This blog article was originally published in Revenews, which is THE ad sales newsletter written by Dan Barry, who is also running an ad sales agency Ad Sales as a Service.
Thank Dan for this opportunity! It is great to be featured in a newsletter I read every week.
Table of Content
- How Many Newsletters Offer Paid Subscriptions?
- Does the Paid Subscription Ratio Vary by Subscriber Range?
- How Active are Paid Newsletters?
- Publishing Frequency of Paid Newsletters
- Average Paid Subscription Prices
- Price Variations Across Subscriber Ranges
- Price Variations by Publishing Frequency
- Additional Findings from the Report
Understanding The Newsletter Landscape
Substack has more than 35 million active subscriptions, including more than 3 million paid subscriptions. For the last two years, I’ve interviewed 70 newsletter operators about how they build their publications from scratch.
After diving deep into their success stories, I realized it was time to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I needed to see real data about what’s happening in the newsletter space.
I wanted real data to understand what’s happening across the newsletter space.
Since such data was lacking on a large scale, I decided to get my hands dirty. I analyzed publicly available data from 75K Substack newsletters and created a free comprehensive report.
In this article, I’ll share key insights about paid subscriptions—a crucial monetization strategy for transforming your newsletter into a sustainable business with recurring revenue.
👇 For the full analysis, you can access the report for free.
Zoom into Paid Subscription on Substack
🤔 How Many Newsletters Offer Paid Subscriptions?
Of the 75K newsletters analyzed, 35.7% offer a paid subscription.
This means there are 27K paid newsletters and 48K free newsletters.
While only 36% of all newsletters offer paid subscriptions, this ratio increases to 50% among active newsletters.
How to interpret: Substack’s business model relies on paid subscriptions, taking a 10% commission on transactions, so it actively encourages creators to activate paid subscriptions. However, free content still dominates the platform.
P.S. Data for the report is pulled on May 10th. Newsletters that published their latest issue within the past six weeks (between April 1st and May 10th) are classified as “Active.”
🧮 Does the Paid Subscription Ratio Vary by Subscriber Range?
We have subscriber number information for 12K active newsletters.
When we zoom into paid subscription ratios across subscriber ranges, we see it increases as the list size gets bigger.
Paid subscriptions are highest among newsletters with 100K+ subscribers (75%), followed by newsletters with 20K-50K subscribers (74%).
How to interpret: Creators tend to grow their audience to a certain size before activating paid subscriptions. Substack suggests that 5%-10% of free subscribers typically convert to paid**, but many creators share lower conversion rates, particularly with smaller lists. This could discourage newer or smaller newsletters from monetizing early, as they focus on the growth and mastering other aspects of running a newsletter business.
🏃How Active are Paid Newsletters?
Among the 75K newsletters analyzed, nearly half are inactive.
- 57% of free newsletters are inactive.
- Only 24% of paid newsletters are inactive, the lowest rate.
This means 6,500 inactive paid newsletters, which is still a significant number.
How to interpret: While paid newsletters are less likely to go inactive, creators may abandon their newsletters if their revenue doesn’t justify the effort or if they switch to other platforms.
📝 Publishing Frequency of Paid Newsletters
Paid newsletters tend to publish more frequently than free ones:
- 27% of paid newsletters publish weekly, compared to 21% overall and 18% for free newsletters.
- 22% publish multiple times a week, versus just 8% of free newsletters.
- 5% of paid newsletters publish daily, compared to 2% for free ones.
How to interpret: Paid newsletters often include exclusive content to retain paid subscribers, driving the need for higher publishing frequencies. Additionally, creators use free content strategically to convert free subscribers into paid ones.
These might lead to higher publishing frequencies.
🤑 Average Paid Subscription Prices
Among active paid newsletters, the average subscription prices are:
- Avg. Monthly Price: $10
- Avg. Yearly Price: $96
- Avg. Founding Price: $310
How to interpret: Many creators adopt the standard subscription model of offering two months free with annual plans.
🎢 Price Variations Across Subscriber Ranges
Subscriber number information is available for 7,557 newsletters out of 20,247 active paid newsletters.
Compared to the overall average:
- Avg. yearly price is relatively higher among newsletters with 5K-10K and 50K-100K subscribers.
- Avg. founding price is relatively higher among newsletters with 5K-10K, 20K-50K and 50K-100K subscribers.
How to interpret: Monthly subscription prices are relatively stable across subscriber ranges, suggesting that creators prioritize audience growth and converting free subscribers over increasing prices.
🧹 Price Variations by Publishing Frequency
Among 20,247 active paid newsletters:
- Daily and monthly paid newsletters charge relatively higher subscription prices compared to the overall average.
- Avg. Founding Price of bi-monthly newsletters ($690) is more than double the overall average ($310).
How to interpret: Monthly newsletters may charge more because they deliver in-depth research or unique perspectives, requiring more preparation time. On the other hand, newsletters publishing multiple times a week often justify membership prices through frequent updates, even if the content isn’t as deep.
Additional Findings from the Report
- 87% of the newsletters are in English.
- 82% have less than 10K subscribers.
- Running a newsletter is a solo business. 95% of active newsletters are run by one creator, which is valid for both free and paid ones.
- 69% of all newsletters use Substack’s ‘recommendation feature’ and recommend at least 1 other Substack newsletter.
- 56% of all newsletters shared at least one post on Substack Notes.
- X is the most shared social media link by newsletter creators, representing 33% of all shared links.
Would you like to learn more about how to build a paid subscription for your newsletter?
This report uncovered a wealth of insights about newsletter paid subscriptions, sparking my curiosity to dive deeper into what it takes to craft a successful paid subscription strategy.
In 2025, I’ll be releasing exclusive mini-reports for my paid members, featuring original insights on:
- Best practices for paid subscriptions
- Strategies for differentiating free and premium content
- How to convert free subscribers into paying members
If you’d like access to these reports, I have a special year-end deal for you: Sign up for an annual membership now and get 20% off—pay $80 instead of $100!
