The unit
The column inch, translated
One column wide, one inch tall. Learn this one unit and every rate card in America becomes arithmetic.
A column inch is the newspaper’s meter: space one column wide and one inch deep. A standard broadsheet page runs 6 columns by 21 inches, 126 column inches in all. Multiply columns by inches by the per-inch rate and you have priced any ad; the only published national per-inch rates in 2026 are $352.53 to $1,437.98 on the WSJ card.
Source: WSJ 2026 General Advertising Rate Card, Issue #92, effective Jan 1 2026, retrieved Jul 31, 2026.
Why the desk meters space this way
Newspapers compose pages in columns, so selling by the column inch lets the desk price any shape without a menu of every possible rectangle. When a rep says “that’s thirty-one and a half inches,” they mean column inches: a 3-column ad standing 10.5 inches tall, which is a quarter of a broadsheet page. The unit sounds antique. It is also the only piece of jargon you must actually learn, because every other line on a rate card is a multiplier applied to it.
Buying craft, not a published rate: the 6-column, 21-inch broadsheet convention; the WSJ card’s full page dividing to exactly 126 column inches confirms it on the published record.
Column-inch calculator
3 col x 10.5″ = 31.5 column inches
$11,104.70 per run
Default rate: WSJ Western Edition color open rate, $352.53/col. in. (2026 card, Issue #92, retrieved Jul 31, 2026). Overwrite it with the rate your paper quotes.
A worked example, checked both ways
Take the calculator’s defaults: 3 columns by 10.5 inches is 31.5 column inches. At the WSJ Western Edition color open rate of $352.53 per inch, that quarter page prices at $11,104.70 per run. Prefer black and white? The card prices it 20 percent below color: $282.02 per inch, or $8,883.63 for the same space. The estimator on the front page returns the same figures, because both run the same arithmetic on the same card.
Source: WSJ 2026 General Advertising Rate Card, Issue #92, effective Jan 1 2026, retrieved Jul 31, 2026.
Per-inch anchors
What a column inch costs in 2026
| Paper / edition | Color | B&W (20% less) |
|---|---|---|
| WSJ national edition | $1,437.98 | $1,150.38 |
| WSJ Western Edition | $352.53 | $282.02 |
| Metro dailies | Quote-only | Quote-only |
| Local weeklies | Quote-only | Quote-only |
Source: WSJ 2026 General Advertising Rate Card, Issue #92, effective Jan 1 2026, retrieved Jul 31, 2026. B&W column computed from the card's stated 20% discount. Quote-only tiers publish no card; get the per-inch rate from the desk and use the calculator above.
The size chart: what 31.5 column inches looks like on the page.
Display advertising: modular vs column-inch pricing.
Rate cards: where the per-inch number hides.