Newsletter valuation calculator: what your newsletter is worth

I sold my newsletter, Anywhere Income, on Microns for mid-four figures. I mainly wanted to clear a distraction, because it was more of a distraction than a properly profitable business, and I probably left money on the table. So I won’t pretend that sale is a model to copy, and I’m not going to put a multiple on it here. What I can tell you is how valuation works, so you price yours on purpose.

In my experience, valuing a newsletter is usually just a multiple of the earnings. Everything below is about which earnings, which multiple, and what to do when there aren’t many earnings at all.

How this calculator works

• Profit. Annual net profit is 12 times your monthly profit (revenue minus costs, or the profit you enter).
• Multiple. With every answer on its middle setting and 12 to 23 months of history, the calculator uses 2.5x (low), 3.1x (mid) and 3.75x (high) annual profit. That’s Flippa’s published range for profitable newsletters, shown in the table below.
• Adjusters. Each answer moves the mid multiple up or down, following the “what moves the multiple” table further down: engagement up to +0.25 or down 0.4, list hygiene +0.1 or down 0.3, revenue concentration +0.15 or down 0.4, owner dependence +0.15 or down 0.3, how growth was bought +0.1 or down 0.3, platform portability +0.1 or down 0.3, and trading history down 0.6 under 6 months, down 0.3 under 12 and +0.15 from 24. The mid is kept between 1.1x and 3.75x, the low is 0.6 below it (never under 1.0x) and the high is 0.65 above it (never over 4.0x). Those step sizes are our judgement, not a published formula.
• Monthly multiple. The monthly-profit multiple shown is the annual multiple times 12, because some marketplaces still quote it that way.
• No profit. If profit is zero or negative, the calculator switches to a per-subscriber range from Microns’ sold newsletter listings: about $0.29 (low), $0.60 (mid) and $1.43 (high) per subscriber, scaled by the same answers. These are asking prices, checked 1 Nov 2026, not sale prices. In GBP they’re converted at £1 = $1.34 (ECB reference rate, 30 Oct 2026).
• Privacy. It runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is stored or sent, and there’s no sign-up.

Treat the result as a starting point for the method below, not a price.

Sources on this page were last checked 1 to 2 Nov 2026 and each is linked with its date. Multiples move with the market, so re-check before you rely on them.

The basic formula

Annual net profit × multiple = valuation.

• Annual net profit is the last 12 months of income (sponsors, paid subscriptions, affiliate commission) minus the costs of running it: your email platform, tools, writers and any ads you pay for to keep it growing. Empire Flippers sets out the same formula in its guide to selling a newsletter.
• The multiple is how many years of that profit a buyer will pay up front. It reflects how safe and transferable the profit is.

Watch for monthly versus annual multiples. “36x monthly” and “3x annual” are the same price. Empire Flippers switched every multiple on its site to annual on 8 Sep 2026 for exactly this reason (announcement). This page uses annual multiples throughout.

Profit multiples: what the sources say

Read together: a small, profitable newsletter sold through a marketplace typically lands around 2x to 4x annual profit. Higher multiples belong to larger, older businesses with dependable revenue and less owner dependence, which is what FE International’s upper range describes.

Revenue multiples

A revenue multiple (price ÷ annual revenue) is used when profit understates the business, for example when the owner is spending heavily on growth on purpose. Flippa’s guide reserves revenue multiples for newsletters that reinvest heavily or run near break-even. For a typical small newsletter with few costs, profit and revenue are close, so the two methods give similar answers.

When the list makes little or no money: per-subscriber pricing

Most small newsletters earn very little, so a profit multiple gives a number close to zero. Those lists sell on the audience instead. Here are newsletters shown as sold in Microns’ newsletter category, checked 1 Nov 2026. These are asking prices: Microns doesn’t publish the final sale price.

What this shows:

• Below a certain revenue, the multiple stops meaning much. A 205x revenue multiple is really a price for 86,000 inboxes, not for $122 a year.
• Narrow, valuable audiences ask more per reader. The CFO list asked roughly three times as much per subscriber as the broad dog-owner and crypto lists.
• Small lists can ask more per head. The 2,800-subscriber writing newsletter asked the most per subscriber. Asking is not getting, so treat that with care.

For a profitable newsletter, per-subscriber maths is a useful cross-check on the multiple. For an unprofitable one, it’s often the main method.

What moves the multiple up or down

A few notes on these:

• Engagement. I track reply rate and what people do after they click, not opens. A buyer who knows what they’re doing will ask for the same. The reasons are in list pruning and open rates.
• Hygiene. My rule is that anyone who hasn’t opened in about three months gets a few “are you still interested?” emails and is then removed. A pruned list is smaller, but its numbers are believable.
• Bought growth. About 60% of Anywhere Income’s subscribers came from paid ads. That’s a legitimate way to grow, but a buyer will want to know the cost per subscriber and what happens to growth when spend stops, so keep those records.
• Portability. FE International’s 2026 guide says a newsletter whose subscribers sit in an account the buyer can’t migrate is priced lower than one with an exportable list, even at the same revenue. If you’re moving platforms before a sale, follow how to switch newsletter platforms.
• Niche. Not niching down was my biggest mistake with Anywhere Income. A clear niche is easier for a buyer to price, as the CFO listing shows.

A worked example (illustrative only)

This is a made-up newsletter to show the method. It is not a real listing, and it is not my newsletter.

• 10,000 subscribers, weekly, sponsor-funded.
• Revenue over the last 12 months: $12,000 from sponsors.
• Costs: $1,800 a year for the email platform and tools, plus $1,200 of ads. Net profit: $9,000.

1. Start with a range. At Flippa’s 2.5x to 3.75x annual profit, that’s $22,500 to $33,750.
2. Adjust for the factors. Say one sponsor provides 70% of revenue and the list hasn’t been pruned in a year. Both point to the bottom of the range or below, say around 2x to 2.5x: $18,000 to $22,500.
3. Cross-check per subscriber. $18,000 to $22,500 for 10,000 subscribers is $1.80 to $2.25 each, which is well above the Microns asking prices above. That’s fine if engagement is strong and the revenue is real, because buyers are paying for profit here, not just inboxes.
4. Improve before listing. Prune, add a second and third sponsor, document how an issue is produced, and the same newsletter has a case for the middle of the range or higher.

How to use this before you sell

1. Work out the last 12 months of profit honestly, including your own ad spend.
2. Pick a starting multiple from the sources above, and move it using the factor table.
3. Cross-check against real listings, such as sold newsletters on Microns.
4. Fix what you can (pruning, sponsor mix, documentation) before you list, not after an offer.

Then read how to sell a newsletter for where to list, what each marketplace charges and how to prepare for due diligence. If you’re still building and want the list to be worth something later, start with how to start a newsletter. If you’re choosing where to run it, beehiiv is the platform I like most of the ones I’ve used, and best newsletter platforms compares the field.

This page has no affiliate links to marketplaces. See the disclosure page for which links on the site are affiliate links, and about Lewis for what I have and haven’t done.