What a post actually costs

"Organic is free" survives because the hours of the people doing it appear nowhere. A month of work producing sixteen pieces costs the same in salaries whether it produces sixteen or four.

What goes into the hours

Everything that would not exist if the channel did not exist: ideas, production, editing, sending for approval, corrections, scheduling, replying to comments, reporting. The half usually left out is the second one, and it is almost always the bigger.

What to do with the number

It is not for a quote. It answers three questions:

Is this piece worth it? If a post costs 40 to produce and the channel it goes to brings back nothing, the problem stops being abstract.

Is this network worth it? Splitting the total across networks is a rough approximation, and enough to see that the fifth network costs almost as much as the first.

Would publishing less be cheaper or dearer? Half the pieces with twice the care usually costs the same. It is the sum behind publishing less and better.

What this number does not say

It says nothing about value. A piece costing 40 that closes a client worth 3,000 was cheap. Cost per piece is for comparing options, not for judging results: that needs the other side of the ledger.