You send a free newsletter, and the question is whether enough of those readers will ever pay you for it to make it a business. Across the paid newsletters on Beehiiv, the typical publication converts 0.62% of its free list to paid. Ghost calls 2% to 5% a good rate. We run a subscription publishing business on this model, and this is what its dashboard shows in September 2026.
What do free to paid and churn mean?
Free to paid is the share of your free readers who upgrade to a paid plan. Churn is the share of paying members who leave each month. Those two numbers decide whether a newsletter grows or stands still, because every month you add some paying members and lose some, and the business is the difference between the two.
On our subscription publishing business this month, about 0.8% of free readers upgraded, which is 27 people. Across the life of the list, about 5.6% of the readers who signed up free have paid at some point. Of the readers who take the free trial, about 70% go on to pay. Churn so far this month is about 3.2%, and over a full month it runs at about 6%. Money and finance newsletters are the peer group for this business, and Beehiiv puts their monthly churn at about 16.7%.
| Measure | Our subscription publishing business, September 2026 | Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Free readers who upgraded this month | about 0.8% (27 upgrades) | Beehiiv median across all paid newsletters 0.62% |
| Free readers who have ever paid | about 5.6% | Ghost calls 2% to 5% a good rate |
| Trial to paid | about 70% | the platforms publish no figure |
| Monthly churn | about 6% (3.2% so far this month) | money and finance newsletters about 16.7% |
Our figures are read from the dashboard on 17 September 2026. Benchmarks as published by Beehiiv, The State of Paid Newsletters, June 2026, and Ghost, Examining your analytics.
Is the paid list growing?
Yes. This month it added 46 paying members and lost 18, so the paid list grew by 28.
Watch that net figure, because it tells you whether you are adding paying members faster than you are losing them. The 46 came from free readers upgrading and from trials converting. The 18 include people who cancelled and cards that failed and could not be recovered. Failed payments are chased automatically on this business, with about 65% recovered, so most of a failed card never becomes a lost member.
Where does the current growth lead?
On the current trajectory, the paid list reaches about 707 members in 3 months, about 834 in 6 months and about 1,002 in 12 months.
Every morning the dashboard recalculates that line from the month's real adds and losses. It is a forecast from today's numbers. If churn goes up, the forecast comes down, and we see it the same day. Income runs on the same line.
| On the current trajectory | Paying members | Annual subscription income |
|---|---|---|
| In 3 months | about 707 | about A$190,000 |
| In 6 months | about 834 | about A$216,000 |
| In 12 months | about 1,002 | about A$270,000 |
A live projection from the dashboard on 17 September 2026, recalculated each morning as growth moves. A forecast on the current trajectory, not a promise.
We worked through what a paid newsletter in Australia can charge in Australian dollars, what the platforms take, and where GST sits, in Beehiiv vs Substack.
What runs without us
Four things run on their own, on a server the business owns, and a person approves what goes out.
Research for the week's email is done overnight and the email is drafted, ready for a tap. Welcome and follow-up emails go to every new reader on their own timing. Billing recovery chases every failed card. Each morning the daily dashboard reads the list, the trials, the churn and the billing, and shows the month-on-month growth expected from the current growth, so we know each morning whether the month is on track.
Where to start
If you want the same setup for your newsletter, we build it: the list on your own domain, the welcome series in your voice, the weekly email drafted for your tap, billing recovery and the daily dashboard with your subscriber numbers on it, all on a server in your name. You can see the shape of it on our demonstration newsletter for a Sunshine Coast surf and fishing daily, built for a fictional business. It sits under our Marketing element. The Engine is $3,500 one-off and includes one element of your choice, each further element is $950, and the Website + Email Build at $5,950 includes all five. Or start smaller: answer a few short questions and we will provide a free custom audit of your business. If we can help, the next step is the 60 minute consult, $295, credited toward a build.
That same daily dashboard and reporting can be customised as part of our services for any business. The only limit is your imagination.