When print journalism had an extinction-level event early in this century, there was a natural migration away from newspapers to unexplored forms of digital media. Some print journalism institutions – such as The New York Times – made the transition by blending traditional investigative journalism with digital tools such as podcasting.
Digital journalism in the form of blogs, websites, and apps all suffered from the user perception that they should be free. Fremium models were attempted. Some succeeded. Most failed.
In print journalism, a newsletter was like a little brother to newspapers. It was often the communications of large companies, convincing their employees that they cared about them, even though they had just cut their health care, reduced bonuses, and hired consultants to cut out “the dead wood.”
In recent years, newsletter have made a comeback and found a comfortable niche in digital journalism. In today’s article, we will look at the state of digital newsletters specifically through the lens of a new study done called The State of Paid Newsletters 2026. We will also examine how these newsletters are leveraging podcasting in their consumer offerings.
First, let’s review the big players in the newsletter space.
CANADA – 2026/02/18: In this photo illustration, the Substack logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Substack is apremier platform for independent writers and journalists. It operates on a simple, streamlined model that allows users to easily publish content and charge readers for paid subscriptions. According to Sacra, Substack has surpassed fivemillion paid subscriptions and generates roughly $450 million in lifetime writer gross revenue. The platform reached positive cash flow and operates on a straightforward monetization model. Estimated at $45 million in annualized revenue (ARR), Substack has over 35 million active subscriptions across the platform. The top 10 authors collectively rake in $40 million annually, and the top 27 newsletters generate an estimated $22 million For active paid newsletters, the average subscription is $10/month or $96/year. The average Founding Member tier costs $310.
beehiiv is built by the growth team behind Morning Brew. It is highly favored by creators for its built-in monetization and growth tools (like referral programs and ad networks). beehiiv is a rapidly growing email newsletter and creator platform. Founded in 2021 by former Morning Brew employees, it operates as a challenger to platforms like Substack by not taking a revenue cut from its creators’ subscriptions. According to Sacra, it has 40,000+ monthly active users, featuring nearly 15,000 paying subscribers, with over $30 million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) and a valuation of $225 million.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is also top choice for digital creators and bloggers. It provides robust email automation, tagging, and seamless integration with digital products and courses. According to LinkedIn, it has $15.8M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), and a valuation of $47.5M.
Mailchimp: The long-standing powerhouse best suited for small businesses and e-commerce. It offers comprehensive marketing features, deep analytics, and CRM capabilities beyond basic newsletters. Acquired by Intuit in 2021, it boasts over 13 million users globally. It holds the largest market share in the marketing automation and email marketing sectors, sending up to one billion emails daily.
As Austin Rief, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew, put it in beehiiv’s State of Newsletters 2026: “Community will be for the next 10 years what content and newsletters were for the last 10. Paid subscriptions, community memberships, and digital products have become the financial foundation for a new generation of independent media.”
The study reveals that the creators earning the most figured out how to monetize the audience because they already have decided what to charge, when to launch paid, and how to keep subscribers past the first month.
Tyler Denk, , CEO and Co-Founder of beehiiv observes: “Before the study, most of the advice out there is either vague – just create great content – or based on a sample size of one, so we pulled the data ourselves. We analyzed the thousands of paid publications on beehiiv, covering pricing, conversion rates, cancellations, and subscriber value, all broken down by industry, list size, and billing interval. Then we talked to the publishers actually doing the work: operators running six-figure paid newsletters, industry consultants who’ve seen dozens of paid launches, and the people building the tools creators use every day.”
This is a benchmark report built on first-party platform data, real publisher insights, and tactical advice from proven operators. Here’s what the study found:
Key Takeaways at a Glance
1. $10/month and $100/year is the market standard for paid newsletters across nearly every industry and list size. It hasn’t moved since 2024.
2. Your niche determines your ceiling more than your audience size. A 1,000-subscriber investing newsletter can earn $2,700+/year. A 1,000-subscriber travel newsletter earns about $252.
3. Median conversion is 0.62%, but the top 10% in finance and investing hit 18-20%. The gap is largely execution.
4. Launch paid around the six-week mark. The median creator sets up their paid tier 45 days after starting their newsletter.
5. Retention is where the real money is. Estimated subscriber lifetime ranges from about 6 months (Money) to nearly 20 months (Food & Drink, News) — roughly a 3x difference in revenue per subscriber before pricing is even factored in.
Why Creators Are Betting on Paid Subscriptions in 2026
The smartest newsletter businesses in 2026 don’t rely on one revenue channel. They layer ads, digital products, community access, and paid content.
Paid subscriptions are the fastest-growing segment and the only revenue stream where a creator is paid directly by the reader, with no intermediary setting the rate.
Four factors drove the acceleration:
Readers got comfortable paying for niche expertise
Community access changed what a “paid newsletter” means
Platforms made subscriptions turnkey
Creators with multiple revenue streams started outperforming everyone else
Paid Newsletter Revenue Grew 138% in One Year
Subscription revenue on beehiiv grew from $8 million to $19 million in a single year (138% growth). The broader adoption trend has been building even longer.
“The combination of a richer suite of tools with a more sophisticated and mature user base of independent outlets has led to the explosion of subscription revenue growth, says Tyler Denk, CEO and Co-Founder of beehiiv.
Tyler Denk is co-founder/CEO at beehiiv. “Ever since the very first phone call to my would-be cofounder… my vision for what beehiiv could one day ultimately become has been crystal clear. This vision of a beautiful user interface, intertwined with a plethora of features and capabilities, all just working flawlessly in sync.”
Tyler Denk
According to the study, paid newsletter subscriptions have more than tripled since 2021. The first wave was finance and investing readers who could tie a subscription directly to a financial outcome. By 2025, that willingness spread into news, sports, education, and lifestyle – verticals where the value proposition is less about direct financial return and more about trust, community, and access to expertise you can’t get elsewhere.
Tyler Denk notes: “The early paid newsletters were simple – free content with some posts behind a paywall. The ones driving the 138% growth are layered businesses. They combine paid subscriptions with community access, digital products, courses, and events. The subscription anchors revenue, and everything else builds on top of it.”
Annual plans reshaped the economics
In early 2025, monthly billing accounted for roughly 70% of subscription revenue. By mid-2025, annual overtook monthly. That matters because annual subscribers churn at dramatically lower rates than monthly ones (more on that in the retention section). The study reveals that a shift to annual billing means more predictable revenue, longer subscriber lifespans, and healthier businesses. Encouraging annual plans can improve retention and make revenue more predictable.
Newsletters move into podcasting
Formerly established models of media structured themselves in a standalone universe. That separation has completely melted away. TV doesn’t just broadcast; it streams. Movies exist on an expanding number of viewing options: TVs, phones, tablets, gaming consoles, and smart devices. Podcasts are migrating to streaming services and YouTube, so it makes sense that podcasting would infiltrate the newsletter industry. To be accurate, it is a welcome addition to the industry. Substack and beehiv have robust strategies to embed audio and video into their infrastructure.
Substack’s podcast strategy is designed to shift podcasters away from relying solely on ad-supported models by focusing on audience ownership, direct monetization, and community building. The platform treats podcasts as integrated media products rather than just RSS feeds, combining audio, written essays, transcripts, and subscriber-only perks.
Episodes are paired with accompanying text, show notes, or transcripts. This caters to different audience consumption habits and boosts SEO and discovery. While Substack hosts the media files natively, it also generates an RSS feed. Creators can easily distribute their show to major directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and Pocket Casts On Substack, a new generation of audio and video shows are thriving. Of the 250 highest-revenue publications on Substack, more than half publish audio and video.
“When Dirty Sports lost our presenting sponsor of four years, we were suddenly faced with a tough question,” says Joe Praino, who hosts Dirty Sports with fellow comedian Andy Ruther. “Do we keep doing the same show but for a small fraction of what we were making, or do we just shut the whole thing down?” Substack emerged as a third option, offering a way to monetize by making their fans their partners. “This hasn’t only helped us financially,” Joe says. “It has improved our show.”
At beehiiv, new Head Of Podcasts, Ainsley Rossitto has given audio integration a lot of thought. “At a high level, the story isn’t really just about podcasting anymore, it’s about audience ownership and simplifying the tech stack so creators can spend more time creating content and less time managing a dozen disconnected tools.”
Ainsley continues: “At beehiiv, we’re building an integrated platform that treats podcasting as one part of a creator’s overall business rather than a standalone channel. We believe podcasts, newsletters, and websites are incredibly complementary: a podcast might introduce someone to your brand, a newsletter creates a direct relationship, and a website becomes the hub where everything lives. Together, they create a flywheel that helps creators reach audiences wherever they are while building a direct relationship they can grow and monetize over time. That approach is resonating because creators of all sizes have spent years stitching together separate platforms for hosting, newsletters, websites, analytics, subscriptions, and advertising.”
Ainsley is emphatic that, “We’re not treating podcasting as just another feature. We’re investing heavily in building a best-in-class podcast platform that can serve everyone from independent creators to larger audio-first brands and networks. The same way beehiiv has invested in helping newsletter creators grow and monetize their businesses, we see a similar opportunity in podcasting. By bringing podcasting into the broader beehiiv ecosystem, creators can manage their content, audience, growth, monetization, and analytics in one place rather than stitching together a collection of disconnected tools.”
The key for beehiiv is that, “Instead of sending your audience to Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, you can keep them in your ecosystem. Just send them to your episode page, where they can listen or choose their preferred player.”
Just before this article was published, beehiiv announced “one unified subscription across beehiiv and Spotify: delivering your premium content where your audience already listens. It’s one unified subscription across beehiiv and Spotify: delivering your premium content where your audience already listens.”
To Read or The Feed
Audiobooks became significant in the mainstream literary market during the 1980s with the rise of cassette tapes, and exploded into the digital mainstream in the late 1990s to 2000s with internet downloads and portable devices. At that time, naysayers and print-first advocates believed that books on audio would weaken the already shaky book publishing industry.
Headphones clamped around several books at a stall for audiobooks at the Leipzig Book Fair in Leipzig, Germany.
picture alliance via Getty Images
The refrain was, “people will forget how to read.” A quarter of a century later, audiobooks have been proven to be the bright spot in book publishing, showing 15 to 20 percent growth rates year-over-year. Meanwhile, studies show that audiobook adoption actually increases book readership.
Audio and video integration into the newsletter industry will only serve to inject more momentum into the sector. As newsletters use video and audio to attract creators and customers, the winners will be consumers who will have far more content choices than they’ve had since digital media toppled print journalism.
In the past, if you wanted to listen, view, or read a person of interest, consumers would have to go to three distinct places. Now with audio/video integration into these newsletters, consumers have that one-stop shopping experience that we are all looking for.
