How much is a subscriber to a list worth?

It all comes down to the trust you build with the individual subscribers. Often a list of 1,000 could potentially outperform a 50,000 size list...it really all comes down to the relationship you build with your readers and thats why you should always treat them like the gold that they are.

So its a difficult question to give you an absolute on.

Different marketers will no doubt come back with different results, but my own experience is that each subscriber to my list is worth approximately 1 dollar per month.

John Burton

There is no dollar value to a list only targeted value.

If your list has trust and is a "buying" list then 500 could out perform 50,000

I make just a touch under $24 on average the first year each person who subscribes to my list, though if you segment those out by source it varies wildly. When I say "the first year" what I mean is this: If you take the total amount produced by those who subscribed to the list over 12 months divided by the number of new subscribers, I make $23 and change.

So this takes into account everyone who subscribes then immediately unsubscribes, for example.

Right now I believe I have made some changes that will increase that number--I am earning $8 first month now for each new subscriber--but we will see how that holds out over the course of a year.

Thanks for the replies, even with the few we have it's been enlightening.

It seems that even at the low-end a somewhat targeted list is worth about $1 per subscriber.

Would those who have replied, and are running lists, agree that they are 'gold'? Do they produce enough money to put the average salary worker to shame in terms of the hours worked for money earned?

The reason I ask this is because I've been a member of an UN-targeted list for about 6 years or so. This list goes to people from every age and from every background you can imagine. However it is the kind of list people stay on because it's interesting. About 5 years ago he started to allow people to pay to advertise on his list; they'd get a little text ad about 3 or 4 lines long. I don't know how much he charges, but I bet it's pretty low in the great scheme of things. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the region of $100-$500. Most of the ads are pretty niche as well.. which probably don't convert well on this list. There are several hundred thousand subscribers.

I was thinking that a similar list, but slightly more targeted, and with the ads arranged by the person writing the list would make a killing. 100,000 people reading it each week to a semi-targeted list would be an absolute money-machine I think.

I know the owner of the list doesn't work offline anymore because he earns enough money from it. However I suspect he earns his money due to the fact that he sells a 'premium version' of his list to his existing customers for about $20 for life. If he randomly offered his customers all of his content for free, but with the occasional $40profit he could earn from selling affiliate profits, he'd be a lot better off.

Any opinions on how you would monetize a list of, say, 300,000 RANDOM people who subscribe because they like your content? Would you sell ad-space to people for $500 a time? Or would you promote stuff that converted at about 1/1000 for a good return? Or..?

After a little more digging I realised:

The list is only about 100,000 people.

An ad costs about $250 for a week (aka one email). I guess that would mean that it could be profitable, even for untargetted stuff. Unless conversion rates are way way lower than I expect. About 1/16,000 readers purchasing a product with a $40 profit would make you break even.

For a list which is read by most of the people subscribed to it, but are completely untargetted, is that good value? I have no idea how well an untargetted list would convert. I'm interested though. Any insights anyone?