Newsletters and email lists

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

These are examples of the claim, taken from our collection of 6 tweets on this scheme¹. The collection is small, so the page also rests on how the method is promoted generally and on what the platforms publish. View counts are as collected. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted. We quote only the opening of each tweet; the images, videos and linked threads attached to them were not viewed.

“This made me quit my 9-5 job for GOOD. EMAIL MARKETING You can make thousands selling through email, and the best part is AI can do 90% of the work.” (truncated)

@Zephyr_hg, 7 December 2024, 17,688 views¹

“I have built two paid newsletters to 6 figures: • Write With AI ($400k/year) • Category Pirates ($200k/year) These are the 5 proven steps to build a 6-figure newsletter:” (truncated)

@Nicolascole77, 27 September 2025, 8,821 views¹

“The biggest reason most newsletters never: • Hit 1,000 subscribers • Turn readers into customers • Generate $10,000 (or more) per month Is so simple, it’s complicated.” (truncated)

@Nicolascole77, 2 August 2026, 8,105 views¹

“If you’re a founder/exec without a personal newsletter, you’re being financially irresponsible. How my newsletter got me to $1M with only 920 subs:” (truncated)

@_May_Ham, 12 June 2026, 1,010 views¹

The other two tweets come from accounts too small to name under our rules. One describes a finance newsletter on Substack that earned nothing for six months and says its author later had 160 paying subscribers. The other states a total of about $187,700 generated by email marketing¹.

Every one of the six states a revenue figure or an outcome. Five state no profit; one says it has become a business with a six-figure profit, without giving the figure. None states costs. One mentions long hours without a number. One gives a list size (920). One gives the price its first payer paid (£15 a month) and a later count of 160 paying subscribers¹.

What the scheme is

You collect email addresses from people who agree to hear from you, and you write to them regularly. Three different businesses hide under the word “newsletter”:

1. Paid subscriptions. Some readers pay a monthly or yearly fee for extra issues.
2. Sponsorship and ads. A company pays to appear in the email.
3. Selling to the list. The emails are free and exist to sell something else: a course, coaching, a community, or a service. A variant is doing this work for other businesses as a paid job (“email marketing”).

The tweets mix all three. One of the six describes revenue generated from clients’ lists, not from the author’s own newsletter. Another uses its own newsletter to win clients for a services business¹¹³. The largest figures in the collection come from the third business.

The mechanism is real. Substack, a newsletter platform, says on its own page that it carries 5 million paid subscriptions¹⁸. beehiiv, another platform, says its publishers earned $19 million from paid subscriptions in 2025, up from $8 million in 2024⁷. The question is how that money is spread.

The arithmetic

Step 1: price

beehiiv published figures in June 2026 from what it calls “the thousands of paid publications on beehiiv”, covering 2021 to 2026. It gives no exact count⁴. The median price is $10 a month or $100 a year⁴. “Median” means the middle one: half charge more, half less. The topic sets the price more than the size of the list does: investing newsletters charge a median of $27 a month, finance $20, business $15 and travel $7⁴.

Step 2: what the platform keeps

Substack keeps 10% of each subscription payment. Stripe, the company that handles the card payments, takes 2.9% plus $0.30 per payment for US cards, and another 0.7% for recurring billing². Publishing for free costs nothing².

Our sum: from a $10 monthly payment the writer keeps $10 − $1.00 − $0.29 − $0.30 − $0.07 = $8.34. From a $5 payment the writer keeps $4.02, because the fixed 30 cents weighs more on small payments. Substack’s page says “90% goes to you” before card fees¹⁸; at common prices the real share is about 80% to 83% (our estimate from²).

Subscriptions bought inside Substack’s iPhone app cost more. Since August 2025 Apple’s payment system is switched on for every paid Substack publication in that app and writers cannot opt out. Apple takes 30% in a subscription’s first year and 15% after. By default Substack raises the in-app price to cover it³². This applies only in countries where Apple’s system is enabled, and readers in the US are still shown the ordinary web checkout inside the app³².

beehiiv takes 0% of subscription revenue (Stripe’s 2.9% plus $0.30 still applies), but paid subscriptions and ads are only available on its paid plans, shown at $49 and $95 a month with yearly billing (paying month by month costs more: the page says yearly billing “saves up to 20%”). Its free plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers³. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) blocked our agents; an archived copy of its pricing page from 9 October 2026 shows a free plan up to 10,000 subscribers and a fee of 3.5% plus 30 cents on sales⁵⁸.

So software is cheap. It is not what decides the result.

Step 3: how many free readers pay

This is the figure that decides everything. It is called the conversion rate: the share of free subscribers who become paying ones.

The two big platforms publish very different numbers.

• beehiiv measured it: “The median paid conversion rate across beehiiv is 0.62%. For every 1,000 subscribers, about 6 are paying.” This is the median among newsletters that already charge, not among all newsletters; one with no paid plan earns nothing this way. The top quarter begins at roughly 2% to 5%, depending on the topic⁴.
• Substack’s guide says: “We tend to see 5-10% of free subscribers convert to paying subscriptions, with 10% being a rate to aim for.” It gives no sample, date or method⁵. A 2022 Substack post says 3% to 10%⁶.

Substack’s figure is eight to sixteen times beehiiv’s median. We could not reconcile them. The platforms differ (Substack says more than 30% of paid subscriptions come from inside its own network¹⁸), and Substack’s figure may describe publications that already went paid successfully. Where they conflict we lean on beehiiv’s, because it is a stated median from a stated set of publications.

The median may be too low for a writer who builds a list in order to charge. beehiiv says publishers who treat the paid plan “as an afterthought” are “stuck at 0.3% conversion”, and “Those who build it intentionally achieve 5%+ conversion rates”⁴. Every named case in “The upside” below converts between about 1% and 7% (our sums from the figures given there). Those are the ones that got written about, so they are not typical. They do show where a deliberate paid product can sit.

The spread inside beehiiv’s data is also wide. In finance the median is 0.78% and the top tenth convert 20.00% or more. In investing it is 0.84% against 18.69%. The entry point to the top tenth runs from 5.55% (technology) to 30.80% (economy)⁴. beehiiv itself warns that small categories may be skewed upwards⁴.

Step 4: the list size the claim needs

Take $10 a month as the price. $1,000 a month before fees needs 100 payers. $10,000 a month needs 1,000 payers. The table shows how big a list that needs at each conversion rate (our sums: payers divided by the rate).

After Substack and Stripe fees ($8.34 kept per $10), the payer counts rise to about 120 and 1,199 (our estimate from²).

A higher price changes the picture. beehiiv’s own worked example: a 5,000-subscriber investing newsletter at the median conversion (0.84%) and median price ($27 a month) earns roughly $13,600 a year. The same list in travel earns about $1,260⁴.

Step 5: how big a new list gets

beehiiv says newsletters launched on its platform in 2025 reached a median of 482 subscribers in the first month and 8,314 after a year⁷. Our estimate: 8,314 × 0.62% is about 52 payers, or about $515 a month at $10, before card fees and beehiiv’s monthly plan fee.

That 8,314 is probably flattering. The report does not say whether newsletters that stopped are counted, or how many launches brought an existing list or audience with them⁷. Treat it as a ceiling for someone starting from nothing.

Step 6: paying readers leave

“Churn” is the share of paying subscribers who cancel each month. beehiiv’s medians by topic run from 5.06% (food and drink) to 16.67% (money). Investing loses 11.72% a month and AI newsletters 13.33%⁴. In its words: “5% monthly churn means ~54% survive a year. 17% monthly churn means ~11% make it to month 12.”⁴

Our estimate: to hold 1,000 payers steady, a newsletter must find 50 to 170 new payers every month. At 0.62% conversion that is 8,000 to 27,000 new free subscribers a month. This assumes new readers convert at the same 0.62% as the existing list, which beehiiv does not measure. The median paying subscriber is worth $83 to $230 over their whole stay, depending on topic; beehiiv notes these are simplified estimates⁴.

Step 7: ads instead of subscriptions

Ads are priced per thousand readers. The term is CPM: the price for 1,000 readers or 1,000 opens.

• Paved, a marketplace for newsletter sponsorships, wrote in 2024: “A CPM for a healthy newsletter is somewhere between $10 and $30” per 1,000 subscribers¹⁰.
• beehiiv’s ad network is open only to paid plans. It pays either per 1,000 unique opens (each reader who opens is counted once) or per click, and the advertiser chooses which. Its examples are “a $5 CPM means you earn $5 for every 1,000 unique opens” and “a $2 CPC with 100 verified clicks would earn you $200”⁸. These are illustrations, not stated averages, so we do not build a sum on them.
• Dupple, a company that sells newsletter ads, reports $7 to $19 per 1,000 on its own placements⁶⁹.

Our estimate, with one ad in a weekly issue (4.33 sends a month) and every slot sold:

Both rows use one vendor’s 2024 range for sponsors a newsletter sells directly. Ad-network placements and direct sponsors are different products with different prices, and many newsletters use both: beehiiv says “some months saw the Ad Network contribute $1M+” to publishers in 2025 and that “some publishers forged direct partnerships with relevant advertisers” on top⁷. We found no measured median for either. beehiiv’s pricing page labels ad monetisation “Avg. $39/mo”³; the page does not say what is averaged or over what period.

Step 8: selling something to the list

Mailchimp, an email provider, reports that an average email is opened by 35.63% of recipients and clicked by 2.62% (figures last updated December 2023)¹¹. Our sum: on a 1,000-person list, about 26 people click a typical email. That is the real audience for any offer in it. Only a large list or an expensive product turns 26 clicks into a living.

This is the sum behind the “$1M with only 920 subs” tweet. Its full text says most newsletter media companies earn $10 to $20 per subscriber over the subscriber’s life, and that the author’s business reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR: the current monthly income multiplied by twelve) from 920 readers, “$1,000 per subscriber”¹³. Our sum: $1,000,000 ÷ 920 = $1,087 per reader. The tweet describes a hand-picked list of company decision-makers, recruited with more than 1,000 direct messages¹³. It refers to “client work” and to people who “could decide to work with my team”, but it does not state what is sold, the price, the number of clients, the costs or the profit; images and linked material were not viewed. The figure is the author’s own statement, and it is a run rate, not money shown as received.

A page on the same author’s company site spells out the mechanism: ads bring “$4–$6 per reader, per year”, and the large sums come from high-priced products “Where one $5K client covers the entire month”⁵³. So 920 readers would bring about $3,700 to $5,500 a year from ads (our sum). Our reading: the $1 million a year run rate comes from selling the company’s services to businesses, with email as the sales channel. A Circle profile in the author’s name describes The Feed Media as “a growth agency”⁵³. The tweet itself does not say what is sold.

Step 9: buying readers

Readers can be bought. SparkLoop, a network where newsletters pay to be recommended by other newsletters, tells publishers they earn “$2-3 per new subscriber on average” and that it keeps a 20% commission¹². The page does not give the price buyers pay, or say whether the $2-3 is before or after the commission. If it is after, the buyer pays roughly $2.50 to $3.75 a subscriber; if before, $2 to $3 (our estimate).

Our estimate: buying the 16,100 subscribers needed for $1,000 a month at median conversion would cost about $32,000 to $60,000, to produce $12,000 a year before fees from payers who leave at 5% to 17% a month. Bought growth only pays when each reader is worth far more than a $10 subscription.

What people who tried it report

Platform totals. beehiiv’s publishers earned $19 million from paid subscriptions in 2025⁷, and its ad network page shows $37,872,727 paid to creators since launch⁸. Another beehiiv page states more than 60,000 active creators and publishers⁹. Most of them do not charge readers: beehiiv says that in early 2026, 30% of its users who earned anything earned through paid subscriptions⁴. The $19 million is spread over “thousands” of paid publications; beehiiv gives no count beyond 158 in sports and “over 630” in business⁴. Our estimate: if there are between 2,000 and 9,000 of them, the average is about $2,100 to $9,500 a year each. An average is pulled up by the few large earners, so the typical paid newsletter earns less than that. beehiiv says the median 2025 launch earned its first dollar after 66 days; it does not say what share ever earn one⁷.

Substack publishes a count of earners, but no median. A Substack post of 22 April 2026 says: “As of today, nearly 100,000 publishers are earning money on Substack globally, including almost 30,000 outside the U.S.”⁷² Set against the 5 million paid subscriptions on its about page¹⁸, that is about 50 paid subscriptions per earning publisher on average (our estimate; the two figures carry different dates). At $5 to $10 a month, 50 payers bring about $3,000 to $6,000 a year before fees. Sacra, a research firm, estimates writers’ gross revenue at about $450 million⁷³, which would be about $4,500 per earning publisher (our sum from a secondary estimate). The typical earner is below these averages, because the top takes a large share: 52 newsletters alone account for at least $40.2 million²⁰. We found no Substack page stating how many reach $1,000 or $10,000 a month. Its about page says: “A few hundred paid subscribers at $5/month can replace a salary.”¹⁸ Our sum: 300 payers at $5 is $1,500 a month, about $1,206 after fees, or about $14,500 a year. 500 payers is about $24,100 a year.

Many newsletters stop. In November 2024 the operator of Newsletter Circle scraped 75,000 Substack newsletters and reported “41K active and 34K inactive”, with 36% offering a paid plan at all²¹. This is one person’s scrape and its method was not audited. The same post invites sponsors to reach “5,000 newsletter operators & enthusiasts”²¹.

Professional writers. A Muck Rack survey, as reported by Poynter in October 2025, covered 522 journalists who self-publish. “Just 6% said self-publishing is their full-time income” and “Nearly 40% said they make no money from self-publishing.”²² Most were not doing it for money: 57% gave editorial freedom as their main reason and “just 9% cited ‘financial opportunity’”. Three quarters cover the same topics as their main job, and 40% have fewer than 1,000 followers²². So this shows how self-publishing sits beside a job. It is not the failure rate of people trying to live on it. It covers websites as well as newsletters, and we read Poynter’s report, not the study.

A survey of newsletter people. HubSpot’s survey of more than 400 newsletter professionals says that in one subgroup (those who do not personalise their emails) 23% earn $0 a month and 43% earn $1 to $100⁷¹. Only that subgroup’s split was visible to us.

Newsletters for sale. LetterTrader is a marketplace where newsletters are sold. We opened every listing linked from its home page and 18 category pages, 115 in all, including ones marked as sold²³. Our estimate from those listings: the median list has about 7,900 subscribers and the median stated revenue is $124 a month. 39 state $0, 24 state $1,000 or more, 6 state $5,000 or more. A finance newsletter with 116,000 subscribers is offered for $20,000 and states $1,000 a month in revenue, which is under one cent per reader per month (our sum)²³. The figures are the sellers’ own, a blank field may show as $0, and newsletters put up for sale lean towards ones the owner is leaving. 80 of the 115 carry a December 2025 listing date, 72 of them the same day, which looks like a bulk import. Still, they show that a large free list often earns cents per reader per month.

Payment-checked revenue. TrustMRR lists businesses whose revenue is checked through payment providers. Its news and magazines category shows 80; only the first 30 loaded for us, and the page appears to list the highest lifetime revenue first²⁴. Our estimate: their median revenue over the last 30 days was about $200, and of 11 that describe themselves as newsletters none reached $5,000. If the order is as it appears, the 50 we did not see are smaller, so $200 is if anything high for the category. The sample is small, and businesses choose whether to list themselves.

Individual accounts.

• Vicki Boykis, a technical writer, reported on 7 October 2019 that she had “a little under 2k total subscribers and 137 paid subscriptions”. Her first paid issue went out on 20 May 2019, so in under five months she had made “$4,630.14 gross” and “$3,942.35 net”. Her monthly income was “hovering around $575, which is a nice supplement, but not really enough to be able to make writing newsletters a full-time thing”²⁵. Her own statement, no proof shown, seven years old.
• A small account in our collection gives a slow timeline for a Substack on financial markets: nothing for six months, then a first payer at £15 a month, then about ten payers bringing £150 a month for some 30,000 words of writing. The author then cut the newsletter to 2,000 words and launched a financial education group on Telegram, a chat app. Twelve months after that the tweet counts 160 paying subscribers. It does not say what they paid for or at what price. A ghostwriting offer followed (ghostwriting is writing published under a client’s name). The tweet does not say which part earns what¹. If all 160 paid £15 a month, that would be £2,400 a month (our estimate, resting on an assumption the tweet does not make). Self-reported.
• Anna Codrea-Rado closed a five-year newsletter with 16,000 readers in June 2022, writing that “The number of paying subscribers isn’t high enough to make this one-woman newsletter business sustainable anymore”. She also wrote that it had at one point been her “most reliable source of (good!) income” and “the springboard for writing my first book”²⁶. No income figure was given.

A 2026 signal. On 21 August 2026 Nieman Lab linked a post by the Substack writer Scott Carney under the headline “Substack writers concerned as (free) followers rise and (paid) subscribers fall”²⁹. The post is paywalled; we saw no data behind it.

What the rules allow now

Paid newsletters and sponsors are allowed. They are what the platforms are built for.

The “list that mostly sends offers” version is not.

• Substack’s content guidelines (updated 29 September 2026): “Substack is intended for high quality editorial content, not conventional email marketing.” It does not permit publications whose primary purpose is to advertise, drive traffic elsewhere or distribute offers³⁰.
• beehiiv’s acceptable use policy (16 July 2026): “newsletters that are purely marketing products or services or lead-generation vehicles are not allowed”, and “Publications that rely entirely on AI-generated material without meaningful human input are not permitted.” A lead-generation vehicle is a publication that exists to collect contacts for a seller. Occasional affiliate links (links that pay the writer a commission) are allowed³⁵.
• Mailchimp says it may not allow businesses offering “make money online schemes”, multi-level marketing (selling through recruited sellers) or affiliate marketing. It also says: “If we receive an abuse complaint, we investigate immediately and will suspend the account if the campaign or user account looks suspicious in any way.”³⁷

No bought lists. Substack: “We don’t allow imports of email addresses that were purchased, scraped, or harvested”³⁰. beehiiv and Mailchimp have similar rules³⁵³⁷. In the UK, marketing email to individuals needs their specific consent⁴⁵.

The platform holds the account. Substack’s publisher agreement says it may end the agreement or suspend access “at any time, for any reason”, and that writers may not take subscription payments outside Substack³¹. beehiiv may withhold ad and referral earnings where it finds abuse such as false signups or thin AI-made “ad-farm” publications (ones that exist mainly to carry ads), and says its decisions are final³⁵³⁶. We found no published count of accounts closed or payouts withheld by any platform.

Refunds and disputes. Substack refunds readers who ask within 7 days, and when a publication goes quiet (no posts for one month for monthly payers, six months for yearly)³³. Unused yearly terms are the writer’s debt if they stop³¹. When a reader disputes a card charge, Stripe takes back the amount plus a dispute fee that is not refunded⁴⁹.

Inbox rules. Gmail requires anyone sending 5,000 or more messages a day to its users to prove the sender’s identity with technical records, offer one-click unsubscribe and keep spam complaints below 0.30%. Since November 2025 it rejects mail that fails⁴⁰.

US law. The CAN-SPAM Act covers every commercial email: honest subject lines, a real postal address, and a working way to unsubscribe. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says each email in breach “is subject to penalties of up to $53,088”³⁸. That is the figure shown on the FTC’s page today. Paid placements and affiliate links need clear disclosure³⁹. Newsletter income is taxable whether or not a payment company reports it⁵⁰.

Tax on sales. Substack says it will collect and pay VAT (value added tax, a sales tax) and similar taxes for writers from 1 December 2026; “Until now, this responsibility has rested with publishers.”³⁴

Finance newsletters. This is the best-paying topic and the most regulated.

• US law excludes from the definition of “investment adviser” the publisher of a “bona fide … financial publication of general and regular circulation”⁴¹. Advice tailored to individual readers is a different matter.
• In the UK, a periodical is excluded from needing authorisation only if its main purpose is not investment advice⁴⁴. The Financial Conduct Authority also says promoting a regulated financial product without approval from an authorised firm may be a criminal offence; in a June 2025 action aimed at social media it reported 3 arrests and 50 warning alerts⁴³.
• In September 2022 the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged the chief analyst of one newsletter and others, alleging he was secretly paid for stock recommendations presented as unbiased⁴². These are allegations in the agency’s release; we did not check the outcome for each defendant.
• The FTC settled two cases against sellers of paid financial subscriptions. The operators of RagingBull.com, which the FTC calls “an online stock trading site”, agreed in 2022 to pay $2.425 million over alleged deceptive earnings claims and hard-to-cancel subscriptions⁴⁶. Agora Financial, a publisher, agreed in 2021 to pay more than $2 million over alleged false claims in its publications about a diabetes cure and a government cheque programme⁴⁷. Both were settlements of allegations, not court findings. We could not read the two orders to see what each company admitted or denied.

These cases concern only the companies and people named in them.

Unsettled. The FTC’s 2024 “click-to-cancel” rule on subscriptions was struck down by an appeals court in July 2025 and the agency restarted the process in 2026, according to a law firm’s summary⁴⁸.

Who makes money from it

The platforms. Substack takes 10% of every paid subscription with no cost of finding the reader². beehiiv charges a monthly fee before a writer can earn³. In a post marking its fourth year, beehiiv said it “Generates $32M of annualized revenue”, while its users had earned “over $45M” on the platform in total to that date. It also estimated more than $100 million earned by users off the platform, which the comparison leaves out⁵⁵.

Referrers. beehiiv pays partners “up to 60% commission every month” on a referred customer’s payments for a year⁵⁶. An archived Kit page offers 50% for 12 months⁵⁷. New partners start at 50% and reach 60% at the top tier⁵⁶. Our estimate: about $294 for one referral to a $49 plan at the 50% starting rate (50% × $49 × 12), and up to about $353 at 60%. None of the six tweets carried such a link¹.

Sellers of readers. SparkLoop charges per subscriber and sells a referral add-on at $2,000 a year¹²⁵⁹. The agency GrowLetter says its team has “generated over 10,000,000 email subscribers” for clients and lists no prices⁶².

Teachers. Our collection records 5 of the 6 tweets as coming from accounts tied to a course, community or service about writing or email; we did not open the six profiles¹. What we saw on the related pages:

• The two @Nicolascole77 tweets point to free material: a “FREE 5-step blueprint” through the profile link, and a free mini-training and “free crash course” at startwritingonline.com¹¹⁴. Paid products appear on other sites. The Ship 30 for 30 site, which presents “Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole” as its teachers, offers a writing community at “$99 today, then $99/mo”, and says the course alone used to cost $800⁵¹. A second site, which names “Nicolas Cole, founder of Premium Ghostwriting Academy”, charges “$300/month”⁵². The about page of Write With AI links to the $99 community¹⁵.
• The X profile of @_May_Ham lists thefeedmedia.com as its website, and a Circle profile in the same name links to both¹³⁵³. The Feed Media’s site offers a live four-week “Newsletter Accelerator”. The page lists the programme at “$2,499 value” inside a bundle it values at $9,113. Both are the seller’s value labels; the price charged did not load for us. It advertises a 180-day refund for buyers who attend the sessions and do not make at least $10,000 “as a direct result of the program”. Its sales copy describes the usual outcome without its method as an audience “that makes you $500/month instead of the $15K+ it should be generating”⁵³.
• The @Zephyr_hg tweet asks for a like, a comment and a follow in return for a guide by direct message¹. The account’s site today shows a free newsletter with “13,000+ readers” and a membership called Run On Claude, about handing work tasks to an AI tool, at a founding price of “$147 /mo”⁵⁴. We did not see the guide.
• Other sellers: Growth In Reverse offers a community at $999 or $2,999 a year⁶⁰; Write, Grow, Sell is a four-week course whose headline includes “Grow Your Newsletter To 10k+ Subscribers and $10k+ Per Month”⁶¹.

Many of these sellers also run real newsletters. Teaching and practising are not exclusive.

One regulator case. In September 2023 the FTC sued Lurn, Inc. Its complaint alleges that Lurn’s “Email Startup Incubator”, a $1,995 course on earning through email advertising and affiliate marketing, brought in about $24 million between 2019 and November 2022⁶³. The FTC’s release says the complaint notes that across Lurn’s programmes, which also included one about Kindle books, “very few, if any consumers actually made money”⁶⁴. Lurn and its chief executive agreed to pay $2.5 million under a settlement, without a trial⁶⁴. The settlement order says they “neither admit nor deny any of the allegations in the Complaint”⁷⁴. The FTC later sent more than $2.4 million to 1,922 buyers, and its case page still lists the case as pending⁶⁴. These were the FTC’s allegations, not court findings. The case concerns only the company and people named in it, and the course taught affiliate email marketing, not paid newsletters.

The upside

Some newsletters pay well, and a few can be checked from outside. Substack shows a public badge on each publication: “Hundreds”, “Thousands” or “Tens of thousands of paid subscribers”¹⁷. With the public price, the badge gives a rough floor.

The best documented outcomes

Checking the tweets against public data. The 2025 tweet says $400k and $200k a year¹. A 2026 tweet from the same account says “$25K/month” and “$16K/month”, which is $300,000 and $192,000 a year¹⁴. The figures differ. The tweets are a year apart, so both may have been true when posted. Our estimate: $25,000 a month needs 1,250 to 1,667 payers, 1.1% to 1.4% of a 115,000 list, inside the “Thousands” band¹⁵. Category Pirates shows “Hundreds of paid subscribers” at $20 a month or $374.99 a year on a list of over 32,000; $16,000 a month needs 512 to 800 payers, also inside the band¹⁶. So the paid figures are plausible. They rest on large lists converting at 1% to 2.5%.

Both newsletters have co-authors. Write With AI’s about page presents Dickie Bush beside Nicolas Cole¹⁵. The Category Pirates page today reads “By Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, and Bri Clark” and does not name the tweet’s author¹⁶. So the figures are revenue for the publications, not one person’s income.

The same 2026 tweet lists two free newsletters at “$300K/month” and “$80,000/month”¹⁴. By the author’s own account, the free lists that sell other products earn about ten times the paid ones. We found nothing to check those two figures against. The newsletter’s own post describes plans to “do over a million dollars in revenue by upselling other digital products”²⁸.

The top. Press Gazette estimated in January 2025 that at least 52 Substack newsletters make $500,000 or more a year, “collectively earning a minimum of $40.2m”, with US politics the largest share²⁰. These are floors worked out from the public badges. Substack said in 2021 that its top 10 publications “collectively bring in more than $20 million a year”¹⁹. A secondary report says Substack’s chief executive put the number earning over $1 million at “more than 50 people” in June 2025⁶⁸.

The top tenth. On beehiiv the top tenth of newsletters that charge convert at least 5.55% to 30.80% of readers, depending on topic, against a median of 0.62%⁴. No platform publishes how income is spread across its newsletters.

A realistic good result. Our estimate from beehiiv’s medians: a first dollar in about two months, about $62 a month per 1,000 subscribers, and about 50 paying readers after a year if the list reaches the 8,314 median⁴⁷. For someone with real expertise in a well-paying topic who converts roughly 3% to 7%, three published cases give a range. All three are self-reported. One had 500 payers and about $65,000 a year before fees after a year, of which the author said he kept “maybe 60%”. One had 1,400 payers after two years, which Nieman Lab puts at $140,000 a year before fees. One had 137 payers and about $575 a month after under five months of paid issues²⁵⁶⁵⁶⁷. Their conversion rates were 3.3%, 5.2% and about 7% (our sums). That suggests a few thousand dollars to low six figures a year, before fees and tax, within one to three years. Three cases are not a sample.

What it takes to compete

A reputation or audience before the first issue. The year-one success above came after seven years as a product manager at Airbnb⁶⁵. Game File’s author edited a major games site for nine years⁶⁷. The account behind the two paid newsletters in the tweets has about 228,000 followers on X¹.

A topic where readers get money back. Investing, finance, sports and business topics carry the highest prices and the highest top-tenth conversion⁴. Travel at $7 a month and the median conversion is pocket money at almost any list size⁴.

A paid product that readers cannot get free. AI newsletters lose 13.33% of payers a month⁴. We found no evidence for or against one tweet’s claim that AI can do 90% of the work of selling by email; we did not see the guide it offers¹. Separately, beehiiv does not permit publications that rely entirely on AI-generated material³⁵.

Months of unpaid writing. Ten months free in one case⁶⁵, six months at zero in another¹.

A way to reach readers. That means an existing following, a professional network, or a budget of a few dollars per subscriber¹².

For the small-list version, something expensive to sell. One growth agency’s model, read second-hand, reaches $10,000 a month from about 1,000 subscribers only if 0.3% buy a service at $3,500 or more a month⁷⁰. That is consulting income. It needs a skill clients already pay for.

What it costs. Software is $0 to $95 a month on yearly billing, more if paid monthly³. The real costs are time and readers.

How to tell early. These are our suggestions, built on the figures above.

• After three to six months of weekly issues, is the free list growing without paid ads?
• When you switch on payments, do more than 2% of free readers pay? That is where beehiiv’s top quarter begins in the weaker topics⁴. Near 0.6% you are at the median, where 1,000 readers bring about $62 a month before fees.
• Is the share of payers leaving each month at or below the median for your topic (5% to 17% on beehiiv⁴)? Below about 5% is as good as the best topic’s median.
• Can you name the group who gain money or a professional advantage from reading you?

If the answers are no, the list may still be worth having as a way to find clients for work you already do. It is unlikely to become a wage by itself.

What we did not verify

• No revenue claim in the six tweets is verified. We checked only the two paid Substack newsletters against public badges and prices. The $1 million from 920 readers, the free-newsletter figures, the $187,700 total and the small account’s story are the authors’ own statements. Five state no profit; one states a six-figure profit without giving the figure.
• We did not open the six X profiles on X. What each account is tied to comes from our collection notes, the profile data shown by the mirror, and the pages cited. For @_May_Ham the tweet names The Feed, the profile’s website field (via the mirror) is thefeedmedia.com, and a Circle profile links the two¹³⁵³.
• The current role of the @Nicolascole77 account’s owner at Category Pirates. Its pages today name three other authors¹⁶.
• Whether RagingBull.com and Agora Financial admitted or denied the FTC’s allegations. The order files did not open as readable text⁴⁶⁴⁷.
• Tweet images, videos and linked threads were not viewed. Full tweet texts were read through a third-party mirror (api.fxtwitter.com), not on X.
• No platform publishes the median income per newsletter or how income is spread. Substack publishes a count of earning publishers⁷² but not how many publications exist to set it against. The $450 million of writer revenue is a research firm’s estimate, not Substack’s figure⁷³.
• What “Avg. $39/mo” on beehiiv’s pricing page averages³. Which of the $49 and $95 prices belongs to which plan was not cleanly readable to one of our agents.
• beehiiv’s publisher count is “60k+” on one page⁹; another agent recorded “65,000+ newsletters”. We used the first.
• Whether beehiiv’s medians include stopped newsletters or imported lists⁴⁷.
• Substack’s conversion figure has no stated basis⁵⁶. One agent recorded Write With AI at over 115,000 subscribers and another at 126,000 or more; we used the figure on its subscribe page¹⁵.
• Kit’s live site refused our agents; its figures come from archived copies⁵⁷⁵⁸. Kit’s creator income survey was not read.
• The Muck Rack study was blocked; we relied on Poynter²². The Newsletter Circle report’s method was not checked²¹.
• LetterTrader and TrustMRR counts are our own tallies²³²⁴. LetterTrader may have categories we did not find. TrustMRR showed us 30 of 80 entries, and the editor’s direct fetch returned no entries, so the order of that page was not re-checked. We did not read what LetterTrader’s “Seller Verified” badge checks.
• Real sponsorship rates in 2026: Paved’s range is from a 2024 vendor article and beehiiv’s $5 and $2 are examples⁸¹⁰. The per-subscriber prices for bought readers are sellers’ own figures¹².
• The “sell offers to a list” and “email marketing for clients” versions have no outcome data in what we found. Everything measured here concerns subscriptions and ads.
• Legal items not opened at source: the 1985 Supreme Court case behind the US publisher exclusion, Canada’s and the EU’s email rules, the final outcome of the SEC case, Stripe’s US dispute fee, and any later Lurn orders. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM page shows $53,088 but its edit note still says January 2024, so we do not know when the figure was last changed³⁸. Pages from ftc.gov, sec.gov, irs.gov and the FCA Handbook were read through a fetch tool that summarises; short quotes from them should be re-read before reuse.
• Routes: Substack’s help pages, Press Gazette, Poynter, Nieman Lab and several FTC pages refused direct fetches and were read through the reader r.jina.ai. beehiiv’s two reports were read from the data embedded in the page. The Verge and TheWrap could not be opened.
• Hours of work, and income from affiliate links or digital products, were not researched.

Sources

1. Does It Pay collection of 6 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06. File raw/2026-10-10/queue/newsletters-tweets.json; full texts re-read through api.fxtwitter.com. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
2. Substack Help, “How much does Substack cost?” https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037607131-How-much-does-Substack-cost. Updated about 2026-09-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai (direct fetch refused).
3. beehiiv, pricing. https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
4. beehiiv, “The State of Paid Newsletters 2026”. https://www.beehiiv.com/blog/the-state-of-paid-newsletters-2026. 2026-06-22. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
5. Substack, going paid guide. https://substack.com/going-paid-guide. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
6. Substack, “Going paid checklist”. https://on.substack.com/p/going-paid-checklist. 2022-08-08. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
7. beehiiv, “The State of Newsletters 2026”. https://www.beehiiv.com/blog/the-state-of-newsletters-2026. 2026-01-06 (one agent recorded 2026-01-05). Read at source on 2026-10-10.
8. beehiiv, Ad Network. https://www.beehiiv.com/features/ad-network. Undated, live counter. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
9. beehiiv, Boosts. https://www.beehiiv.com/features/boosts. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
10. Paved, “Newsletter advertising rates”. https://www.paved.com/blog/newsletter-advertising-rates/. 2024-05-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
11. Mailchimp, email marketing benchmarks. https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/. Last updated December 2023. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
12. SparkLoop, paid recommendations. https://sparkloop.app/paid-recommendations. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
13. Tweet by @_May_Ham, full text. https://x.com/_May_Ham/status/2065447507526644112. 2026-06-12. Read on 2026-10-10 through api.fxtwitter.com.
14. Tweet by @Nicolascole77, full text. https://x.com/Nicolascole77/status/2083893074271375507. 2026-08-02. Read on 2026-10-10 through api.fxtwitter.com.
15. Write With AI, subscribe and about pages. https://writewithai.substack.com/subscribe and https://writewithai.substack.com/about. Live pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
16. Category Pirates, subscribe page. https://www.categorypirates.news/subscribe. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
17. Substack, bestseller badge announcement. https://on.substack.com/p/badge. 2022-11-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
18. Substack, about page. https://substack.com/about. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
19. Substack, “One million strong”. https://on.substack.com/p/one-million-strong. 2021-11-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
20. Press Gazette, biggest Substack newsletters 2025. https://pressgazette.co.uk/newsletters/biggest-substack-newsletters-2025/. 2025-01-23. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai (direct fetch refused).
21. Newsletter Circle, Substack landscape report announcement. https://newslettercircle.substack.com/p/substack-landscape-report-is-ready. 2024-11-26. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (announcement only, not the full report).
22. Poynter, on Muck Rack’s State of Creator Journalism 2025. https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/creator-journalists-growing-income-salary-low/. 2025-10-28. Secondary, read on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
23. LetterTrader, 115 listings (home page and 18 category pages such as https://lettertrader.com/newsletters/finance; the 116,000-subscriber listing is https://lettertrader.com/newsletter/rsmhV1s-67eFtYj2). https://lettertrader.com/. Listings dated December 2025 to October 2026. Listings read at source on 2026-10-10; medians and counts are our estimate.
24. TrustMRR, News & Magazines category. https://trustmrr.com/category/news-magazines. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (30 of 80 entries); counts are our estimate.
25. Vicki Boykis, “How much I make running a paid newsletter”. https://vicki.substack.com/p/how-much-i-make-running-a-paid-newsletter. 2019-10-07. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
26. Anna Codrea-Rado, closing announcement of a five-year newsletter. https://annacodrearado.substack.com/p/pivot-to-goodbye. 2022-06-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
27. Amy Suto, “How to make money on Substack”. https://www.amysuto.com/desk-of-amy-suto/how-to-make-money-on-substack. 2026-07-04. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
28. Write With AI, “Our $400k/year newsletter strategy”. https://writewithai.substack.com/p/our-400kyear-newsletter-strategy. 2025-03-30. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (free part only).
29. Nieman Lab, link item on Scott Carney’s post (https://sgcarney.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-that-substack-is, paywalled, not read). https://www.niemanlab.org/readingtag/scott-carney/. 2026-08-21. Secondary, read on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
30. Substack, Content Guidelines. https://substack.com/content. Last updated 2026-09-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
31. Substack, Publisher Agreement. https://substack.com/pa. Last updated 2026-07-20. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
32. Substack, in-app payments FAQ. https://on.substack.com/p/in-app-payments-iap-faq. 2025-08-18. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
33. Substack Help, refund policy. https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/8915992656660-What-is-Substack-s-refund-policy. Updated about August 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
34. Substack, taxes. https://substack.com/taxes. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
35. beehiiv, Acceptable Use Policy. https://www.beehiiv.com/aup. Last modified 2026-07-16. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
36. beehiiv, Terms of Use. https://www.beehiiv.com/tou. Last modified 2026-10-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
37. Mailchimp, Acceptable Use Policy. https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/. Updated 2025-09-26. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
38. FTC, CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business. August 2023; the page’s edit note says January 2024; penalty figure as shown on 2026-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool and r.jina.ai.
39. FTC, Endorsement Guides FAQ. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
40. Google, email sender guidelines FAQ. https://support.google.com/a/answer/14229414. Undated; enforcement note from November 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
41. US Code, 15 U.S.C. § 80b-2. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/80b-2. Current text. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
42. SEC, press release 2022-182. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022-182. 2022-09-30. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
43. FCA, press release on unauthorised financial promotion. https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-leads-international-crackdown-illegal-finfluencers. 2025-06-06, updated 2026-02-20. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
44. FCA Handbook, PERG 7.4. https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/PERG/7/4.html. Provisions dated 2005 to 2018. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
45. ICO, electronic mail marketing. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guide-to-pecr/electronic-and-telephone-marketing/electronic-mail-marketing/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
46. FTC, press release on RagingBull.com. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/03/online-investment-site-pay-more-24-million-bogus-stock-earnings-claims-hard-cancel-subscription. 2022-03-08. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
47. FTC, press release on Agora Financial. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/02/publisher-will-pay-more-2-million-settle-ftc-charges-it-targeted-seniors-phony-diabetes-cure-money. 2021-02-08. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
48. Sidley Austin, on the click-to-cancel rule. https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2026/02/us-ftc-signals-renewed-interest-in-click-to-cancel-rulemaking. 2026-02-09. Secondary.
49. Stripe, how disputes work. https://docs.stripe.com/disputes/how-disputes-work. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
50. IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-K. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-form-1099-k. Updated 2026-06-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
51. Ship 30 for 30. https://www.ship30for30.com/. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
52. Premium Ghostwriting Academy. https://www.premiumghostwritingacademy.com/. 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
53. The Feed Media, Newsletter Accelerator. https://thefeedmedia.com/accelerator; Circle profile at https://discover.circle.so/nathan-may-ae5e3b. Live pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
54. Zephyr HQ. https://zephyr-hq.com/run-on-claude and https://zephyr-hq.com/subscribe. Live pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
55. beehiiv, “The beehiiv story, chapter 4”. https://www.beehiiv.com/blog/the-beehiiv-story-chapter-4. 2025-11-19. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
56. beehiiv, partner programme. https://www.beehiiv.com/partners. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
57. Kit, affiliate programme, archived copy. https://web.archive.org/web/20260918080850/https://kit.com/affiliate. Snapshot 2026-09-18. Read on 2026-10-10 through the Wayback Machine (live site refused).
58. Kit, pricing, archived copy. https://web.archive.org/web/20261009220841/https://kit.com/pricing. Snapshot 2026-10-09. Read on 2026-10-10 through the Wayback Machine (live site refused).
59. SparkLoop, pricing. https://sparkloop.app/pricing. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
60. Growth In Reverse Pro. https://growthinreverse.com/pro/. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
61. Write, Grow, Sell. https://writegrowsell.com/. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
62. GrowLetter. https://www.growletter.co/. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
63. FTC v. Lurn, Inc., complaint. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FiledLurnComplaint.pdf. 2023-09-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
64. FTC, press releases and case page on Lurn. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-acts-stop-online-business-coaching-scheme-lurn-deceiving-consumers-about-money-making-potential (2023-09-28); https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/ftc-sends-more-24-million-consumers-harmed-deceptive-business-coaching-scheme-lurn (2024-06-06); https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/lurn. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
65. Substack, “How Lenny Rachitsky earned $65,000”. https://on.substack.com/p/how-lenny-rachitsky-earned-65000. 2020-08-01. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
66. Substack, business leaderboard and Lenny’s Newsletter subscribe page. https://substack.com/leaderboard/business/paid and https://lenny.substack.com/subscribe. Live pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the revenue floor is our estimate.
67. Nieman Lab, on Game File. https://www.niemanlab.org/?p=250614. 2026-06-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
68. Passionfruit, on Substack writers earning over $1 million. https://passionfru.it/substack-over-1-million-163931/. 2025-06-04. Secondary.
69. Dupple, newsletter advertising statistics. https://dupple.com/statistics/newsletter-advertising-statistics. 2026-08-19. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
70. PPC Land, on Newsletter Operator’s service-revenue model. https://ppc.land/newsletter-monetization-trends-reveal-shift-toward-service-based-revenue/. 2025-02-23. Secondary.
71. HubSpot, State of Newsletters. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-newsletters. Updated 2025-10-31. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a fetch tool.
72. Substack, “The global ideas exchange”. https://on.substack.com/p/the-global-ideas-exchange. 2026-04-22. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
73. Sacra, Substack company profile. https://sacra.com/c/substack/. Undated; figures to 2025. Secondary (a research firm’s estimate), read on 2026-10-10.
74. FTC v. Lurn, Inc., stipulated order as to Lurn and Singal. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/LurnandSingal-order.pdf. Filed 2023-10-26. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
75. Game File, about page. https://www.gamefile.news/about. Live page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.

Corrections

If you are quoted or named on this page and think something is wrong, want your reply shown beside it, or want to be removed, write to [email protected]. We aim to reply within 14 days, and always within one month. Factual errors are corrected with a dated note here. A sentence that is seriously disputed comes down while we check it.

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