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
- 83
- Sale price
- 153.8億円
Blog and niche site cases
1–24 of 83
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.
Trivipedia: 560 Articles Mass-Produced With Claude Code in 3 Months for ¥12,948 a Month. Reading an AI-Automated Media Site by Its Own Reports
A trivia blog opened in 2017 and dormant for seven years relaunched as Trivipedia in June 2026. A Claude Code pipeline published 90 articles in June, 174 in July and 286 in August. August brought 54,786 pageviews, ¥11,255 in AdSense and ¥1,693 in note sales. Pageviews doubled monthly while search CTR fell from 4.22% to 2.80%.
Fukugyo Compass: Under ¥10K/Month for 8 Months, Then ¥4.84M in Month 25 — Inside Kunitomi's 200-Hour-a-Month Side-Hustle Blog
Fukugyo Compass, the side-hustle blog run by Kunitomi — a salaried worker who moved from a trust bank to a web marketing firm — earned under ¥10K/month for its first 8 months, hit ¥4.84M in month 25, and peaked at ¥12M/month. We chart the monthly progression and the 200 hours per month behind it from two interviews.
Ikeda Hayato: The Blogger Who Published His Full ¥4.05M Monthly Revenue Breakdown — Rereading the Origin of Japan's "Income Report" Culture
Ikeda Hayato of "Mada Tokyo de Shomo Shiteru no?" published the breakdown of his roughly ¥4.05M in January 2017 revenue (about ¥2M affiliate, ¥1.07M note sales, 2.18M pageviews) on note. A third-party compilation traces the arc from ¥40K a month in 2012 to ¥5.21M in February 2016. Rereading measured records of personal-blog economics.
Tenshoku Antenna: A One-Person Media Site, ¥700M Plus a ¥300M Earnout from Listed Company Logly
Tenshoku Antenna, a Japanese job-change media site run by moto (Shunsuke Totsuka) as a one-person company, became a 100% subsidiary of listed adtech firm Logly in April 2021. The founder disclosed the price himself: ¥700M plus an earnout of up to ¥300M. Negotiations took about six months, and his director compensation exceeded ¥100M a year — one of the largest disclosed exits for an individual-run media site in Japan.
Starter Story: The $91.7K/Month Startup Case-Study Media Acquired by HubSpot — Months After the Founder Tweeted "HubSpot Should Acquire Starter Story"
Starter Story, the startup case-study media, was acquired by HubSpot in February 2026 while self-disclosing $91.7K/month and $1.1M/year in revenue with 1.6M monthly visits. Founder Pat Walls had tweeted "HubSpot should acquire Starter Story" just months earlier. The price is undisclosed.
The God of Blog: 310K Pageviews Made ¥47K a Month, 6,499 Pageviews Made ¥53K — a 6-Year-2-Month Measured Record of Niche Selection
A One Piece analysis blog earned ¥46,801 on 310K monthly pageviews; the third blog, about blogging itself, earns ¥53,232 on 6,499. Per-pageview value of ¥0.15 versus ¥8.2 — Hebo published the full 6 years 2 months it took to reach ¥50K a month, failed sites' numbers included.
manablog at ¥1,000,000–1,500,000/month, and two sites left idle 3–4 years before closing — the numbers Manabu published under his real name
manablog earns ¥1,000,000–1,500,000/month at 500,000 PV, with one article alone worth roughly ¥500,000/month, while two other sites earning ¥100,000–150,000/month closed after 3–4 years of neglect.
Lenny’s Newsletter: 377K Free, 18K Paid, $2M+ a Year — 450 Paid Subscribers in the First 6 Weeks After Going Paid
Lenny Rachitsky's newsletter earns $2M+/year from 377K free and 18K+ paid subscribers (a 4–5% conversion rate). Six weeks after going paid on April 7, 2020, it had 450 paid subscribers. The turning point wasn't the paywall itself — it was rebuilding the product as a Slack community.
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.