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5 ways financial publishers and creators are making millions (and even billions)

A primer on the little-known ways FinPub’s make money

DEEP DIVE

It’s likely that more money has been made by financial and investing newsletters than any other category:

  • Agora - $1B+ annual revenue

  • MarketWise - $500M+ annual revenue

  • Motley Fool - $100M+ annual revenue

  • MarketBeat - $40M+ annual revenue

There’s so many more examples of huge financial newsletters that fly under the radar.

In fact, I’m working with a client now who has made $500M in revenue over the past 6 years from their financial newsletters (most people have never heard of them).

This industry is secretive. There are sketchy and unethical players. But there’s also many people producing great products and doing everything by the book.

I’ve found once you get to know the people in FinPub, they’re extremely helpful and happy to share information.

Here’s what I’ve learned about how financial newsletters make money…

But first, an important disclaimer:

  • I’m not endorsing all financial publishers. Like any industry there are good and bad actors.

  • I write these deep dives on what I find interesting and what I think will be useful to you. I learn from everyone regardless of how I feel about their opinions, actions, or business model.

  • I enjoy writing about stuff that you “can’t google.” It’s fun for me to uncover things and it’s novel for readers. This is a great example of that.

  • I don't claim to be knowledgeable on everything FinPub. Some of the numbers I share may be off. I’m doing my best based on the little information that is out there about this.

Now, here’s a primer on the little-known ways FinPub’s make money:

1) Paid newsletters

This is the most common revenue channel. FinPub’s sell a monthly or annual subscription that help subscribers invest or trade better.

It's technically not “investment advice”. That’s illegal.

Instead these subscriptions focus on stock picks, education, research, analysis, news, and/or alerts.

This is the bread and butter for companies like:

  • Agora

  • MarketWise

  • Motley Fool

  • Porter & Co

  • And many more

Usually these companies have multiple “front-end” and “back-end” subscriptions.

Front-ends are typically cost $79-$99 per year. They usually provide more basic, beginner, or low risk investing information with 2-4 newsletters per month.

For example, Motley Fool’s front-end product “Stock Advisor” has:

  • Monthly rankings

  • 2 stock picks per month

  • Focuses on long term buy and hold investing

  • Is recommended for people with portfolio sizes of $25k+

…all for $99 per year.

Back-end newsletters typically cost ~$2000 per year.

The Fool’s back-end product’s provide more content for investors with bigger portfolios looking for more risk and more potential reward:

  • 5-10+ stock picks a month

  • Options trading information

  • More data, rankings, and research

  • Recommended portfolio sizes of $50k-$500k+

  • Access Motley Fool’s co-founder (Tom Gardner’s) real money portfolios

  • And more

…The back-end prices for the Motley Fool’s range from $499 to $14,000 per year.

Overview of their products here.

Essentially as customers move from front-end to back-end newsletters they get:

  • More content, more often

  • More access to the guru, founder, or creator

  • More high risk, high reward investing strategies

It’s important to know for large at-scale publishers (like the examples above) ~90% of their profits will come from back-end newsletters.

The $79-$99 newsletters are not the real money maker. Instead, front-ends are used to:

  • Liquidate or reduce back-end customer acquisition cost

  • Find and identify customers who could buy a back-end

  • Collect more information like credit card, phone number, and address for more successful future marketing and upsells

  • Provide a great product experience at a low cost to increase the odds customers to will take an upsell (this doesn't always happen, but it can)

Most large financial publishers are breaking even or losing money on front end customer acquisition cost.

But they will make up that cost with upsells and renewals.

For more on the FinPub product and marketing strategy, see my podcast with John Newtson.

2) Affiliate marketing

There are massive financial publishing companies like MarketBeat that make ~70%-80% of their revenue from affiliate marketing alone.

(MarketBeat did $41M in 2024 with a team of 19 people)

Here’s how it works:

  • Companies like MarketBeat will promote another FinPub’s front-end newsletter or information product

  • In this industry it's common to pay affiliates a 100%-200% commission on the initial sale because much more money is made on the back-end.

  • So if MarketBeat sells a $79 product for another publisher they will earn a ~$100 to ~$150 commission

This is way better than normal affiliate marketing where affiliates only earn a 10% to 50% commission on the sale.

I interviewed Matt Paulson the founder of MarketBeat on my podcast about this.

He was nice enough to break down the entire process and share many of his numbers. It’s worth reading or watching here.

3) Course, coaching, and events

This one is simpler and more common outside of the FinPub space:

Publishers or creators sell courses, coaching, events (or a combination of these things) to educate customers on how to trade or invest better.

These could be sold as back-end products. Or standalone.

Some FinPubs reach 7 and 8 figure in revenue from just one $5,000 per year coaching program and community (example here).

4) Advertising and sponsorships

Ad rates and CPMs for financial and investing audiences are lucrative.

  • Most of the top newsletter advertisers are in this category.

  • Advertisers in finance and fintech have higher customer lifetime value (LTV) and are happy to pay more to acquire customers.

  • Some financial advertisers are restricted from Facebook and Google ads, so newsletters are the best alternative.

5) Investor relations

This is where things get interesting.

Public companies (usually small and micro caps) will pay FinPub’s big money to generate “awareness” about their stock.

This is essentially legal stock promotion.

The goal for the public companies is to boost trading volume and increase the stock price in the short or long term.

And yes, with complaint marketing and property disclosures this is legal.

However, not all FinPubs do this. In fact, most of the big publishers don’t.

But this is a large “underground” industry were some people are making a lot of money.

These investor relations or awareness campaigns can be:

  • Newsletter ad placements

  • Sponsored email or SMS sends

  • Sponsored broadcast to WhatApps groups and discord communities

  • And more

The advertiser (meaning the financial publisher or creator) can get paid in cash or stock.

But everything must be disclosed (including how much the publisher was paid!) for this to be compliant.

A recent disclosure I saw where the publisher was paid $2M for a 3 month ad campaign

There's also strict guidelines around what the advertiser can say:

  • Advertisers can't provide a recommendation or call to action.

  • The ad copy is typically focused on analysis of the company or announcing news about the company. Sometimes even just mentioning the stock ticker.

  • I’m sure there are more compliance rules and regulations I’m not familiar with.

Final thoughts

For more on FinPub, check out my interviews with Matt Paulson and John Newston.

If you want to dive deeper, John’s podcast FinPub Pro is the the #1 source of information about the space.

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