Email Newsletter Business

How Much Money Do Email Newsletter Businesses Make? (2024)

Pat Walls

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Updated: June 23rd, 2024

TL;DR:

Based on our data, email newsletter businesses can make between $100-$3,000,000 per month.
The average revenue for a successful email newsletter business is $189K per month.
The highest grossing email newsletter business in our records makes over $36,000,000 per year.
Email newsletter business owners salaries can vary wildly depending on industry, niche, and size of the business

So you're thinking about starting an email newsletter business?

And now you're wondering how much email newsletter business owners actually make...

Well, let’s dive in!

Here are example of real email newsletter businesses and how much money they make - as reported by the founders themselves:

1. MarketBeat ($36M/year)

Matt Paulson, the founder of MarketBeat, came up with the idea for his business while working as a freelance writer in college. He discovered that stock investors were eager for real-time information and news about their investments, leading him to create a newsletter that provided convenient and timely updates. Over time, MarketBeat evolved into a financial media company, generating $8 million in revenue in 2019 and boasting 1.3 million email subscribers.

How much money it makes: $36M/year

2. Contrarian Thinking ($3M/year)

Codie Sanchez, the founder of Contrarian Thinking, came up with the idea for her business after experiencing numerous career changes and realizing that money was the key to solving problems. After working in finance and investing, she decided to blend her love for writing, investing, and teaching others to create a company that helps people achieve financial freedom. Through her premium membership community, Contrarian Cashflow, she teaches members how to add more cash-flowing income streams to their portfolios and build the life they have always dreamed of. With over 100,000 newsletter subscribers, a community of 1.5 million people, and a run rate of $3 million this year, Contrarian Thinking is empowering individuals to challenge the status quo and shape their own destinies.

How much money it makes: $3M/year

3. Tetra ($2.4M/year)

Phil Rivers, an email marketer, started Tetra in 2019 as a one-man shop with $5k/month in revenue. He focused on email marketing for e-commerce businesses and grew Tetra to a team of 15 with $200k MRR and over $200,000,000 in sales generated for clients.

How much money it makes: $2.4M/year

4. GreenRope ($1.92M/year)

metrics for our business are our customer satisfaction and retention rates, which remain consistently high. We currently have over 1,000 customers in over 20 countries, ranging from startups to universities and municipalities. Moving forward, we plan to continue evolving and improving our platform to meet the changing needs of businesses and provide even greater value to our customers.

How much money it makes: $1.92M/year

5. The Milk Road ($1.5M/year)

Shaan Puri and Ben Levy were friends. While working on Shaan’s brand, they delved deep into the crypto ecosystem. Since they were talented writers, they decided to turn their hobby and interests into a full-time gig.

embed:tweet

Shaan's Tweet explaining how they started Milk Road

How much money it makes: $1.5M/year

6. Taximail ($1.44M/year)

Phaiboon Trikanjananun, a computer engineer and serial entrepreneur, came up with the idea for Taximail while sitting in his garden in 2012. Drawing on his experience in the digital business, he saw a need for a locally homegrown email marketing platform that could cater to all types of businesses. Today, Taximail serves over 5,000 reputable organizations in Thailand and continues to grow.

How much money it makes: $1.44M/year

7. Buttondown ($900K/year)

Justin built Buttondown to scratch his own itch — all of the other email tools he tried were either super-heavy (like Mailchimp or ConvertKit) or wanted to own his entire blogging presence like Medium or Substack. There wasn’t anything that just let him drop in a <form> tag into a blog and automatically send out emails, so he decided to build something just like that on a hunch that other people shared his use case.

How much money it makes: $900K/year

8. I Know The Pilot ($840K/year)

Garth Adams, the founder of I Know The Pilot, came up with the idea for his business after noticing that people were occasionally sharing cheap flights on shopping deal websites. He decided to start his own flight deals site, separate from his existing site IWantThatFlight.com.au, and launched IKnowThePilot.com.au as a WordPress site attached to a Mailchimp email list. The business grew rapidly, with over 780,000 email subscribers, 110,000 app users, and 550,000 Facebook fans at its height.

How much money it makes: $840K/year

After leaving his job at Airbnb, Lenny started thinking about what he learned there and what he could do next. He wrote his thoughts on Evernote and ended up publishing it on Medium.

His writing got a lot of attention, even from the big boss at Airbnb! He was surprised that his story could make money and that people liked what he had to say.

This made him want to write more, and that’s how he started his newsletter.

A snapshot of Lenny's initial Post on Medium

How much money it makes: $492K/year

10. Yolo Intel ($240K/year)

Yolanda Edwards, founder of Yolo Journal, came up with the idea after realizing there was a gap in the market for a travel magazine that focused on providing trustworthy and insider information. With her background in the magazine industry and passion for travel, she launched Yolo Journal and quickly gained success, with her weekly newsletter now bringing in $20k a month.

How much money it makes: $240K/year