Most newsletter advice says grow organically first. Build trust. Prove the model works. Maybe test paid ads once you hit 10,000 subscribers and have cash to absorb the risk.
Here’s what that advice really means: spend the next 18 months posting daily, hoping consistency compounds into something real.
Then maybe another 18 months testing monetization.
That’s three years of your life betting on “eventually.” You’re not choosing the safe path. You’re choosing to spend time you can’t earn back.
Matt McGarry started advertising only three months after he had launched his newsletter Newsletter Operator. He barely had 1,000 subscribers.
In his first 18 months he ended up spending $29,629 on paid ads with no real money in sight.
But by the time McGarry was in his second year, his cohort launches had made $250,000 and he had built a newsletter audience of 25,000.
I know what you’re thinking: “But I don’t have $30K to test with.”
Neither did McGarry in month 3. But what he had was a different belief about what paid ads were.
Most creators see ads as marketing expenses – costs that may or may not pay back. McGarry saw ads as a way to trade money for time.
Different lens. Different decision. Different life.
The question isn’t whether you can afford paid ads. The question is whether you can afford to trade prime earning years for the comfort of slow growth.
So what makes that math work on an ad spend like this when most newsletter operators stay stuck at $5–20K per year?
The answer starts back in January 2023.
At the time, McGarry had launched Newsletter Operator with 1,300 Twitter followers and 1,000 LinkedIn connections – small numbers compared to most successful launches.
He’d seen the creator trap before: three years of daily posts, 10,000 followers who like everything and buy nothing, $28K in total revenue, a LinkedIn bio that says “Full-time Creator” and a bank account that says otherwise.
Popular content. Minimal business and a lot of time has passed that you’ll never get back.
So three months after launch, he made a decision. Paid ads weren’t a “someday” tactic. They were day-one infrastructure.
McGarry’s revenue model needed 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers to hit $1 million yearly. The math: three newsletters per week with $3,500 sponsorships equals $546,000 per year. Add a $250 course. At 2–4% conversion, that’s another $250–500K.
Organic growth adds 500 to 1,000 new subscribers monthly. Good performers average this. At that pace, reaching 50,000 subscribers takes 50 to 100 months. That’s four to eight years.
Paid ads at $10–15K monthly spend deliver 3,000 to 5,000 new subscribers per month. Time to 50,000: 10 to 16 months. Not multiple years.
Year 2 revenue or Year 8 revenue. Same destination, but six years of your life as the difference.
His first test was with Twitter ads.
He spent $6,231. Got 2,314 subscribers. Cost: $2.69 each. They opened emails at 60–65%. Same as his organic audience.
He tried Beehiiv Boosts. Cost per subscriber: $1.11. Seemed perfect. Those subscribers generated zero revenue. None.
Then Meta ads. He spent $23,398. Got 6,060 subscribers. Cost: $3.86 per person. These paid subscribers opened at 52%. They clicked at 11%.
Meta ads cost three times more per subscriber. But those subscribers actually bought products.
The principle: time costs money in organic-only models.
Organic growth isn’t safer than paid ads. It’s just slower. Slow isn’t safe when you’re burning years.
The paid route bought him time through faster feedback loops.
He learned if his $250 course converted in 90 days or 24 months.
If sponsorships didn’t work at 10,000 subscribers, he could test different messaging before scaling to 50,000.
He built three revenue streams at once. Sponsorships for steady base revenue. Courses for high margins. Backend cohorts for premium pricing. Different buyers, different triggers.
Passive readers saw sponsorships. DIY learners got course offers. High-intent operators received cohort pitches.
The result was $250,000 from cohort launches in 2024.
Newsletter grew to 25,000 subscribers by September 2025. Then past 50,000 by mid-2025.
The revenue model is tracking toward $1 million yearly once he crosses 100,000 subscribers so he’s on pace for 2026.
Here’s how that $1 million math actually works.
Simple version: $250 course. 2% of 50,000 subscribers buy it. That’s 1,000 sales. Revenue: $250,000 per year.
Actual math at 50,000 subscribers:
Sponsorships: Two newsletters weekly. $3,500 per sponsor slot. That’s $7,000 every week. Over a year: $364,000.
Course sales: 1,000 to 2,000 buyers at $250 each. Revenue: $250,000 to $500,000 per year.
Cohorts and agency: 10 to 20 clients at $1,500 to $2,500. Revenue: $15,000 to $50,000 per year.
Total: $629,000 to $914,000 annually.
The difference matters. Course alone generates $250–500K. All three together generate $629–914K. That’s 45–83% more revenue from the same 50,000 subscribers.
Single revenue stream = single point of failure. Three revenue streams = architecture that survives when one channel breaks.
Compare the paths:
Traditional newsletter: Grow to 50,000 subscribers organically. Takes 4 to 8 years. Sell sponsorships only. Revenue: $150–300K per year (maybe). Time required: 10 to 15 hours weekly.
McGarry’s path: Grow to 50,000 subscribers with paid ads plus organic. Takes 18 to 24 months. Three revenue streams running simultaneously. Revenue: $629–914K per year.
Two Paths From Here:
Path 1: Keep doing what you’re doing. In three years, you’ll have 8,000 subscribers. Maybe two small sponsors at $300 each.
Maybe $12K in course revenue if you finally launch something. You’ll still have your day job. Still wondering when this becomes real.
Path 2: Build architecture first. Validate with 1,000 organic subscribers in 90 days. Deploy $2-3K monthly on what converts. In 18 months, you’ll have 15,000 subscribers, three revenue streams, and $60-80K annual revenue.
You’ll be deciding whether to quit your job, not wondering if this works. Same time investment. Different architecture. Different outcome.
Time saved: three to five years. Revenue generated: two to three times more. And his risk is spread across multiple channels instead of just one.
The paid ads strategy isn’t hidden. McGarry teaches it openly. But most people can’t execute it.
Why? Three barriers:
First, capital.
Spending $10–20K monthly on ads with no immediate return requires either existing business income or personal reserves most creators don’t have.
The difference most creators miss: you’re already spending capital. Time. And time is the only asset you can’t earn back or negotiate a better rate on.
When you choose organic-only growth, you’re choosing to spend 3,000 hours over three years hoping for results you could buy in 18 months.
That’s not conservative. That’s expensive in ways you’re not calculating.
McGarry gave himself permission to spend money he hadn’t made yet by reframing the decision – If you could pay $30K to skip three years of uncertainty, would you?
Most people say yes to that question but no to paid ads. That’s not a capital problem. It’s a framing problem.
Second, conversion.
Paid subscribers are cold traffic. Most creators can’t convert them into buyers. McGarry’s conversion architecture works because he built it into the model from day one.
Third, mindset.
Most creators stay committed to organic-only growth. They see paid ads as risky or inauthentic.
You can’t optimize conversion if you’re unwilling to pay for traffic. Cold traffic is the only honest feedback mechanism.
Which raises the question: can you replicate this without these advantages?
Remember, McGarry didn’t start with $30K. He started with $2–3K monthly after validating his offer with 1,000 organic subscribers.
The principle: prove conversion with organic traffic first. Then buy more of what works.
If you’re a consultant, test your offer with 5 to 10 clients before building a productized service.
If you’re a course creator, sell 20 to 30 seats manually before automating.
If you’re a newsletter operator, prove sponsorships or products work with 5,000 subscribers before scaling to 50,000.
The minimum test: 1,000 subscribers. Achievable organically in 90 to 120 days.
At 2% course conversion, that’s 20 sales. That validates your offer works.
Then layer simple sponsorships at $200 to $500 for small sponsors to prove the CPM model.
Then test paid acquisition at $500 to $1,000 monthly to see if you can acquire subscribers who actually buy.
Start with discovery. Week 1 to 2: Do you have an offer that solves a specific problem?
Price it between $47 and $250 to start.
Map three buyer segments: passive consumers who see ads, DIY implementers who buy courses, done-for-you buyers who want premium services.
Write out how each segment monetizes, even at small scale.
Validation check: Can you explain who buys what and why in one sentence each?
If not, stop here. Don’t move to Week 3. Clarity compounds. Confusion costs. Fix positioning before building product.
Week 3 to 4: Build the simplest version of your offer. A 2 to 4 hour course, a template pack, or a one-day intensive. Whatever delivers an outcome for your DIY segment.
Price at $47 to $250 depending on value delivered.
McGarry uses $250 as baseline, but scale to your audience.
Week 5 to 6: Launch to your existing audience. Even if it’s only 100 to 500 people.
Email sequence: value emails on days 1 through 3, offer email on day 7, reminder on day 10. Distribution:
Email your list, post a Twitter or LinkedIn thread announcing it, DM 20 engaged followers directly.
Don’t discount your first launch. You’re testing real willingness to pay.
Success means 2 to 5% conversion. That’s 10 to 25 sales from a 500-person list. Even 10 sales at $47 equals $470. At $250, that’s $2,500.
Either way, you’ve validated the offer.
Week 7 to 8: Track your metrics. Open rates, click rates, conversion rate, revenue per subscriber.
Decision tree: If conversion is below 1%, you have a positioning or offer problem, not an audience size problem.
The goal isn’t perfection in 8 weeks. The goal is data. You can’t optimize what you haven’t tested. You can’t scale what you haven’t validated.
If you hit 2 to 5%, you’re validated and ready to scale.
Next question for buyers: What backend offer could serve 10 to 20% of them at three to five times the price? For non-buyers: What simpler lead magnet or lower-priced offer brings them in?
Six months from now, you’ll either have 20 customers teaching you what works, or another folder of plans nobody bought.
The online space optimizes for attention. Comments. Likes. Shares. Vanity metrics.
McGarry optimized for conversion.
He didn’t build a popular newsletter that eventually made money. He built a monetization system that uses a newsletter as distribution.
Audience was the input, not the output.
Six months from now, you’ll have either built architecture or collected more likes. Both take effort. Only one pays.