How I’ve Made $500,000 on Substack So Far This Year
I didn’t do it with one viral newsletter. I built newsletters in multiple niches, treated them like businesses, and scaled to $67,000 a month in revenue.
Most people think making serious money on Substack is impossible. They imagine some writer with 200,000 subscribers, going viral every other week, cashing in on luck.
That’s not my story.
In my first year on Substack, I made $500,000. And I didn’t do it with one “magic” newsletter. I built multiple newsletters in different niches, each serving a specific audience. Together, they became a machine.
Here’s exactly how I did it and how you can use these same strategies to scale your own Substack business.
1. I Didn’t Bet on One Audience 🎯
The biggest mistake most creators make? Putting all their energy into one general newsletter and hoping it grows big enough to pay.
That’s risky as hell. Instead, I built multiple newsletters, each in a clear niche:
Business + online growth
LGBTQ+ culture and storytelling
Lifestyle/entertainment for different demographics
Each one had its own vibe, its own audience, and its own subscription model. By diversifying, I wasn’t relying on one list or one audience to cover everything.
Think of it like investing. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
2. I Built for Value, Not Virality 📩
You can’t pay bills with views. You can with subscribers.
I never cared about going viral. Instead, every piece of content had a purpose:
Build trust
Capture emails
Move free readers closer to becoming paying subscribers
My newsletters weren’t entertainment for the algorithm — they were designed to solve problems, spark insights, or deliver value my readers couldn’t get anywhere else.
That’s why people stayed, and that’s why they paid.
3. I Treated Email Like a Business, Not a Hobby 💼
Most creators treat newsletters like side projects. I treated mine like a business from day one.
That meant:
Writing on a strict schedule, even when I didn’t feel like it.
Building a content calendar across multiple newsletters.
Setting clear subscriber growth and revenue targets each month.
This wasn’t “let’s see if it works.” This was we’re building a company.
4. I Monetized Early and Often 💸
A lot of people are afraid to charge for their work. They wait until their list is huge. I didn’t.
I launched premium subscriptions early. Even with small lists, I gave readers the chance to pay. Some did. Then more did.
Here’s the thing: you don’t need 100,000 free readers. You need the right 1,000 paying readers. At $10/month, that’s $120,000/year. Multiply that across newsletters and niches, and the math starts to look like my $500K year.
5. I Learned the Power of Niches 🌈
The riches are in the niches.
One newsletter spoke to entrepreneurs who wanted freedom.
Another spoke to queer readers who wanted authentic culture, unfiltered.
Another tapped into lifestyle and entertainment audiences.
Each niche wasn’t massive — but the connection was strong. That’s why subscribers stuck around. That’s why they paid.
When you serve a specific audience with specific needs, you don’t need to be the biggest. You just need to be the most trusted.
6. I Reinforced With Ecosystems 🔗
This is what most people miss: my newsletters didn’t live in isolation.
They fed each other.
Business content introduced people to queer culture content.
Lifestyle content funneled curious readers into deeper niche newsletters.
Every new Substack project cross-promoted the others.
It wasn’t a bunch of separate silos it is an ecosystem. That ecosystem multiplied everything: reach, subs, and revenue.
The Takeaway
I didn’t make $500,000 in a year on Substack by luck, virality, or magic. I made it by:
Diversifying across multiple newsletters.
Building for value, not vanity metrics.
Treating Substack like a business, not a hobby.
Charging early, scaling steadily.
Owning niches and building an ecosystem around them.
If you want to build wealth on Substack, stop thinking you need to be huge. You don’t. You need to be focused, consistent, and bold enough to build something bigger than a single newsletter.
“Substack doesn’t reward the loudest. It rewards the most consistent.”