From the archive. First published in April 2018. Rewritten for clarity, with a note on what happened afterwards.
March 2018 was the month the Facebook page market stopped pretending. Owners everywhere reported losses in earnings, reach and activity at the same time. Large affiliate publishers stopped paying contributors or shut down. Prices for pages fell and did not recover.
Why it hit so hard
The businesses that suffered most had the same shape: a large audience on a platform they did not own, monetised by sending that audience somewhere else. When the ranking change reduced the distribution of posts carrying links, the entire model lost its mechanism at once. No amount of audience size compensates for losing the ability to move people off the platform.
What survived
- Pages in commercial niches where an advertiser wants the audience directly, rather than needing a click to monetise it.
- Pages with audiences concentrated in markets where advertising rates are high.
- Operators who had already built an email list or a destination site.
- Pages producing original video, which the platform kept rewarding.
What it means for valuations
This is the event that set today’s price range. Before it, a page with a hundred thousand followers could be worth a few thousand dollars because its reach was genuinely useful to marketers. Afterwards, prices fell by roughly an order of magnitude, and the number that mattered shifted from follower count to audience country and genuine reach.
Anyone quoting 2013 prices to you today is either confused or hoping you are. Our seller checklist sets out what buyers actually assess.
The general lesson
Every mechanic a page depends on is rented. Landing tabs vanished in 2012, likes were retired in 2021, link reach was throttled repeatedly and is now being capped outright. Price that risk in rather than assuming the current rules are permanent.
Thinking of selling?
We give free valuations with no obligation. Send us the page URL and a representative replies with a figure, usually within one business day. Looking to buy instead? Register as a buyer.
