Building a newsletter business
A business built on an audience you own. The writing is the smaller part of the work, the published rates are lower than the stories suggest, and the time is the largest cost.
The decision
Whether to spend your own time, unpaid at first, building an audience you could earn from, in place of or alongside a job.
The risk
The audience stays small, the revenue does not cover the hours, and the time was spent without a salary.
What the business is
General information, not a promise of income
Every rate on this page is a published median or an invented example. None is a forecast for your publication, and the figures at the top of each range are from the best-performing tenth of publications, not a target.
A newsletter business sells attention or knowledge, by email. It has three common sources of revenue and they behave differently. Sponsorships are paid by advertisers for a place in an issue and scale with the size and engagement of the audience. Paid subscriptions are paid by readers for content behind a paywall and scale with the number of readers who convert and stay. Referrals and products, such as courses, events and consulting, are paid by a fraction of the audience at a higher price. Most businesses begin with a free list, because the free list is what the other three are sold to.
Platforms, and what they take
What each platform states about fees on paid subscriptions, as read on 30 October 2026
| Substack | Beehiiv | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee on paid subscription revenue | 10%. | 0%. Beehiiv states that it takes 0% of paid subscription revenue. |
| Payment processing | Stripe: 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, and a 0.5% fee on recurring subscriptions, charged separately. | Payment processor fees still apply. |
| Cost of the platform | Free to publish; the fee applies only if paid subscriptions are on. | A plan fee. New plans and prices apply to new customers from 1 October 2026, so check the current pricing page. |
What a $10 monthly subscription leaves, shown once
- On Substack
- Platform fee 10% = $1.00. Stripe 2.9% = $0.29 plus $0.30, and 0.5% = $0.05. Total fees $1.64, so $8.36 reaches the publisher.
- The difference at scale
- 1,000 paying subscribers at $10 a month is $10,000 a month. The 10% fee is $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year. A flat plan fee does not grow with revenue, so which is cheaper depends on your revenue and on the plan price at the time.
Read as a table
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| One monthly subscription | $10.00 |
| Platform fee, 10% | -$1.00 |
| Stripe, 2.9% | -$0.29 |
| Stripe, $0.30 a charge | -$0.30 |
| Stripe, 0.5% recurring | -$0.05 |
| Total fees | $1.64 |
| Reaches the publisher | $8.36 |
The list is the asset, so check that you can export your subscribers and your payment relationships before you build on a platform. A publisher who cannot move their list has handed the business to the platform.
The unit economics, from published data
The best public dataset on paid newsletters is Beehiiv’s State of Paid Newsletters 2026, published on 22 June 2026 from first-party data on thousands of paid publications on its platform. It covers only publications that charge, on one platform, and the medians are of those publications, so it describes publications that have already tried to charge and does not cover those that never did.
Beehiiv, State of Paid Newsletters 2026
| Measure | Median | Best-performing tenth |
|---|---|---|
| Free-to-paid conversion, all publications | 0.62%, about six paying readers per thousand free subscribers. | The range across topics runs from 5.55% (technology) to 30.80% (economy). |
| Free-to-paid conversion, finance | 0.78% | 20.00% |
| Free-to-paid conversion, investing | 0.84% | 18.69% |
| Price, all publications | $10 a month, $100 a year. | Top quartile for yearly investing pricing reaches $600. |
| Price, finance and investing | Finance $20 a month. Investing $27 a month, $292 a year. | |
| Monthly churn, investing | 11.72%, an estimated lifetime of about 8.5 months. | |
| Monthly churn, money | 16.67%, an estimated lifetime of about 6 months. | |
| Lifetime value, investing | $230 per subscriber, the highest of the topics reported. |
A list of 10,000, at the median and at the top tenth, shown once
- At the finance median
- 10,000 x 0.78% = 78 paying subscribers. At $20 a month that is $1,560 a month, or $18,720 a year, before platform fees, payment fees and churn.
- At the top tenth
- 10,000 x 20.00% = 2,000 paying subscribers, or $40,000 a month. This is the 90th percentile of publications, not what to expect.
- Replacing churn
- At 11.72% monthly churn, a base of 78 loses about 9 subscribers a month (78 x 0.1172 = 9.1) and has to win that many just to stand still.
- The hourly rate
- If a weekly issue takes 10 hours, that is about 43 hours a month (10 x 4.33). $1,560 / 43.3 = about $36 an hour, gross. The 10 hours is an assumption: count your own.
Sponsorships, open rates and CPM
Open rate. Beehiiv’s report on business publications (published 25 October 2026, data drawn in September 2026) gives a median open rate of 42.49% across 4,755 publications, and calls such figures directional benchmarks rather than a measure of human readership. Recorded opens include machine opens from email privacy features, so an open rate overstates attention and is better read as a trend than a count.
CPM, the price a sponsor pays per thousand. There is no audited public benchmark. Two public examples read in October 2026 differ by a factor of two. A Beehiiv guide on pricing sponsorships (9 April 2026) uses a $50 CPM on a 10,000-subscriber list as a worked example, giving $500 a placement, and cites no source for it. A rate calculator for finance newsletters states $25 per thousand opens, citing industry benchmarks without naming a dataset. Neither is a measurement. A sponsor’s actual offer is the only real data.
What the two examples imply, shown once
- At $50 per thousand subscribers
- 10,000 / 1,000 x $50 = $500 per placement.
- At $25 per thousand opens
- With a 40% open rate, 4,000 opens per issue. 4,000 / 1,000 x $25 = $100 per placement.
- One placement a week for a year
- 52 x $100 = $5,200 to 52 x $500 = $26,000, if every slot sells. Slots rarely all sell, and a sponsor who sees few clicks does not return.
The costs, the time and the uncertainty
- Platform fees and payment fees, as above.
- Tools: design, analytics, email deliverability and a domain.
- Accountancy and tax as a self-employed person or through a company. Revenue is not profit, and the tax bill arrives whether the year was good or not.
- Acquiring subscribers. A list does not grow by itself, and paid acquisition has a cost per subscriber that must be earned back.
- Time, which is the largest cost and the one that does not appear on any statement. Count the hours across writing, research, editing, replying, selling sponsorships and growing the list.
The uncertainty is structural. Median conversion is well under one per cent while the top tenth is thirty times higher, so outcomes are spread very widely and the median publication earns little. Churn means the paying base is rebuilt continuously. Sponsorship demand moves with the advertising market, and a platform’s recommendation features or policies can change the growth you were relying on. A sensible way to start is alongside a job, with a review date on which the question is whether the audience has grown and the hours have paid for themselves.
How the skills move between finance and creating
Into the business. Finance gives a domain, the discipline of defending a view with numbers, and credibility with an audience that wants it. The models help: subscription revenue, retention and the cost of winning a reader are the same arithmetic as a software company’s, and the SaaS operating model builds it.
Out of the business. A public record of analysis is the thing the research and venture seats reward when they hire without a scheme. Writing to a deadline in public is the best training equity research offers, and a publication that has built an audience is evidence of product, growth and marketing skill that a CV cannot show.
Two things to check before publishing
If you are employed in finance, your employer will almost certainly require approval for outside business activities, and publishing views on securities may be restricted. Separately, writing about securities can fall under financial promotion or investment adviser rules depending on how personalised it is and whether you charge for it, so take advice before charging for specific recommendations.
This page is about a business
Working for a company, including a startup, is employment and carries different risks, set out on the startup careers pathway. Trading your own capital is a second business, with its own evidence, on the independent trading pathway.
Go further
On the career map
Guides
Models
Sources
Beehiiv, The State of Paid Newsletters 2026. 22 June 2026; read 30 October 2026.
Median and top-decile conversion, prices, churn, estimated lifetime and lifetime value by topic.
Press Gazette, Newsletter market in 2026: $10 per month is default price but not ceiling. 22 June 2026; read 30 October 2026.
Cross-check of the Beehiiv figures: the 0.62% median, the $10 a month price, and that the data covers Beehiiv-hosted newsletters only.
Substack, How do paid subscriptions on Substack work?. Read 30 October 2026.
The 10% platform fee, and Stripe’s 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction and 0.5% recurring fee, charged separately.
Beehiiv, beehiiv pricing 2026. 1 October 2026; read 30 October 2026.
That Beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription revenue, and that new plans and prices apply to new customers from 1 October 2026.
Beehiiv, beehiiv for Enterprise 2026. 25 October 2026 (data drawn September 2026); read 30 October 2026.
The 42.49% median open rate across 4,755 business publications, and the statement that such figures are directional benchmarks.
Beehiiv, How to price newsletter sponsorships that attract premium brands. 9 April 2026; read 30 October 2026.
The worked example of a $50 CPM on a 10,000-subscriber list. The page cites no source for the figure.
A newsletter rate calculator for finance and investing lists, 2026. Read 30 October 2026.
The $25 per thousand opens figure, which the page attributes to industry benchmarks without naming a dataset.
Questions people ask
How many paying subscribers does a newsletter get?
At the median, very few. Beehiiv’s 2026 data puts free-to-paid conversion at 0.62% across its paid publications, 0.78% in finance and 0.84% in investing, with the best tenth in finance and investing near 19% to 20%. A list of 10,000 at the finance median has about 78 paying readers.
Is Substack or Beehiiv better for paid subscriptions?
They charge differently. Substack takes 10% of paid subscription revenue plus payment fees. Beehiiv states that it takes 0% of paid subscription revenue and charges a plan fee, with payment fees still applying. Which costs less depends on your revenue and the plan price at the time, and the right first question is whether you can export your list.
What is a good open rate or CPM for a newsletter?
Open rates are unreliable because recorded opens include machine opens, and Beehiiv reports a 42.49% median across 4,755 business publications as a directional benchmark. There is no audited CPM benchmark. Public examples range from $25 per thousand opens to $50 per thousand subscribers, and a sponsor’s actual offer is the only real data.
Can I run a newsletter while working in finance?
Often not without approval. Most finance employers require sign-off for outside business activities and may restrict publishing views on securities. Charging for specific recommendations can also bring financial promotion or adviser rules into play, so take advice first.
The other pathways
This page is general information. It is not financial, legal or tax advice and it does not promise or imply any income.