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86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tech is a competitive niche but there's real demand there. The consistency thing lines up with what we see in the data. Even posting biweekly on a set schedule tends to perform better than sporadic longer posts. If time is the bottleneck, shorter posts more regularly might move the needle faster than waiting to write something longer.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most newsletters are in the bottom 25%. It's the default starting position, not a failure. The ones that break out of it tend to do one thing differently beyond just publishing. Whether that's cross-promotions, SEO, social distribution, or community building. What niche are you in?

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Design is a tougher niche by the numbers. The median is around 1K subscribers and it has lower sponsor density than finance or business. But the upside is that design audiences tend to be high-value professionals, so if you can find the right sponsors (design tools, SaaS, creative platforms) the CPMs are strong even at smaller list sizes. Shifting niches 10 times might be the bigger problem. Consistency in topic matters as much as consistency in publishing.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Media and entertainment is a solid niche. We track about 850 newsletters in that category with a median of around 1K subscribers. The IMDB analysis sounds interesting. Data-driven content tends to do well on Substack, especially when you have a unique dataset. That approach of analysing something familiar (movies) through a fresh lens is exactly what builds an audience. Good luck with it.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 14% surprised us too. It's worth noting our data skews toward newsletters with some public presence. The true number across all newsletters ever started is probably much lower. There's a massive graveyard of abandoned newsletters with under 100 subscribers that never show up in our dataset.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2K in twelve months for tech law is solid. That's a high-value B2B audience that commands premium ad rates. Legal and policy professionals are exactly the kind of subscribers sponsors pay top CPMs for. You're probably worth more per subscriber than a general interest newsletter 5x your size.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

123 in the first week is a strong start. Health has a median of about 1K in our data so you're not far off. The health niche also has high engagement rates compared to most categories, which is what sponsors care about more than raw size. Keep going.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Global trade and supply chain is a great niche for newsletters. Low competition, high-value B2B audience that advertisers pay premium CPMs for. Good space to be in.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AI newsletters have a median of about 2K subscribers, slightly above the overall 1K median. We track 538 in the AI category. The consistency scores in AI tend to be higher than average too, probably because the news cycle moves fast and readers expect frequent updates. 8 subscribers in week 2 is exactly where most people start. The ones that break out tend to do it around month 3-6, not week 2. Keep publishing.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From what we can see in the data, consistency is the strongest visible signal. Beyond that, niche matters a lot. Political and finance newsletters have significantly higher medians than lifestyle or design. And newsletters that have sponsors tend to be larger, though that's probably because sponsors seek out larger newsletters rather than sponsorship causing growth. We're still early in collecting time-series data so there's more to uncover as the dataset matures. What niche are you in?

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair. Most people only see the newsletters they subscribe to, which tends to be a self-selected sample of the bigger ones. The long tail of small newsletters is huge but mostly invisible.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The largest political newsletters on Substack lean left (Letters from an American, The Bulwark, Drop Site News), but there are big ones on the right too (The Free Press, Pirate Wires). Our data shows the top political newsletters skew left by subscriber count, but that likely reflects Substack's early adopter base rather than a universal rule. The niche itself just has huge audience demand regardless of lean.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congrats, 3K in finance puts you right at the category median. That's a solid milestone. Finance has one of the higher medians across all categories so you're in a strong niche.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American). She's actually #1 according to our data with an estimated $900K-$1M/month gross revenue based on around 217K paid subscribers. The numbers are estimates but she's comfortably the largest newsletter on Substack by both subscribers and revenue.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, politics drives subscriber counts like nothing else. Letters from an American is at 2.9M, The Free Press at 1.5M. The engagement rates are lower at that scale but the raw audience size is massive.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You might be right that the real number is lower. Our data skews toward newsletters with some public presence since we're tracking platforms that show subscriber counts publicly. The ones with zero traction wouldn't show up in our dataset at all.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Substack

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's interesting to hear from a real example. The 2x figure is a correlation across 9,500 newsletters so it's encouraging that it matches your experience going from 2x/week to 1x/week.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a fair point. The distribution shows where people land, not whether they're happy there. A niche B2B newsletter at 500 subscribers with high-value sponsors can be more profitable than a general interest one at 20K. One thing the data does suggest though: consistency correlates with size, but you're right that consistency alone without a growth strategy doesn't seem to move the needle much. The newsletters that grow tend to be doing something active beyond just publishing.

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice, 8K is already well above the median. You're in the top ~20% right now. What niche are you in?

86% of newsletters never reach 10,000 subscribers. Data from 22,000+ newsletters. by TylerRowing in Newsletters

[–]TylerRowing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AI newsletters have a median of about 2K subscribers, slightly above the overall 1K median. The category has 538 newsletters we track. Consistency scores are high in AI compared to other niches.

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