account⁹, set beside the price guides² and the one survey of freelance writers⁶. It is a guess at a good outcome, not a typical one.

First client: within weeks, for someone who gets replies from decision-makers in a field they understand. Price $300 to $1,000 a month.
Months three to six: two or three clients, roughly $1,000 to $3,000 a month.
Later years: four to six clients at $1,200 to $2,500 each. By our sum that is roughly $5,000 to $15,000 a month; the case itself reports $9,000 to $12,000 from six clients four years in⁹. For scale, 19.4% of surveyed freelance writers make over $5,000 a month and 3% over $10,000⁶.
$20,000 a month solo: four or five clients at $4,000 to $5,000 each. In the accounts we found, that came with an existing audience, a network or leads passed on by someone else.

What share of starters reach any of these is unknown.

What it takes to compete

What the people who succeed had

A way to reach buyers. The fast, high figures came with an audience, a network or supplied leads. The Business Insider founder had 20,000 followers and investors who approached him³². Mr Simmonds says he paid about $5,000 for coaching, did “6 months of free work for other agencies to gain experience”, got first clients “through referrals from friends within my network”, and was given “3-5 warm leads per MONTH”³⁷⁶². His coach, Dakota Robertson, writes: “I sent leads his way and gave him a sales script”³⁹. The one slower case came from 20 targeted personal messages with a free sample, to executives “in industries I already understood”⁹.
A public track record. By his own account, before ghostwriting Mr Cole was “the #1 most-read writer” on Quora and wrote 400+ columns for Inc. magazine¹⁰. A biography says his first client “found him on Quora”¹². He was also a working copywriter: “I was making like 50 K a year” at an ad agency¹¹. So the tweet that says “You don’t need a huge audience” comes from someone who, by his own account, had one¹¹⁰. He also says he started “by working for free” for his first clients¹.
Writing skill and knowledge of a field. The academy’s own sales page puts it this way: “If you can write and bring real industry experience, you can turn that expertise into content business owners will pay for every month.”¹³ A tweet from one of the two accounts behind the academy describes a writer earning $18,000 in a month in the forklift industry¹. The cheap end of the market is AI-assisted work advertised at $4 to $7 an hour⁶³; field knowledge is what separates a writer from it.
Willingness to start low. $300 a client at first, $800 at six months, $1,200 to $2,500 four years in⁹.
Selling every month. Clients leave (Step 5). The Entrepreneur writer describes the work as “part writer and part therapist”⁹.
Work that sounds like the client. The route that fits LinkedIn’s 2026 rules is interviewing the founder and writing from what they say²⁵. The academy’s page says its prompts “handle 90% of the writing”¹³; LinkedIn says it limits the spread of generic posts²⁵. One tweet describes a writer with 32 clients at $750 each, drafted by AI agents¹. That multiplies to $24,000 a month (our sum), but the anecdote names nobody, and the hard part it leaves out is winning and keeping 32 executives.

What it costs

Money: little. About $230 to $460 a month in tools, or about $110 without Sales Navigator (our estimate)¹⁸. Courses run from $99 or $300 a month to about $5,000 for coaching in the past, by two buyers’ accounts¹³¹⁵³⁷³⁸. None is required.
Time without much income: about five months to predictable income in the one detailed case, at a few hundred dollars a client⁹.
Going agency: by Mr Cole’s account, $2 million of revenue paid each founder about $100,000¹¹. Revenue is not income.

How to tell early which side you are on

These checks are our judgement, built from the figures above.

Can you name 20 executives in a field you understand, and write each a message they would answer? The one detailed case got 6 replies and 2 clients from 20 such messages⁹. Cold email to strangers averages a 3.43% reply rate¹⁷.
Has anyone paid you anything within the first month or two of asking? The documented newcomer had two clients in two weeks, at $300⁹. Hundreds of messages with no paying client suggests the offer, the price or the audience is wrong.
Do clients renew? If the first clients leave after a month or two, the monthly total will not build.
Can you raise the price? The gap between $300 and $1,500 a client is the gap between 34 clients and 7 for $10,000 (Step 2).
Do your posts carry details only that client could supply? If a reader could not tell your clients apart, the work matches what LinkedIn now limits²⁵.
Does the plan need you to buy something first? The arithmetic above is free to check. No seller we found publishes what share of members win a client.

What we did not verify

How many people who try this win a client. No source measures it. We found no survey or dataset of social-media ghostwriters, and no figure for how long clients stay.
The income claims. Every income figure except the Business Insider total and Windmill Growth’s revenue is the person’s own statement: the $40,000-a-month agency, $20,000 a month in 30 to 60 days, $15,000 a month, $9,000 to $12,000 a month, $1.7 million a year, and all course testimonials. Entrepreneur does not say it reviewed records.
The tweets. Text, view counts and labels come from our copy of 6 October 2026. Four long tweets were re-read through a tweet-reading service and one thread on a mirror site; none was opened on X. Images, videos and links were not viewed, and the other cut-off texts were not expanded. Dates are worked out from ID numbers.
Windmill Growth. Only revenue is checked. We do not know how many clients the 81 subscriptions represent, what share of revenue comes from written posts, or how long clients stay. The site’s own counts (185+ served, 30 at a time, three new a month, forty a month) do not fit each other. Its client results were not checked. TrustMRR’s search did not work for us, so there may be other checked ghostwriting businesses.
The Business Insider case. Only the yearly total is said to be checked. The prices, client count and hours are the founder’s own, and our explanation of how they fit the total is our reading.
Premium Ghostwriting Academy. We did not see a price on the sales page itself, only on the checkout. The earlier $6,800 price and a “no refund” report come from one review site that promotes a competitor. The member count is the seller’s. We found no share of members who win a client and no refund rate.
Digital Press. Revenue, staff and client numbers are the founder’s own and differ between tellings. The thread was read on a mirror site; the biography is unofficial; his own website did not load.
Price guides. The four guides behind the round-up were not opened. One of them is Windmill Growth’s, so the guide and the checked agency are not independent sources.
Freelance surveys. Both are self-selected and cover all freelance writing. One researcher could not trace the 48.6% figure to the survey; another read it there.
Exact quotes. Quotes from BLS, The Ken, Publishers Weekly, the 350-writer survey and the podcast notes were taken through a tool that extracts or summarises text and were not checked word for word. So was the Social Media Today article²⁷, which is why we do not quote it.
Platform enforcement. We have LinkedIn’s rules but no counts of accounts restricted. X’s policy on inauthentic behaviour refused every route. The Delegate page was read only in an April 2026 archive copy. X’s terms change on 9 October 2026 and we did not compare versions³¹. Whether LinkedIn lets scheduling apps publish to personal profiles was not read at source.
Refused or unreadable pages. Reddit refused every route, so no forum threads were read. Fiverr and Upwork listing pages refused us. The Financial Times article “AI is creating ghostwriting jobs on LinkedIn” (16 September 2026) is behind a paywall. Typefully, Hypefury and Typeshare prices did not load. The Indie Hackers case was read only as far as its introduction.
The studies on AI and freelance work. Abstracts only. The Rest of World report covers virtual assistants in one country; the $4 to $7 an hour is for general assistant listings, not ghostwriting alone.
Law. US federal sources and one UK page only. We did not check EU or UK email rules, tax or payment rules in Nigeria or India (where several tweet authors appear to be based), state regulators or private lawsuits. The UK advertising rulings were read through a law firm’s summary. Contract risks such as confidentiality clauses were not researched.
Other prices. Growth Ghost’s current price, the cost of the courses named in other tweets, and the agency price list in⁴⁸ were not seen at source. Apollo’s prices are for yearly billing; its monthly-billing prices were not read.
Whether the people named have seen this page. The people and companies named here were not contacted before publication.

Sources

“Read at source” means we opened the page itself on 8 October 2026. “Secondary” means we read an article or summary about the source. “Estimate” means our own sum. “Through a reader service” means a service (r.jina.ai) fetched the page for us.

Does It Pay collection of 33 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06; individual tweets linked above. Read from our collected copy, not from the live tweets; four long tweets were re-read in full on 2026-10-08 through api.fxtwitter.com. Counts by label are estimates.
MagicPost, “LinkedIn ghostwriting rates”. https://magicpost.in/blog/linkedin-ghostwriting-rates . Updated 2026-09-07. Secondary: a tool vendor’s round-up of four other guides, which we did not open; the page itself was read on 2026-10-08.
Listed prices: https://contra.com/s/Xokqg7O3-linked-in-ghostwriter-for-founders (undated), https://whop.com/positease/founder-authority-program/ (undated), https://columncontent.com/linkedin-ghostwriter-pricing/ (2024-03-31). Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Editorial Freelancers Association, 2026 rate chart. https://www.the-efa.org/rates/ . 2026-05-04. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, writers and authors. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/writers-and-authors.htm . Modified 2026-08-27; wage data May 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service and a summarising tool.
Jack Limebear, “State of freelance writing report”. https://www.jacklimebear.com/post/state-of-freelance-writing-report . 2025-07-15. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Josh Bernoff, “How ghostwriters use AI”. https://bernoff.com/blog/how-ghostwriters-use-ai-and-why-theyre-less-threatened-by-it . 2025-11-10. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Publishers Weekly, on the ghostwriter compensation survey. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industrynews/publisher-news/article/96570-ghostwriter-survey-finds-manuscripts-fetch-high-fees.html . 2024-11-22. Read at source on 2026-10-08; secondary for the survey report, which was not opened. Also https://gothamghostwriters.com/ghostwriters-have-never-been-more-in-demand-or-better-compensated/ .
Entrepreneur, profile of a LinkedIn ghostwriting side business. https://www.entrepreneur.com/side-hustle/i-turned-a-simple-observation-into-a-linkedin-based-side-hustle-that-makes-9000-to-12000-a-month . 2026-07-30. Read at source on 2026-10-08. The person’s own statements.
Thread by @Nicolascole77, read on Thread Reader. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1352048256579035139.html . 2021-01-21. Secondary (mirror of the thread).
Mixergy, interview with Nicolas Cole. https://mixergy.com/?p=93738 . 2021-07-14. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service. The person’s own statements.
Unofficial biography, https://yespress.io/nicolas-cole.md (undated), and podcast show notes, https://doubleyourfreelancing.com/s04-episode-2-how-nicolas-cole-scaled-a-7-figure-ghostwriting-agency-on-cold-outreach/ (undated). Secondary.
Premium Ghostwriting Academy. Sales page https://www.premiumghostwritingacademy.com/ (redirects to http://learn.premiumghostwritingacademy.com/pga-course-community ) and checkout https://ship.mysamcart.com/checkout/pga-course-community . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08, both through a reader service.
Ippei, review of Premium Ghostwriting Academy. https://ippei.com/premium-ghostwriting-academy/ . Updated 2026-05-28. Secondary; the site promotes a competing programme.
Ship 30 for 30. https://www.ship30for30.com/ . Page stamped 2026-10-07. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
Dickie Bush, yearly review 2022. https://www.dickiebush.com/writing/yearly-review-2022 . Early 2023. Read at source on 2026-10-08. The sales total is our estimate.
Instantly, cold email benchmark report 2026. https://instantly.ai/cold-email-benchmark-report-2026 . 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
Price pages: https://taplio.com/pricing , https://taplio.com/affiliates , https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/compare-plans , https://www.apollo.io/pricing , https://claude.com/pricing , https://tweethunter.io/pricing , https://kleo.so . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08, most through a reader service. Apollo’s prices are for yearly billing. The combined cost is our estimate.
Stripe pricing, https://stripe.com/pricing , and Upwork freelancer service fees, https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062538-Freelancer-Service-Fees . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
US Internal Revenue Service: self-employment tax, https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employment-tax-social-security-and-medicare-taxes (reviewed 2026-06-27), and instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC, https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099mec (for 2026 payments). Read at source on 2026-10-08.
LinkedIn User Agreement. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement . Effective 2025-11-03. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
LinkedIn Professional Community Policies. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/professional-community-policies . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
LinkedIn Help: prohibited software, https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1341387 ; invitation limits, https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a551012 ; Page admin roles, https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a541981 . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
LinkedIn, “Authentic content and conversations”. https://news.linkedin.com/2026/authentic-content-and-conversations . 2026-03-13. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Laura Lorenzetti, LinkedIn, “Keeping conversations real on LinkedIn”. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/keeping-conversations-real-linkedin-laura-lorenzetti-9821e . 2026-05-20. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Let’s Data Science, on LinkedIn’s reporting option. https://letsdatascience.com/news/linkedin-adds-ai-slop-reporting-option-4e29c061 . 2026-07-30. Secondary.
Social Media Today, on LinkedIn and engagement pods. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-vows-to-take-action-against-engagement-pods-fake-engagement/804970/ . 2025-11-06. Secondary; not quoted.
MagicPost, “Does LinkedIn penalize AI content”. https://magicpost.in/blog/does-linkedin-penalize-ai-content . 2026-06-04, updated later. Read at source on 2026-10-08; a vendor’s own study, so secondary for what LinkedIn does.
X Help, the Delegate feature, archived copy. https://web.archive.org/web/20260404000142/https://help.x.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-use-the-delegate-feature . Snapshot 2026-04-04. Secondary (archive copy; the live page refused us).
X Help, automation rules. https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/x-automation . Updated April 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
X Terms of Service. https://x.com/en/tos . Version effective until 2026-10-09. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Business Insider, on a ghostwriter for venture capitalists. https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ghostwriter-silicon-valley-vc-venture-founder-san-francisco-2022-10 . 2022-10-12. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service. A first-person account; only the income total is said to be checked.
Vox, on LinkedIn ghostwriting. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23423182/linkedin-ghostwriting-jobs . 2022-10-26. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
The Ken, on LinkedIn ghostwriting in India. https://the-ken.com/story/inside-the-very-serious-business-of-ghostwriting-hot-takes-on-linkedin/ . 2022-10-18. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a summarising tool.
Superframeworks, “Ghostwriting failure”. https://superframeworks.com/blog/ghostwriting-failure . 2023-06-30. Read at source on 2026-10-08. The author’s own statement.
Taylin Simmonds newsletter, “My highest paying client just fired me”. https://the-simmonds-signal.beehiiv.com/p/my-highest-paying-client-just-fired-me-why-i-m-happy . 2025-04-15. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Founder Reports, interview on Ghostlii. https://founderreports.com/interview/ghostlii/ . 2024-01-17. Read at source on 2026-10-08. The person’s own statements.
Growth Ghost, https://growthghost.com/ (undated), and its Trustpilot page, https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/growthghost.com (review dated 2024-05-25). Read at source on 2026-10-08, the reviews through a reader service. The price is a past one, from one customer review.
Dakota Robertson newsletter. https://dakota.beehiiv.com/p/final-cohort-questions-answered (2024-01-21) and https://dakota.beehiiv.com/p/40000-month-write-tweets (2023-06-08). Read at source on 2026-10-08.
TrustMRR, Windmill Growth. https://trustmrr.com/startup/windmill-growth-llc . Page stamped “Last updated: Oct 8, 2026, 06:41 PM”. Read at source on 2026-10-08. The averages are our estimates.
Windmill Growth website. https://windmillgrowth.com/ . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Indie Hackers, “From $20 ghostwriting gigs to a 6-figure MRR personal branding agency”. https://www.indiehackers.com/post/from-20-ghostwriting-gigs-to-a-6-figure-mrr-personal-branding-agency-2uOYZhXJmo2duGIkx3zc . 2026-06-24. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service; introduction only.
MediaPost, on LinkedIn’s data about executives. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/400278/linkedin-sees-steady-rise-in-c-suite-users.html . 2024-10-15. Secondary.
Two studies of freelance platforms after ChatGPT: Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.05420 (2025-10), and Organization Science, https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.18441 (2024-11). Abstracts read on 2026-10-08 through the Crossref service.
Elna Cain, freelance writing statistics. https://elnacain.com/blog/freelance-writing-stats-facts/ . 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Skool, https://www.skool.com/pricing and https://www.skool.com/affiliate-program . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Selar, a course listing and affiliate page. https://selar.com/d11971i195 , https://selar.com/affiliates . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
ViralBrain, “LinkedIn ghostwriting pricing”. https://www.viralbrain.ai/blog/linkedin-ghostwriting-pricing . 2026-09-01. Secondary (vendor blog reporting another company’s price list).
Federal Trade Commission, Publishing.com. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/04/publishingcom-pay-15-million-misleading-consumers-about-how-much-income-they-could-earn-using . 2026-04-13. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
Federal Trade Commission, Growth Cave settlement. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/01/ftc-secures-settlement-banning-growth-cave-defendants-marketing-selling-business-opportunities . 2026-01-27. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Federal Trade Commission, Lurn. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-acts-stop-online-business-coaching-scheme-lurn-deceiving-consumers-about-money-making-potential . 2023-09-27. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Federal Trade Commission, proposed rule on earnings claims. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-proposes-rule-changes-new-rule-deter-deceptive-earnings-claims-multilevel-marketers-money-making . 2025-01-13. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Osborne Clarke, on UK advertising rulings about income claims. https://marketinglaw.osborneclarke.com/advertising-regulation/earnings-promises-meet-the-cap-code-reality-check-asa-bans-typical-income-claims/ . 2025-12-19. Secondary.
IPSE, “Late payment within the self-employed sector”. https://ipse.co.uk/resource/late-payment-within-the-self-employed-sector.html . 2024-07-24. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
New York City, Freelance Isn’t Free Act, https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/about/freelance-isnt-free-act.page (law effective 2017-05-15), and Freelancers Union, https://freelancersunion.org/advocacy/freelance-isnt-free/ . Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM compliance guide. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business . Edited January 2024. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
US Securities and Exchange Commission, report on social media disclosure, https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm (2013-04-02), and FINRA, social media guidance, https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/key-topics/social-media (undated). Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Federal Trade Commission, rule on reviews and testimonials. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials . 2024-08-14. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
EU AI Act, Article 50. https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/ . Consolidated version of 2026-07-27. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
US Copyright Office, on copyright and AI output. https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1060.html . 2025-01-29. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.
UK government, trading allowance. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-property-and-trading-income . Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
Thread by @TaylinSimmonds, read on Thread Reader. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1621131372424208385.html . 2023-02-02. Secondary (mirror of the thread), read on 2026-10-08.
Rest of World, “The Filipino virtual assistants behind LinkedIn’s ‘thought leadership’ content mill”. https://restofworld.org/2026/virtual-assistant-linkedin-engagement/ . 2026-05-18. Read at source on 2026-10-08, through a reader service.

Corrections

If you are quoted or named on this page and think something is wrong, want your reply shown beside it, or want to be removed, write to [email protected]. We aim to reply within 14 days, and always within one month. Factual errors are corrected with a dated note here. A sentence that is seriously disputed comes down while we check it.

Change log: (empty)