Sizes: the workhorse
Half page newspaper ad cost
63 column inches. Enough to dominate the spread without paying for the whole room.
A half page is 63 column inches: 6 columns by 10.5 inches lying down, or 3 columns by 21 standing up. On the one published national card it computes to $22,209.39 (WSJ Western Edition, color, open) and $90,592.74 (national edition). Metro and local half pages are quote-only; the grid math travels to any per-inch rate a desk gives you.
Source: WSJ 2026 General Advertising Rate Card, Issue #92, effective Jan 1 2026, retrieved Jul 31, 2026.
Horizontal or vertical
The horizontal half (6 x 10.5) owns the bottom of a page: nothing runs beneath you, and editorial sits directly above, which is where eyes come from. The vertical half (3 x 21) runs floor to ceiling beside editorial, unmissable on the spread but competing with the news column by column. For offer-driven ads the horizontal is the default craft choice; the vertical suits brand-scale art. Same 63 inches, same price on a per-inch card, so the orientation is free strategy.
| Size | Col. inches | Computed price | Price per col. inch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quarter page | 31.5 | $11,104.70 | $352.53 |
| Half page | 63 | $22,209.39 | $352.53 |
| Full page | 126 | $44,418.78 | $352.53 |
Source: WSJ 2026 General Advertising Rate Card, Issue #92, effective Jan 1 2026, retrieved Jul 31, 2026. A flat per-inch card means no volume break for size alone; discounts come from frequency contracts, not square footage. Modular cards at other papers may price differently; divide any module by its inches to check.
The per-dollar case
When the half beats the full page
A reader cannot ignore a half page; the extra 63 inches of a full page mostly buy silence around a message the half already delivered. So the half wins per dollar whenever the goal is response rather than occasion. The stronger move with a full-page budget is the same half page run twice, because reach decays slower than memory: frequency contracts also price the second run below the first, which the one-off full page never gets. Reserve the full page for the statement moments.