Earnings are based on fixed payments and variable payments. See below for all the details. For information about pageviews, click here.

Fixed Payments Based on Article Scarcity

We offer fixed payments for in-depth articles on stocks and ETFs that are on the undercovered list, and that focus overwhelmingly on a security. We consider any ticker to be undercovered if there are fewer than two articles published in the past 30 days. In addition, undercovered tickers display on the eligibility list when the market cap of a security is greater than $100M and has more than 800 page views in the past 90 days. Once these thresholds are met, a fixed payment of $45 is given and can increase up to a maximum of $65 if no article has been published in the past 75 days.

If you plan on writing about more than one undercovered stock in the same article, please know that only the highest fixed payment bonus is applied — not both. For example, if you wrote about two tickers (one that had a $65 fixed payment and one with a $45 fixed payment), you would receive the $65 fixed payment since it's the higher of the two.

All fixed payments come with a grace period. If the submission time of your article falls within 48 hours of the publication time of another article covering the same ticker, it will still be eligible for 80% of the fixed payment.

In-depth coverage for a company that does not have any primary ticker analysis on the site (excluding spinoffs), are eligible for a fixed payment of $85. Also, tickers that lack Wall Street Analyst ratings and SA Author ratings are eligible for a total fixed payment of $85 (this includes undercovered bonuses), so long as tickers are trading above $1 and have a market cap of more than $100M. When submitting these articles, please let the editor know in the “note to the editor” section to make sure you receive your fixed payment.

Recent IPOs, with no previous coverage, are eligible for a $65 payment if they meet the market cap requirement — the page view requirement does not apply. For any questions, please contact: contributors@seekingalpha.com

Variable Payments Based on Consumption by Paid Subscribers

A variable payment is calculated based on how many Seeking Alpha Premium and PRO subscribers read your article. We set an overall budget each month and divide it into an allocated budget for each subscriber. Each subscriber’s “budget” is then distributed to authors proportionally based on how many articles that subscriber read during the month. The more unique subscribers read your article, the more money you will earn. 

Article payments are paid out at the end of each month. The minimum payment amount is $100, which will be paid within 30 business days of month end. Payments of less than $100 will be delayed until earnings of $100 or more have accrued in your account. Unclaimed earnings lapse and are reclaimed after 12 months. Your payment and tax information (see here) must be completed prior to the end of the month to ensure payment for that month. For more payment questions, see here and here.

For any questions regarding article payments, please contact: contributors@seekingalpha.com.