How to start a local newsletter that pays: 2026 platform costs, the email law most guides skip, and how to sell local ads before you have a single subscriber.
Everybody who looks up how to start a local newsletter gets the same advice: pick your town, pick a platform, write good stuff, and the advertisers will come. That last part is where it falls apart. Local businesses pay for eyeballs, and on day one you have zero. So here's the honest version: what it costs in 2026, the email law almost nobody mentions, what members of our community are actually doing with their newsletters, and the move that gets you paid before your list is big enough to sell.
Watch: He Sold Out His 1st Community Card in 3 Weeks: $1000s in Profit · Summary and transcript
A local newsletter is an email that goes to people in one town or one part of a city. Events, new restaurants, what's opening, what's closing, the stuff people talk about at the bus stop. Some are real journalism. Most are curation. Both can work.
The money comes from two places:
Advertisers. Local businesses pay to be in front of local readers. A sponsor slot at the top, a smaller ad in the middle, a logo wall at the bottom.
Readers. A paid tier, usually for extra content or no ads.
For both of these examples, ads are the bigger piece. Don't Miss Margate, a hyperlocal newsletter on the English coast, gets 75% of its revenue from advertising and 25% from subscriptions, per Press Gazette in March 2026. Naptown Scoop in Annapolis was reported to have grown from 70 subscribers in 2020 to 21,000, bringing in $300k a year in ad revenue.
May 2024
Launched
1,000
Subscribers after 3 months
About 3,000
Subscribers now
65 to 70%
Open rate
75%
Revenue from ads
Those are real wins. But look at what sits underneath them. The Margate founder spent 20 years in journalism before launching. Naptown took years to get where it is. A newsletter is a slow audience you build, then sell. That's the part the platform guides skip.
Here's the thing. To sell an ad, you need an audience. To build an audience, you need time, and money to live on while you write every week for free. Advertisers ask one question first: "How many people get it?" If the answer is 140, mostly your cousins, the conversation is over.
None of the guides ranking for this give you a subscriber number where advertisers start paying, and honestly, that's because there isn't one. It depends on your town, how engaged your readers are, and how well you sell. Anyone who gives you a hard number is guessing.
So you've got a chicken-and-egg problem. And most people who start a newsletter quit somewhere in that gap, writing to a small list and waiting.
A newsletter is an audience you build first and sell later. A postcard is an audience you can sell this month.
This is where I come in, and yes, it's the business I teach. A shared postcard is a card with about 16 local businesses on it, mailed to every home on the routes you pick through the Postal Service's Every Door Direct Mail. You don't have to build that audience. The mail carrier already has it.
2,500
Homes reached on day one
16
Spots at $250
$4,000
Revenue
$1,449
Print, postage, mailing (All Inclusive)
$2,551
Profit
The bigger 9x12 card is 16 spots at $500, so $8,000, with $2,999 All Inclusive to 5,000 homes, and $5,001 profit. Either way, the answer to "how many people get it?" is a real number from the first month.
Then you use the card to build the newsletter. Put a QR code on it that gets locals onto your list. Every card you mail grows the list, and your advertisers help you grow it, because their offers are the reason people scan. I built this into Our Local Spotlight as Virtual Postcards: exclusive partners get a QR code that opens a digital copy of the card, residents enter their info to unlock an advertiser's offer, and the partner owns the list. In the video where I launched it, I literally asked, "Have you ever dreamt of running a local newsletter in your town? Now you can do that."
You don't need that tool, though. A plain signup form on your newsletter platform and a QR code on your card does the same basic job.
A few people in our community figured this out before I ever wrote about it.
Jeffrey runs his card as Vegas Local Spotlight. He built an email list from people he met at local networking events and started a free Friday morning newsletter on Beehiiv. His words: "1-2 minute read and I can schedule these out." The format is dead simple: one Vegas thing, one Jeff thing (an update on the card), one joke. When he shared it, it was opening at 53%, and he was honest that he expected that to drop. The part that matters: "it's allowing for warmer conversations when I hit people up to advertise." He sold out his December card.
Corey is a full-time teacher who started a hyper-local newsletter for his town about two years before we sat down for the interview at the top of this post. It grew into a newsletter, a local business directory, an event calendar, and an app. Then he added community cards. Now the logo wall for his advertisers lives on the newsletter, and he tries not to make the newsletter too ad-heavy. And here's what he said about why the card matters even with all that digital stuff:
"It's the only physical product I have. If you try to do this just digitally, it is a much much harder sell."
His plan, and it's a plan, not a result yet, is a $1,200 monthly package that puts one business in the mailbox, the inbox, the app, and his socials. He'd rather have 16 deep partners than chase new ones every month. As I told him, the postcard is the Trojan horse. Business owners get pitched newsletter ads all the time. They've probably never been pitched this.
William closed a partnership with his local Chamber of Commerce, gave his mailer a community name, and paired it with a weekly newsletter: business profiles, local deals, and a featured page for every advertiser.
Emily runs her cards under one brand, the Lincoln Spotlight, and is planning a monthly "meet your neighbors" newsletter for the routes she mails.
Corey is the one who started with the newsletter, and even he says the card is what makes it sellable. The card gets you paid fast. The newsletter makes the relationship deeper.
Okay so, whether you add a card or not, here's how to get the newsletter itself off the ground.
Pick one area and one name. A town of a few thousand households is plenty. If you run a card, use the same name for both, the way Jeffrey uses Vegas Local Spotlight. One brand people recognize in the mailbox and the inbox.
Pick a platform (costs below). Don't overthink it.
Pick a format you can repeat in under an hour. Jeffrey's three-part format is a great starting point. Events this week, one new business, one local photo or story.
Seed the list with people who actually want it. Friends, the networking group, your Facebook group, your advertisers' customers. Ask first: "Mind if I add you to my Friday email?"
Pick a send day and never miss it. Ghost's own guide says most email newsletters go out weekly, and that's a good default.
Set up the legal footer before issue one (next section).
Sell sponsors once you have a reason to, or bundle a newsletter mention into an ad someone is already buying from you.
Here's what the three big ones charge, straight from their pricing pages as of October 26, 2026:
beehiiv: free up to 2,500 subscribers. Its built-in money tools (its ad network and paid subscriptions) start on paid plans, from $59 billed monthly. Selling a local ad yourself doesn't need any of that. You just put the ad in the issue.
Substack: for paid subscriptions, Substack's own page says writers keep 90% of revenue minus credit card fees, so Substack takes 10%.
Ghost: the Starter plan is $18 monthly, billed yearly, for up to 1,000 members, but it doesn't include paid subscriptions. Those start on a higher plan.
For a local ad-supported newsletter, I'd start free and stay free until money is coming in. That's what Jeffrey did.
Look, this is the part every guide I read for this post left out, and it's the one that can actually cost you. If your newsletter carries ads, treat it as commercial email under the federal CAN-SPAM Act. According to the FTC's compliance guide, it covers all commercial messages, and there's no exception for business-to-business email.
What that means for you:
A real physical postal address in every email. A registered P.O. box or private mailbox counts.
A working unsubscribe link, and you honor opt-outs within 10 business days.
Honest subject lines and "from" names. No "Re:" tricks.
You're responsible even if someone else sends it for you.
The FTC page says each email that breaks the law can bring penalties of up to $53,088 (per the FTC's compliance guide as of October 26, 2026). Most newsletter platforms add the unsubscribe link for you, and many ask for your address during setup. Fill it in. Done.
People ask me which local media business to start. Here's the straight comparison. I covered the costs of the print option in detail in my post on how to start a local magazine.
Newsletter
Local magazine
Shared postcard
Cost to send
Free to start
Printing plus postage, every issue
$1,449 for 2,500 homes, paid for by your advertisers before it mails
Audience on day one
Whoever you sign up
Whoever you mail
Every home on your routes
Work per issue
Writing every week
Writing, design, sales
Selling about 16 spots
When it pays
After the list grows
After ads cover print
Once the spots cover the print bill
The newsletter costs the least to start and is the slowest to pay. The card is the fastest to pay. Run the card for cash and the newsletter for depth, and you've got both. I wrote a full community card guide if you want the details on that side.
Full transparency. I do teach all of this inside the 9x12 Method community, including how members bundle a card with a newsletter. You don't need it to start a newsletter. Plenty of people launch one with a free account and a weekend.
Nobody ranking for this will give you a price, and I won't make one up either. Your town sets it. But the structure is easy to copy.
Wichita Life, a local newsletter with nearly 30,000 subscribers, runs three ad spots per issue, according to its founder's interview notes: a primary spot at the top with a logo, a secondary spot mid-issue with an image, and a text-only spot at the bottom. The primary costs about 25% more than the secondary. Simple. Three sizes, three prices.
If you also run a card, the easier sale is a bundle. The business already said yes to a spot on the card, so add a newsletter feature or a logo wall spot on top. That's what Corey and William are doing. You're not pitching a new thing to a stranger. You're adding to something they already bought from you.
Start with people you already know: friends, your networking group, local Facebook groups, and anyone who says yes when you ask in person. Then add a way to sign up from something that already reaches homes, like a QR code on a mailed card. That's how you get past the zero-subscriber stage without waiting a year.
There's no fixed number, and I'd be guessing if I gave you one. It depends on your town, how many people actually open it, and how well you sell. A smaller list of locals who read every week can be worth more to a local shop than a big list that ignores it. That's also why bundling a newsletter mention with a mailed ad is easier: the mail gives you a reach number from day one.
It can be. Naptown Scoop was reported at $300k a year in ad revenue, and Don't Miss Margate was on track for 拢85,000 a year from its first town. Both took real time to build. Plan for months of writing before the money is steady, unless you pair it with something that pays sooner.
Most local ones start free and sell ads, because a free list grows faster and local businesses want the biggest local list they can get. Don't Miss Margate does both, with about 75% of its revenue from ads. Start free, and add a paid tier later only if readers ask for more.
Ask anyway. It's the difference between a list that opens and a list that unsubscribes. Then follow CAN-SPAM on every issue: your physical address, a working unsubscribe link, opt-outs honored within 10 business days, and honest subject lines. The FTC says the law covers business-to-business email too.
Yes, and they fit together. The card brings in money and reaches every home on your routes, the QR code on the card grows your list, and the newsletter keeps your advertisers in front of people between mailings. Jeffrey, Corey, and William all run some version of this.
Whether you start a newsletter, a card, or both, I hope you build something your town actually looks forward to opening. As always, I'm rooting for you.
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Mitchell Tebo
