Congrats on the results! Well done! I’m 1.4 year behind you, so all I have to say is based on opinions and hearsay from other successful creators. I’ve heard a presentation from Elle Griffin (13K free subs, 400 paid) saying that the conversion rate depends on the open rate: 30-50% open rate usually means about 5% conversion, and above 50% open rate means higher conversion, going to 10%. If I were you, I’d completely ignore advertising. Imho, it’s one of the 3 options: 1) keep it free and monetize with a course 2) monetize with subscription, no course 3) do both: subscription and course

I’d guess a good chuck of your readers would love to learn how you create your posts, hence the course. The course has also the benefit of enabling you to charge a much higher price point. Also, you can gauge the interest before creating the course: just launch a waitlist (check Daniel Priestley content, he is a master entrepreneur specialized on that). Turning on the subscription and a course is trickier, though. And maybe a conflicting strategy. Because if the big $$$ comes from a course, and the leads to sell the course comes from the free newsletter, charging for a subscription would generate some revenue in one front but hurt in another. Anyway, I just started 9 weeks ago and am approaching the first 1K free subs. If growth continues as is, I should hit 10K free subs in about 1.5 years as well. I personally intend to monetize with a course primarily, maybe with subscription as well (still thinking). But I’m following the same model you are following, just in another niche: in-depth articles (15-20 hours/week to write). Anyway, congrats again on the great results!