Blog, niche site and newsletter case studies
These are cases of blogs, niche sites and newsletters monetized through ads, affiliates, sponsors or paid subscriptions. Small Start records page views, revenue breakdowns and sale prices, with sources.
Blog income tends to get shared only in the good months. This archive keeps the other direction too: a 20-year travel blog that fell from ¥1.2M to ¥5,000 a month, and a site whose traffic grew 19x while revenue grew only 5.8x.
- Case studies
- 91
- Sale price
- 169.7億円
Blog and niche site cases
1–24 of 91
The Pour Over: 1M+ Subscribers and $100K+ a Month With Almost No Social Following
The Christian news roundup The Pour Over passed a million subscribers and $100K+ per month with virtually no social following. Growth came from a referral program and paid ads — 75% of the paid budget went to Meta.
MoneySavingExpert: Started for £100, Sold for Up to £87M — and 31% of It Hung on Non-Financial Terms
A personal finance site launched for £100 in 2003 sold for up to £87M in 2012. £60M landed at completion; £27M hung on non-financial criteria.
ryrob: $27,375 of a $47,772 Month Came From One Partner — What Survived a 68% Traffic Collapse
In July 2020 one hosting affiliate paid $27,375 of $47,772.75 in revenue. Eight months on, sessions were down 68% — yet total revenue fell only 26%.
Adam Enfroy: $101,814 in a Month When Traffic Was Falling — and the Day the Reports Stopped
Affiliate income was $78,965 of $101,814 in March 2021, on $16,677 of expenses — an 83.6% margin. How a record month happened on falling pageviews.
Making Sense of Cents: A Record $179,139 in the Month With the Fewest Pageviews
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner's blog booked $179,139.02 in February 2018, $102,277.02 of it affiliate revenue. By her own account, it was also one of her lowest traffic months ever.
Smart Passive Income: 63% of a $167,553 Month Was Affiliate Revenue — and the "Passive" Label Hid a Launch-Driven Machine
Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income booked $167,553.31 in December 2017 and $2.1M for the year. More than $1M of that came from open/close course launches — work he himself calls time-consuming.
Pinch of Yum: From $21.97 to $95,197 a Month, Then They Stopped Publishing the Numbers
Pinch of Yum published 66 monthly income reports over six years, starting at $21.97 in September 2011. The final one itemizes $95,197.34 in income against $28,505.27 in expenses — and $52,313 of ads sitting next to $19,627 of payroll.
AllAboutCookies.org: A $9,000 Expired Domain Sold for $5.2M Fourteen Years Later — a Solo-Run, AdSense-Only Site at 92% Margin and ~$400 RPM
AllAboutCookies.org, an expired domain a retired New Zealand ex-taxi driver won for $9,000 in 2008, grew into an AdSense site with 267K monthly pageviews, ~$400 RPM, and a 92% profit margin — then sold for $5.2M via Flippa. A 578x return, with revenue almost 100% ads.
10Beasts: An 8-Article Amazon Affiliate Site Hit $80K/Month in 9 Months — Sold for $570K, Google Penalty 17 Days Later
Student Luqman Khan's Amazon affiliate site 10Beasts reached $80,000 a month in commissions with just 8 articles, nine months after launch. In December 2017 it sold for $570,000 via Empire Flippers — and 17 days after handover, a Google penalty struck. A case where timing the exit made all the difference.
Bargaineering: From Cents a Day to a $3M Sale in Five Years
Launched in January 2005, US personal finance blog Bargaineering was earning "a few cents to maybe a dollar a day" at the six-month mark. Five years later, in 2010, it sold for $3 million. Founder Jim Wang has kept publishing the details himself — here is what the numbers say about the slow start and the eventual exit.
The Wirecutter: $30M+ From The New York Times, 5 Bootstrapped Years by an Ex-Gizmodo Editor
Review site The Wirecutter was sold to The New York Times in October 2016. Reports put the payment at over $30M including retention bonuses. Former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam founded it in 2011 with his own money and grew it to $150M in e-commerce transactions via affiliate links in 2015.
The Hustle: $17.2M in Cash, in the Buyer's SEC Filing — the Price the Founder Never Named
Business newsletter The Hustle was sold to HubSpot in February 2021. Founder Sam Parr never disclosed the price, but HubSpot's 10-K filed with the SEC records a cash purchase price of $17.2M. We read the sale through public documents, including the gap with the ~$27M valuation reported by Axios.
Morning Brew: $500 in Revenue in Its First Two Years — Then a Majority Sale in All Cash at a $75M Valuation Five Years On
Business newsletter Morning Brew sold a majority stake to Insider Inc. in October 2020, all cash. Per Axios reporting, the deal valued the company around $75M. Started by two University of Michigan students in 2015, it made just $500 in its first two years; in the sale year it projected $20M revenue, $6M profit, and 3M+ subscribers.
Gadgeneko: Six Years, 356 Posts, 70K Monthly Pageviews and ¥60,000 a Month — Revenue Doubled After Surviving a Core Update and a Domain Change
The operator of Japanese gadget review blog Gadgeneko published a six-year report: 356 posts, about 70,000 monthly pageviews, roughly ¥60,000 a month (peaking near ¥130,000), with revenue about double the previous year. Annual check-ins record the October 2023 core update hit, the August 2024 domain change, and the recovery driven by Google Discover.
The Penny Hoarder: From Personal Blog to $50M Revenue in 10 Years — and a $102.5M All-Cash Exit at About 2x Sales
Personal finance media The Penny Hoarder sold to Sykes Enterprises for $102.5M in cash in December 2020. Per local press reports, trailing-twelve-month revenue was $50M, putting the price at about 2x sales. Kyle Taylor started it as a personal blog in 2010 and reached these numbers in 10 years with no outside funding.
TreeHugger: The 3-Year-Old Green Blog Discovery Bought for $10M in 2007, on 1.4M Monthly Uniques
Environmental blog TreeHugger sold to Discovery Communications for $10M in August 2007. Per TechCrunch, it was founded in 2004 and drew 1.4M monthly unique visitors, ranking in Technorati's global Top 20. A pioneering case of big media buying a niche blog in an era when "green doesn't make money."
Piroriro: Six Years of Whisky Blogging, ¥2,209,289 Total — a Full Disclosure of the Downhill from ¥73,421 to ¥7,975 a Month
The operator of whisky blog Piroriro published all six years of earnings: ¥2,209,289 in total (13,818 approved conversions), all via a single affiliate network. From a 2021 peak of ¥668,050 a year, income fell to ¥192,801 in 2024; best month ¥73,421, worst month ¥7,975. A rare record of the decline, not the climb.
Bankaholic: A 2-Year-Old One-Man Finance Blog Bankrate Bought for Up to $15M
In 2008, US finance blog Bankaholic sold to Bankrate for $12.4M upfront plus an earnout of up to $2.5M — up to $15M total. Owner Johns Wu was the sole owner and sole worker of a roughly two-year-old WordPress blog. The buyer's CEO cited organic search rankings for deposit and credit card keywords as the reason.
Keshilog: ¥1.5M a Month in the Telework Boom, Then a Deliberate ¥9.9M Landing — Three Years of a PC-Desk-Gear Blog
Keshilog, a Japanese blog specializing in PC desk peripherals, hit roughly ¥1.5 million a month in the spring-2020 telework boom — then deliberately slowed down to land under Japan's ¥10 million consumption-tax threshold. A three-year report that discloses the surge, the throttling, and the slump that followed.
Ruki: Selling a Personal Blog for ¥2.8M — a Seller's Full Walkthrough of a Brokered Site M&A in Japan
Most personal-blog sales in Japan never disclose price or process. In 2023, blogger Ruki sold her blog for ¥2.8 million through the brokerage Saitoma and published the entire journey: the appraisal form, interviews with three buyer candidates, the price negotiation, and the payout arriving the day after final inspection.
Kokou no Tabibito: A Multi-Topic Blog Hitting 500K Monthly PV and ¥300,000/Month in About a Year
Yonesuke, who runs the fishing, outdoors and travel blog "Kokou no Tabibito," disclosed reaching 500,000 monthly pageviews and ¥300,000/month about one year after launch — roughly ¥0.6 per PV. His thesis: a general-interest blog can compete with niche blogs by exhaustively covering each category.
Gadgemaga: 594,562 Pageviews, ¥3,784,734 in a Month — The Ledger a Former Civil Servant Published Down to the Last Yen
In November 2020, Japanese gadget blog Gadgemaga logged 594,562 pageviews and ¥3,784,734 in revenue; its peak month was ¥5.08M in February 2021. The monthly reports, published to the yen, show how YouTube lifted the blog — and how fast it decayed.
Hitsuji: Quit With No Website, Savings Down to ¥20,000, Then ¥1.7M a Month in Year One
In April 2016 he quit his job without even owning a website. By June, accrued commissions were still zero and his savings fell from 700,000 yen to an eventual low of 20,000 yen. Working 14-16 hours a day, he wrote 120 articles, hit 200,000 yen a month in September, 1 million yen in January 2017, and over 1.7 million yen in March — Hitsuji's self-published record of year one.
Laugh-Raku: ¥1.91M a Month from 256K Pageviews — the ¥7.5-per-View Math Behind a 12-Year Solo Blogger
Taku Suzuki started blogging in January 2013 and went independent the following year. His about page states ¥1.91M a month from 256,000 pageviews and a peak month of ¥6M. We look at the unusually high revenue per pageview — roughly ¥7.5 — and at how a personal blog stays alive for 12 years.
FAQ
- How much can a blog or newsletter earn?
- Documented cases include a Japanese blogger reaching ¥12.55M/month on 15M page views, and Lenny's Newsletter at $2M+/year on 18K paid subscribers — alongside a second-year blog that earned ¥203,000 in a year.
- What do content sites sell for?
- A 600-article niche site sold for ~$250K after 3 years; Investor Junkie, 80% SEO traffic over 9 years, went for $5.8M; a recipe blog sold for $200K+ — with sellers noting buyers valued only the ad revenue.