How we calculate

Industry benchmarks combined with your own numbers, shown as honest ranges.

Three ways to value a newsletter

Ordered from most to least reliable.

1. Verified revenue
Most reliable
Annual = Paid subs × Price × 12 × 87%
The 13% covers Substack (10%) and Stripe (~3%) fees.
2. Ad potential
Estimated range
Monthly = Opens × CPM × Ad slots × Sponsored posts
Low and high estimates scale with newsletter size.
Under 25K subscribers, newsletters rarely sell ads directly.
3. Sale value
If sold today
Sale price = Annual revenue × 1.5–4×
Based on real acquisitions such as Morning Brew and The Hustle.

Sponsorship by size

Bigger lists sell more posts, more slots and higher CPMs.

Subscribers	Posts/mo	Slots	CPM
Under 25KRarely sell ads directly	1	1	0.5×
25K–100K	2	1	0.8×
100K–500K	4	1.5	1×
500K–1M	8	2	1.2×
1M+	15	2.5	1.5×

CPM by category

Base rates per 1,000 opens, before size multipliers.

Crypto$50–$140
Business$50–$100
Marketing$38–$98
Finance$35–$80
Tech$35–$70
Lifestyle$25–$70
Other$25–$70

Paid revenue and sale value

Used when a newsletter has paid subscribers.

Net paid revenue

Paid subs × Price × 12 × 87%

500 paid subs at $10/mo is $52,200 a year, net.

Sale multiple

Annual revenue × 1.5–4×

Morning Brew$75M~4×
The Hustle$27M~2.5×

Worked example

A 100K-subscriber business newsletter with a 40% open rate.

Opens: 100,000 × 40% = 40,000
CPM range: $50–$100
Posts per month: 4 (large tier)
Ad slots per post: 1.5
Monthly: 40 × $50–$100 × 1.5 × 4 = $12K–$24K
Annual sponsorship potential: $144K–$288K

Data sources

Rates are cross-referenced from these industry reports.

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