Cost guide
What a newspaper advertisement costs, and what sets the number
Print is sold by the column centimetre against one edition on one date, so the edition, the page, the day, the colour and the ad type decide the price, not the paper's name.
The GullySales team · Updated 21 Sept 2026 · 7 min read
A newspaper advertisement is priced per column centimetre, in one edition, on one date. The title on the masthead is almost the last thing that matters. A quotation is built from the edition's circulation, the page, the position on it, the day of the week, the colour, and whether it is display or classified display. Two advertisements of identical size, in the same paper on the same morning, can cost very different amounts. The cheaper one is sometimes in front of more of the right readers.
The edition is the purchase, not the title
Every large Indian daily prints separately for each city and for the districts around it. Booking "the paper" means nothing until you have named the editions. A manufacturer selling through dealers across north Karnataka has almost no use for the Bengaluru main edition, and a Jayanagar showroom has no use for the district ones.
This is also where most print budgets are quietly wasted. The main edition of a big-city daily is the most expensive space the title sells. A business drawing customers from four localities is paying for the whole city to look at it. Ask what smaller editions or district splits exist. The answer is on the publication's own rate card and it is not always offered.
Six things that move the number
- The edition and its circulation. The base of everything. Get the circulation for the edition you are booking, not the title's total, and ask where the copies go.
- The page and the position. Front, back, the jacket, page three and the facing right-hand page carry premiums, in roughly that order. A solus position, where yours is the only advertisement on the page, costs more again. Inside pages deep in the paper cost least and are seen by the reader who has settled in.
- The day. Each title has its own rhythm. The morning it carries appointments, the day the property supplement runs, the classified matrimonial day, the weekend edition people keep on the table. Ask the publication which day its readers use for your category rather than assuming the national pattern applies to that title.
- Display or classified display. Two different rate cards and two different readers. A recruitment or a property advertisement in the classified pages reaches somebody who came looking. The same money as display space buys a bigger box in a section nobody was searching.
- Colour. Colour is a surcharge, and it is worth it for food, fabric, jewellery and property, and close to pointless for a tender notice or a walk-in interview announcement. Not every page is available in colour in every edition.
- Size and shape. Space is quoted per column centimetre. A tall narrow strip across the bottom of a page and a square quarter can cost the same and behave completely differently. Strips at the bottom of the front page and ear panels beside the masthead are sold as their own items.
A national daily and a regional daily are different buys
A national English daily gives you reach, prestige and a reader who may be nowhere near your shop. A regional language daily gives you the district, the trade, and the household where the purchase is discussed. Neither is the upgrade of the other.
In Karnataka this is a live decision every week. An English title reaches the salaried Bengaluru reader. A Kannada title reaches the family buying a site, the dealer in Davanagere, the parent choosing a school, and the reader in every town outside the city. For a project launch in Bengaluru, running both on the same Saturday is a normal, sensible plan. For a dealer appointment drive across the state, the Kannada titles do the work and the English one is a vanity line in the budget.
Two details that are easy to miss. Copy has to be written in Kannada rather than translated at the last minute, and the proofing has to be done by somebody who reads it. Statutory and tender notices follow whatever language the rule itself sets, which is your company secretary's call, not a media decision.
What a quotation must break out
| Line | Why it decides the comparison |
|---|---|
| The edition, named, with its own circulation | The title's total circulation is not what you bought |
| Date or dates of insertion, with the material deadline for each | An hour late is as late as a week |
| Size in column centimetres, with columns and height stated | The only way two quotes are comparable |
| Display or classified display | Two different rate cards |
| Page and position, and whether it is guaranteed or requested | A requested position is a hope with a premium attached |
| Colour or mono, and whether colour is available on that page | Some pages cannot carry it at all |
| Card rate and offered rate, both | The gap tells you what is negotiable |
| What the multi-insertion rate is conditional on | Package rates carry commitments |
| Taxes | Stated, not implied |
What arrives later
The artwork, built to the publication's column width and file specification. Translation and proofing for a second language edition. The colour surcharge if the plan changes. A reprint when the paper runs the wrong file or crops it, which happens, and which you can only claim if you have the booked specification in writing. And the response route: a number, a code or a web address used in that insertion alone, without which the whole exercise reports nothing at all.
When print is the wrong buy
When you need a steady flow of enquiries all year. A newspaper is one morning. Local search runs every day for less.
When the budget covers one small insertion. It is read once, by some people, and then the paper is under the vegetables. Put that money into three insertions in a smaller edition instead.
When your buyer is under thirty and lives on a phone. Not never, but rarely worth the main edition rate, and a cinema screen in that locality reaches the same person for longer.
When you cannot say what the reader should do. Print gives you no click. If the advertisement has no number, no code and no address that is only used there, you have bought a morning of anonymity.
Where print still earns its rate
One date, one catchment, everybody at once. An opening weekend, an admission deadline, a festival offer, a public notice, a recruitment drive in a town where the mill workers read one paper. Digital cannot make a whole city know something on the same morning, and print still can.
What to do next
Take the quotation you have and rewrite it as the nine lines in the table above. Where a line is blank, email and ask. Then get the card rate alongside the offered rate, because the distance between them tells you how much room is left in the conversation.
If you want the edition, the day and the page chosen against your own buyer rather than against a rate card, book the free audit. Bring the quotations you already have.