Formats: the liner
Classified ad cost, per line per day
The cheapest ink in the paper, priced like a telegram: you pay for every line, every day it runs.
A classified, or liner, is a small text ad priced per line per day at a rate each paper sets. In 2026 no US paper publishes an open classified rate card we can cite; portals price in the order flow, desks price on the phone. The meter, though, is universal: lines times rate times days.
Source: Chicago Tribune self-serve ad portal (placeanad.chicagotribune.com), retrieved Jul 31, 2026. Portal pricing verified in-flow only; no citable open card.
How the meter works
A line here is a line of agate type in one classified column, which fits roughly five to eight words depending on the paper’s column width. Write 30 words and you are buying four to six lines. The desk or portal quotes a per-line, per-day rate, often with a minimum of three or four lines, and the bill is straight multiplication. Weekly papers price per insertion instead of per day, same arithmetic.
Buying craft, not a published rate: line capacity varies with column width; count your own paper’s lines before budgeting.
The add-on menu, translated
What the desk says
What it means
“Want to enhance that with bold and a border?”
Add-ons carry per-day fees. In a crowded category they earn attention; in a thin one they mostly earn the paper margin.
“That includes our online classifieds too.”
Most print classifieds now bundle the paper's classified site. Useful, but the print line count still drives the price.
“There's a three-line minimum.”
You pay for three lines even if your ad fits in two. Write to the minimum: the extra words are free at that point.
Liner vs small display
When the classified stops being the answer
The liner wins on price whenever your buyer is already scanning the section: jobs, rentals, autos, estate sales. It loses the moment you need to interrupt someone who was not looking, because a grey text column cannot interrupt anyone. That job belongs to a small display unit: four column inches with a border, a logo, and placement out among the news pages. Price both: lines times days for the liner, inches times rate for the display, using the estimator for the arithmetic.
Deadlines run tighter for classifieds than display: many dailies accept liners a day ahead, sometimes same-day by portal. The deadline page maps the calendar; obituaries, the classified desk’s most time-sensitive product, get their own page.