On paid email newsletter platforms, small audiences are translating to dollars for writers, such as on Substack, where the 12 top earners make $160K+ on average
“unbundling” writers from outlets — and i feel like i've already hit my limit on how much pocket money i want to burn on different channels. it adds up pretty fast! http://www.buzzfeed.com/... Elizabeth Minkel / @elizabethminkel : How is there yet another reported piece about newsletters that mostly talks to/highlights the work of dudes tho???? http://www.buzzfeed.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : For many writers, the chance to make significant money through email newsletters is making starting one worth a try. New newsletters on Substack are up 40% each month over the last three months. The number of writers on Patreon doubled from 2017 to 2018. Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : If it seems like everyone has been starting an email newsletter, here's why: Paid email newsletter writers can make meaningful money from small audiences. Freed from chasing traffic for ad dollars, have they finally found a way to support themselves? https://www.buzzfeed.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Some numbers for you: - Top 12 email newsletter writers on Substack are making more than $160,000 / year on average - On Revue, another email platform, some writers making $1,500 / month - And on Patreon, the top writers are making... $100,000 a month! See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
In early 2019, paid email newsletters were still a curiosity: BuzzFeed's piece found the top 12 Substack writers averaging $160K+ a year and new newsletters on the platform growing ~40% month-over-month, while Revue writers pulled around $1,500/month and Patreon's writer count doubled from 2017 to 2018. The pitch was simple — small audiences, meaningful money.
The months after confirmed the momentum: Substack raised a $15.3M funding round that fall even as skeptics called it a bubble, and by 2021 legacy publishers were responding — Forbes launched a service letting journalists run paid newsletters with salary and benefits attached. Today Substack still isn't profitable but has added 1M+ paid subscribers in a year, so the 2019 data point reads as the start of a durable shift rather than a spike.
First-order effects
- Writers gain a direct income path outside newsroom employment — Alex Kantrowitz's framing that significant newsletter money makes starting one 'worth a try' becomes actionable, and Elizabeth Minkel's critique shows who gets highlighted in that gold-rush coverage matters.
- Substack's 40% monthly growth in new newsletters puts it in a land-grab against Patreon (top creators reportedly near $100K/month) and Revue for the same writer talent.
Second-order effects
- Publishers forced to compete for talent respond structurally: Forbes' salary-plus-revenue-split model tries to offer the upside of going independent without the risk, directly targeting writers tempted by Substack.
- Platform economics come into focus — Substack later began paying select writers itself, an editorial decision about which writing to support that turns the platform into a patron, not just infrastructure.
Third-order effects
- If small-audience monetization holds, the unit of media production shifts from the outlet to the individual writer, with platforms competing to be the payment and distribution layer — and their curation choices becoming editorial power.
- The open question the corpus leaves unresolved: Substack's continued unprofitability alongside subscriber growth suggests the writer-subscription model may sustain writers long before it sustains the platforms hosting them.
The trend: Writer income is unbundling from outlet employment toward direct reader subscriptions, with platforms racing to own the payment rail and publishers building hybrid models to keep talent in-house.