The compounding effect of doing revenue work

How data-informed insights from Newspack’s Revenue Development Program can lead to improvements in newsletter growth, recurring reader revenue, and advertising sales.

By Kim Bode

April 13, 2026

Since Newspack launched the Revenue Development Program in spring 2024, we’ve welcomed more than 160 participants across 18 cohorts. To date, participating publishers have generated more than $12 million in additional value tied to measurable improvements in newsletter growth, recurring reader revenue, and advertising.

Because we track publisher performance before, during, and at the end of the one-year program, we’ve generated an extensive dataset covering audience growth, newsletter performance, reader revenue, and advertising and sponsorship sales.

A few findings may challenge some common assumptions. For example, newsletter list growth rates doubled on average without eroding engagement. Direct-sold advertising and newsletter sponsorships responded faster than expected once teams made them a priority. And perhaps most striking, the long-term value of newsletter subscribers in this group is notably higher than typical industry benchmarks. These are local, independent publishers with smaller, highly engaged audiences, and that specificity carries significant value on both the reader revenue and advertising side.

It’s striking to see that publishers are often sitting on far more value than they realize, and how relatively simple tweaks in the background can drive compounding results.

Before we get into the numbers: context and caveats

This analysis draws on standardized data from roughly 130 participants who progressed far enough in the program to allow meaningful comparison. The goal is to provide useful industry reference points and practical insight into what measurable progress can look like.

We launched the Revenue Development Program, with support from the Lenfest Local News Infrastructure Fund and financial backing from the Knight Foundation, after recognizing a pattern across the industry: Access to infrastructure and passing knowledge of industry best practices doesn’t automatically translate into business performance. Even as sophisticated revenue and audience tools became widely available, many publishers struggled to apply them consistently, and their growth plateaued.

The program is a sprint-based coaching and implementation effort in three thematic tracks: newsletters, reader revenue, and advertising and sponsorships. Publishers can participate in one, two, or all three tracks depending on their priorities and capacity. Each sprint lasts 7 to 10 weeks and combines group working sessions with individual coaching from Blue Engine Collaborative. We help publishers set goals, make changes, and track success metrics.

We ask participants to complete brief weekly surveys during the sprint and a more comprehensive survey at the end. Across cohorts, the average Net Promoter Score at the end of the sprint is 67. (Above 50 is considered excellent, signaling strong customer loyalty).

A few caveats before we dive into the data:

Participants vary in size and maturity — from organizations just launching their first newsletter to those with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, from starting with zero paying supporters to more than 10,000, from no ad revenue at program start to making nearly $500,000 annually. Monthly pageviews of participants span from a few thousand to around 2.5 million.
Some participants really lean in, and unsurprisingly, they usually see the biggest gains. Others make partial changes. A few disengage over time, often due to staff turnover or broader organizational changes.
This program doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Seasonality in giving campaigns, fluctuations in advertising demand, and shifts in the news cycle all influence performance.
We ran two cohorts in a beta phase. Benchmarks and averages reflect post-beta cohorts where measurement was standardized. Early-stage cohorts still in progress are not included in these benchmarks either.
The dataset is cumulative and still growing. Publishers continue reporting quarterly, so the figures here reflect the most recent standardized snapshot rather than a final tally.

The dataset is self-reported and inherently imperfect. Even so, completion rates have been remarkably high thanks to the hands-on support publishers receive from coaches and our team. That lets us see patterns across cohorts.

The data also does not show uniform success. It shows directional change at scale.

Improvements made during the sprint often establish a new performance floor rather than a short-term spike. The data shows that, on average, performance compounds in the quarters that follow. Getting the foundation right means it continues paying off long after the sprint, and the program itself, has ended.

How we calculate value added

Over 1.5 years of standardized data, participating publishers generated an estimated $12.1 million in incremental value relative to their baselines. This does not represent total revenue earned. It reflects the difference between where publishers started and how they were performing at subsequent check-ins.

Under the terms of The Lenfest Institute grant, Newspack committed to delivering a 5x return on the grant’s value by the end of 2026. To date, the value added exceeds 8x the investment, and continues to grow as more cohorts mature and new ones are added.

For each publisher, we establish baseline performance metrics at the start of each sprint. We then measure newsletter signups, recurring supporters, or advertising revenue at the end of the sprint and at quarterly intervals. For newsletters and recurring supporters, incremental gains are translated into value using each publisher’s customer lifetime value figures. For advertising, we calculate the difference in weekly revenue relative to their starting point.

This approach does not isolate the program from every external factor. But by comparing each publisher’s metrics to their starting points over time, it offers a solid estimate of the revenue impact associated with the changes made during the program.

Newsletter list growth becomes a predictable driver of long-term revenue

Our data shows that list growth on average trended up over the year following the sprint. One year after they started in the program, participants still average more than 100 new subscribers per week, nearly double their starting level.

Later checkpoints reflect only cohorts that have reached that stage in the program. For the newsletters track, they are currently available for four of the six post-beta cohorts and will expand as newer cohorts mature.

Open rates remained remarkably steady, hovering between 33% and 36% and ending slightly higher at the one-year mark than where they began. This suggests that publishers weren’t simply adding volume; they were capturing the right readers

Click rate averages

Click rates tell a complementary story. While open rates remained stable, average click rates increased from 4.55% at baseline to 6.07% at the one-year mark among cohorts that have reached those checkpoints. There was short-term fluctuation across quarters, but the overall direction was upward. This also shows that list growth did not come at the expense of engagement, and combined with content improvements, newsletters drove more meaningful reader action.

Collecting email addresses is just the first step. The long-term value of each newsletter subscriber determines whether and how that growth translates into revenue and sustainability.

The newsletter subscriber customer lifetime value provides an important reference point for how effectively a publisher is monetizing its audience, also relative to peers. We calculated CLV over a three-year span, and that number varies based on business model and strategy: whether the newsletter actively drives recurring supporter conversion, whether advertising is sold directly inside it, how segmented and targeted the list is, how often readers are prompted to give, and how long subscribers remain engaged. A newsletter embedded in a deliberate reader revenue and direct-sold ad strategy will generate a fundamentally different lifetime value than one used primarily to drive readers back to the site.

In this context, newsletters are not primarily traffic drivers or distribution tools, but conversion channels. They also often carry some of the most valuable advertising inventory a publisher offers, typically sold directly rather than programmatically. That structural difference meaningfully increases newsletter subscriber lifetime value.

Reader revenue gains follow structural change

Participants in the reader revenue track are focused on adding new recurring supporters. On average, participants across four cohorts moved from more than 8 new recurring supporters per week at baseline to more than 12 by the end of the sprint.

Later checkpoints reflect only cohorts that have reached that stage in the program. For reader revenue, one-year results are currently available for two of the four post-beta cohorts and will expand as newer cohorts mature.

After that initial lift, recurring additions softened in subsequent quarters before strengthening again. Among cohorts that have reached those checkpoints, average weekly recurring growth remained substantially above baseline at Q3 and at the one-year mark.

Recurring revenue tends to move seasonally and in response to action: sending reader-revenue email campaigns, redesigning an offer page, clarifying value propositions, adding prompts inside newsletters, and honing segmentation and targeting. It doesn’t usually drift upward on its own, but structural improvements can endure, and they become especially visible when fundraising campaigns or subscriptions drives are underway.

Average recurring contribution amount benchmarks

We also looked at the average recurring contribution amount across participating publishers. The spread is wide, which reflects different business models, target audiences and segments, and pricing strategies.

A large share of program participants cluster between $25 and $60 per recurring supporter. Reader contributions that fall within that range most often balance accessibility with meaningful revenue contribution.

Participants are typically encouraged to prioritize recurring support over one-time gifts. As that shift takes hold, one-time contributions often decline in subsequent quarters. This is intentional: the emphasis is on building predictable, recurring revenue rather than relying on episodic spikes.

Paid supporter conversion rate (any type)

Conversion efficiency tells another part of the story. When we analyzed conversion rates from website visitors to paid supporters, the data showed a wide range, from tiny fractions of a percent to a few exceptional outliers.

The middle 50% of publishers in our dataset convert between roughly 0.03% and 0.19% of visitors into paid supporters, or about 3 to 19 supporters per 10,000 visitors.

Recurring supporter — 3-year customer lifetime value (CLV)

Recurring supporter customer lifetime value in our dataset varies widely, driven by two primary factors: how much supporters give and how long they stay. A higher average contribution increases lifetime value immediately. Strong retention compounds that effect over time.

For some participants, calculating a three-year lifetime value required reconstructing data across systems. Several publishers had switched reader revenue platforms in prior years and did not retain complete historical records. In some cases, retention assumptions had to be estimated based on available data.

That challenge surfaces a broader lesson: Long-term value cannot be measured without preserving historical supporter data. For organizations serious about building sustainable reader revenue, maintaining clean retention records across platform transitions is crucial.

Total weekly supporter revenue averages

Total weekly supporter revenue reflects the combined effect of recurring growth, contribution levels, conversion efficiency, and campaign timing. It includes both recurring and one-time gifts. Weekly supporter revenue increased substantially during the sprint timeframe, remained elevated through subsequent checkpoints, and reflected the seasonal and execution-driven dynamics described above.

Ads & sponsorships

Ads & sponsorships is the newest of the three tracks, launched in March 2025. We do not yet have a full year of data, and no cohort has reached a Q3 or one-year checkpoint. Even so, early revenue trends show meaningful lift during and immediately following the sprint.

Total ad & sponsorship revenue (weekly average):

On average, weekly ad and sponsorship revenue increased by roughly 40% during the sprint compared to baseline levels. After a slight dip in Q1, revenue climbed again in Q2 to nearly 50% above baseline. The pattern suggests that improvements made during the sprint, combined with a more disciplined sales strategy, can generate near-term gains while also building longer-term momentum.

After the first two cohorts, we extended the sprint from seven to 10 weeks. We believed prospecting needed more runway to translate into closed revenue. We tested it with the next cohort and saw a 75% increase in average weekly ad revenue during the sprint. We also asked participants in the two cohorts following the change how their time spent chasing leads had shifted since starting the program. Over half of respondents (53%) reported spending more time prospecting. Cohort composition and seasonality may have contributed, but the test reinforced what we suspected. Direct sales require sustained effort, and giving teams more time to execute improves outcomes.

Because participating organizations vary widely in team size, audience scale, market, and sales maturity, ad and sponsorship sales benchmarks are less instructive in this track. Instead, we looked at directional movement within the two most consistent revenue drivers: direct-sold website display and newsletter sponsorships.

Direct-sold display ad revenue (website) – weekly average

Direct-sold display ad revenue (newsletters) – weekly average

The sustained growth in both average website and newsletter direct-sold revenue highlights what matters most for publishers at this scale: their advantage is not reach, it is relationship.

Independent newsrooms in this program often serve highly engaged audiences and hold strong community trust. That is valuable to advertisers. Local businesses and mission-aligned brands value credibility, context, and alignment far more than impression volume.

Many participants realized during the sprint that this value was not being clearly articulated. Newsletters in particular were often underpriced or treated as secondary inventory. Once these teams reframed them as premium products and intentionally placed and packaged sponsorship units, results followed.

Why the gains hold

Programmatic advertising remained marginal in comparison. For program participants, durable ad growth comes from direct relationships and thoughtful packaging, not automated inventory.

Across all three program tracks, the results point in the same direction. When publishers align business goals with disciplined execution and measurement, growth accelerates and sustains. That compounding effect is what ultimately builds resilience.

If you’re working on audience and revenue growth and you made it this far, I’d like to hear if and how you plan to use these benchmarks. Email me.