How I Made $4,626 from My Newsletter

It might sound a little off-topic for this newsletter, but every time I send a newsletter issue, I get several emails asking me how I got sponsors, if the newsletter is monetized, how easy or difficult it is, and so on.

So I decided to share my experience and give you a behind-the-scenes look.

Here’s how I made $4,262 by sending a newsletter 4 times a month.

You Need Two Things

1. An opinion: This is what you’re going to write about. Any opinion or area of expertise works, there’s an audience out there ready to read.

2. A beehiiv account: If you don’t already know, beehiiv is my favorite email marketing platform. It is the one I personally use and have been preaching about. I ran a small comparison for you at the bottom of this post

How I Made $4,262.32

I started monetizing my newsletter in February 2024, and since then, I generated $4,262.32.

How Much Time Does it Take?

I had 33 subscribers when I made my first $1.

I spend 45 minutes a week writing and editing my newsletter.

This time is split into 30 minutes of actual writing, and 15 minutes of hunting down the latest social media news links and updates.

4 issues a month take around 3 to 3.5 hours of my time.

What are my Revenue Streams?

I’ve been working with three: Sponsorships, beehiiv Boosts, and Premium Subscriptions.

#1 Sponsorships

50% of my revenue comes from advertisers sponsoring my newsletter.

You don’t need a huge audience at all.

I had my first sponsor when I had 33 subscribers.

beehiiv does EVERYTHING for me. I don’t need to do any sales or outreach to advertisers.

beehiiv’s ad network matches advertisers with the content of my newsletter and sends me sponsorship opportunities multiple times a week.

All I have to do is check the opportunity, see if it aligns with my audience, accept it, and schedule it.

beehiiv offers an extensive ad network that allows you to easily match with premium sponsors and plug them into your newsletter.

#2 Boosts

Boosts is a feature that allows you to earn money by recommending other newsletters to your subscribers.

You can earn up to $3 or more per subscriber who joins another newsletter email list through your recommendation.

Also, Boosts are like a newsletter ad campaign.

This feature is a click of a button to set up.

#3 Premium Subscriptions

An area I am focusing on this half of the year, it’s one of the most straightforward ways to monetize your newsletter.

Offer a paid subscription for access to premium features/content.

beehiiv gives me the subscription functionality without taking a percentage of my revenue.

And you can be creative with the tiers, pricing, and any front-end offer.

beehiiv vs. Others

I have friends who use Substack and ConvertKit who keep having to navigate through continuous platform changes, weird commissions, and newsletters that don’t land in their subscribers’ inboxes (looking at you, Substack!)

I audited every single major email platform out there and created a comparison table

Today’s Sponsor

Today’s issue is brought to you by beehiiv 🐝 
I’m a big fan of the platform and have been actively advocating for it since I started my journey earlier this year.

I want all my friends and subscribers to know that no matter how small or big their audience is, there’s room to start monetizing your knowledge in an easy and fun way!

Whether you’re a solopreneur, a content creator, or anything in between, beehiiv is an excellent platform to explore for making money through newsletters.

I am collaborating with them to give you 20% off a beehiiv subscription for 3 months.

👉️ Sign up now and get 20% off. You can start monetizing to cover your subscription fees from the first month—how cool is that!