$1m/year newsletter in 2025

I work with a lot of newsletters.

Not side projects.

Actual businesses doing millions and tens of millions a year.

Most people only see the end result.

But here’s what they don’t see.

A lot of these operators made their first $1M in year one.

And it wasn’t luck.
It wasn’t a viral tweet.
It wasn’t posting carousels on LinkedIn every day.

They started with paid acquisition.

They built a profitable newsletter system.

Subscriber goes in, money comes out in the back.

Then they scaled it.

And oddly enough, most of them followed a similar basic playbook.

Here’s the step-by-step.