For most folks on this list, I’ll give a guess based on their public audience size and any hints that they’ve released publicly about their revenue. Revenue = I can’t tell you If you poke around the site a bit, it’s pretty obvious that the blog makes most of its money from infoproducts. Make sure to sign up for his email list — you’ll start getting the launch funnels and you’ll be able to see how it all works. Revenue = Over $1 million per year According to this post, Steve’s doing over seven figures with his business. Revenue = Over $1.2 million per year In this post, Jon states that he’s doing over $100K per month in affiliate revenue which is pretty impressive. It’s one of the original “how to blog” blogs. Revenue = My guess is about $1 million per year Sam gives a few hints on what he makes with his site. Tim Ferriss – tim.blog Revenue = My guess is about $10 million per year Tim has a massive blog that’s been around for a long time. Currently, I assume that the majority of Tim’s income comes from his podcast sponsorships. Based on the fact that the revenue is mostly infoproducts and the overall size of the audience, my guess is that Art of Charm does $5–10 million per year in revenue.
How 21 bloggers are making money with their blogs and you can too
I have a major disclaimer before we begin.
A good part of my career has been working for some of the folks in this list.
In fact, I was personally responsible for setting annual revenue goals and hitting those goals while I was the Senior Director of Growth and Product at I Will Teach You To Be Rich. In that case specifically, I’m extremely familiar with revenue totals and what drove that revenue.
Not to mention the affiliate commissions that were paid out to some of the people on this list, numbers that were shared in confidence after a few too many drinks, and second-hand rumors that I picked up along the way.
Unfortunately, I’ve got sad news.
I’m not going to share any of that insider knowledge. Sorry.
Some folks don’t mind publishing their revenue numbers but others keep it extremely private. If I shared that kind of info on how their blogs make money, I’d shatter the trust they placed in me. I take that trust very seriously.
For this post, I’m only going to be sharing revenue numbers that have been shared publicly.
Now here’s what I can do for you.
With the background that I have in this space, there are some common rules of thumb for figuring out revenue. They’re not perfect rules but they do tend to get the right number of digits. And after a while, you get a general sense for people’s revenue based on the size of their audience.
For most folks on this list, I’ll give a guess based on their public audience size and any hints that they’ve released publicly about their revenue. I’ll clearly label at is as a guess and you should take it with a grain of salt.
Revenue = I can’t tell you
If you poke around the site a bit, it’s pretty obvious that the blog makes most of its money from infoproducts.
Ramit is absolutely at the top of his game when it comes to infoproducts and I consider this site one of the best to learn from if you’re considering monetizing your own blog with infoproducts. Make sure to sign up for his email list — you’ll start getting the launch funnels and you’ll be able to see how it all works.
There are also a few products available for purchase from the products page. That’s a great source for inspiration to see what an amazing infoproduct sales page looks like.
Marie Forleo – marieforleo.com
Revenue = My guess is several million per year
Marie has been blogging for a while now. She also put in a lot of work into her YouTube channel.
He content has a great reputation and her copy is world class. I assume most of her revenue comes from infoproducts, particularly her flagship program B-School. It’s been a while since I followed Marie closely but for a period, she launched B-School once per year.
She’s an amazing person to study if you want to learn how to produce high-quality positive content. She’s also brilliant at balancing valuable content with going for the sale in an authentic way.
Revenue = Over $1 million per year
According to this post, Steve’s doing over seven figures with his business. It’s a mix of infoproducts, coaching, and bootcamps. He also wrote a book called Level Up Your Life.
What I love most about Steve’s business is how he’s chosen a specific segment of the market and differentiated himself from other fitness blogs. The fitness space is crazy competitive but by branding his entire business around fitness for nerds, he clearly separates himself from that competition. Even in the most competitive categories, there are still opportunities to target a niche with your blog and make real money with it.
Amy Porterfield – amyporterfield.com
Revenue = At least $2–3 million per year, maybe more
Amy’s About page states that she’s built a multi-million dollar business, something that I absolutely believe based on her audience size.
I’m assuming that the vast majority of her revenue is from her infoproducts, but it looks like she does some affiliate promotion too. Her affiliate page is pretty classy and well done. It’s a great example of how to promote products in an authentic and non-pushy way.
Revenue = Over $1.2 million per year
In this post, Jon states that he’s doing over $100K per month in affiliate revenue which is pretty impressive.
He also has several of infoproducts available for purchase on his site. I bet these do about $30–50K per year on their own. I’m not sure what Jon’s email funnels look like but if he’s pushing launch funnels aggressively, he could easily have another few million in revenue from infoproducts on top of his affiliate revenue.
Darren Rowse – Problogger
Revenue = My guess is about $10 million per year
Problogger has been around since 2004. That’s an eternity in online marketing. It’s one of the original “how to blog” blogs. Darren also owns Digital Photography School which has 8X as much traffic and revenue as Problogger.
Darren did do a income report on the first half of 2016. At that time, 46% of his revenue from both sites came from affiliates, 31% came from infoproducts, and the rest from a smattering of different categories.
Revenue = My guess is over $2 million per year
Seth Godin had plenty of success before his blog: he’s written 18 books, built and sold a company to Yahoo, and then was a VP at Yahoo. And his blog has cemented him as the leading marketing thought leader. If you were trying to come up with an ideal example of a thought leader, you’d have a hard time finding a better example than Seth Godin.
Seth’s blog is the original, longest running, and possibly highest value blog in marketing. He’s posted every day for like 20 years or something.
For a long time, he never montized it. Unless you consider featuring his books occasionally to count as monetization. Recently, he has done a few infoproducts including the altMBA and The Marketing Seminar. I went through The Marketing Seminar myself and quite a few people were in the community, so it sold well. Seth’s site says that over 5,000 people took the course in total. At $800 per sale, that’s about $4 million in total spread over several years. Plus all the revenue from altMBA.
Neil Patel – neilpatel.com
Revenue = I’m not even going to guess
I worked for Neil when he was a co-founder of KISSmetrics. He’s the one that originally hired me. Also worked with him on some other projects after that. I’m not going to even hazard a revenue guess here since I don’t want to reveal anything that Neil would prefer to keep private.
He has stated publicly that his main site, neilpatel.com, generates over 2.5 million visitors per month. I’ll let you figure out the revenue from there.
Selena Soo – selenasoo.com
Revenue = Over $1.6 million per year
In this article, Selena reported that she made $1.6 million in 2017. I assume the majority of her revenue comes from infoproducts that she launches to her email list periodically. Considering the stage of her business, she’s built out a pretty impressive infoproduct portfolio along with some higher ticket mastermind offers.
Revenue = My guess is about $1 million per year
Sam gives a few hints on what he makes with his site. First, he does give the revenue of his infoproduct ebook which is $36,000 per year.
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