What population size is best for a local newsletter?

My rule of thumb is 100,000 to 500,000 people. I didn't pull that from a spreadsheet. It's where I see people doing what I'm doing actually succeed.

I live in a suburb near Austin of about 300,000 people, which to me is kind of perfect size. Lately I've been saying 200,000 to 400,000 is prime. Most of my own 20-plus newsletters cover 100,000 to 300,000 people, usually one suburban city or a combo of two or three cities that make up an area.

"It's big enough to really grow it, have a lot of advertisers, be able to make real money from it, get real solid engagement, but it's not so big that you're gonna get 10 competitors the way doing it in San Jose would."

Has my number changed over time?

Yes, a lot. I've gone back and forth depending on what I was seeing at the time. Here's the honest record:

When	What I said
Dec 2024	About 50K is probably what you want
Feb 2025	50K to 70K is the minimum, higher-value areas aside
March 2025	200K to 500K in a suburban-ish or smaller-city area is ideal
May 2025	Run by hand, at least 75K; 100K to 500K is the sweet spot
June 2025	Minimum 100K, call it 100K to 500K
Sept 2025	100K to 400K is ideal; I'm leaning smaller for some owners
Jan 2026	80K to 400K per newsletter
July 2026	200K to 400K is probably prime

The middle of that range has stayed put. What moves is the floor, and it moves with how much content work an owner is willing to do and how good the AI tools get.

Why not go smaller?

The floor exists for two reasons: enough households to build a list from, and enough local businesses to sell to. Below that, both get thin. Sub-50,000, I'm usually out. It's also hard to fill a newsletter. In a city of 100,000, even a once- or twice-a-week send can struggle for enough good content, though events are usually fine.

That content worry is shrinking. A combined market of 60,000 to 70,000 is a bit small, but I think it's doable now. Six months before I said that, I'd have called it questionable. AI makes it easier to find things, and an owner can always create content: go interview a business owner, make a video somewhere, write it up. You're not totally reliant on other stuff.

The floor isn't a hard rule, either. When an operator told me she was succeeding starting at 50,000 people, I called it a great sign.

When does a small town make sense?

When the goal is influence instead of ad revenue. If you're in a town of 35,000 and you're the media person, you get more benefit per subscriber. I pitch it as: fewer subscribers, more influence in the community, which is what a local business owner wants anyway.

I once told someone in a town of 15,000 to 20,000 that it's probably too small for advertising, but it could be great from another angle. Put about $700 a month into ads and within a year you'll be the guy in your town. Lots of things come from being that guy, especially if you want the wealthy people in your area to see you as the one who knows how to build an audience.

A few things make a small town a better bet:

• Wealth. The better, wealthier the area, the better it is.
• Tourism. A destination town has fewer residents but more valuable visitors. Twenty thousand people might be worth the equivalent of 50,000 or 100,000.
• An active owner. If someone is willing to be out in the community doing Instagram videos and digging in, I'm open to a small market. If they're passive and just want leads, a small town scares me.

Two outliers changed my mind a bit. At a conference in Austin I met a publisher running a digital-only newsletter and website in a town of 13,000 who says he makes about $400,000 a year in revenue. Before that conversation I'd have told anyone never to start a publication in a town that small. Separately, a Canadian operator in a town of about 60,000 reportedly makes around $400,000 a year from a newsletter and Instagram run by several content creators. Both are effort and sales skill, not population. The question is less the audience size and more: are you good at sales? Are you good at communicating?

Can you combine small towns to hit the number?

Yes, and I do it all the time. The town I grew up in has 30,000 people. My advice there was to combine it with three neighboring cities, all about 30,000, and cover roughly 120,000 people across four cities as one brand. In my own area I put Leander, Cedar Park and Liberty Hill together in one newsletter. See one town or a whole county for how I draw those lines.

Combining only works if the area means something to people. West Austin is like the Beverly Hills of Austin, but it's a small, poorly defined area, and that one struggled at around 5,000 subscribers.

What about a big metro?

Most of us are in smaller markets of 100,000 or 200,000 people. You can grow a decent revenue there, but probably not a million dollars. In a place with over a million people, a million-dollar local media business is much more viable.

Bigger places have one real upside: more people means cheaper subscribers. I get subscribers super cheap in Knoxville and Omaha compared with the suburbs. A city of about 500,000 is a really good size: big enough for cheap ads and a big audience, not so big it gets unwieldy.

The downsides are real, though:

• Competition. I've generally avoided big cities like Austin and Houston because of bigger players. I wouldn't do a general newsletter in Houston, LA or New York. A niche can work there, like families in Los Angeles or tech events in San Francisco.
• Distance. Covering a whole county of 2 million doesn't work for a hyper-local read. I'd be annoyed reading about cool things an hour and 15 minutes away. My test: someone should be able to drive to anything you cover in under 30 minutes, ideally under 20.
• The brand. Above about 500,000, it gets harder to plausibly be the local brand. If you're set on a big metro, pick its richest suburb.

Is a suburb harder than a standalone city?

I think so. I'm in a suburb of a big city myself, and I don't feel super connected to the fact that the best Costco is four minutes away. That's not the same as the Catskills or Santa Cruz, which have their own identity. Suburbs also attract more competitors, so businesses tell you the other four newsletters came to them recently.

A more isolated city that's its own thing is easier. And the big national local-news players are moving into bigger suburbs, like 130,000-person Round Rock, but they're probably not going to bother with an 80,000 city. That's why I've said standalone cities of 50,000 to 100,000 are probably the gold for this, with lots of opportunity for a long time. More in suburb vs. standalone city.

One exception goes the other way: a newsletter for business owners needs a bigger area, at least about half a million people, because only a fraction of residents are your audience. That's the B2B play.

What I'd check before picking a market

• Population of the combined area you'd cover, not just one town.
• Whether the area has a clear identity and borders people recognize.
• Whether readers can drive to anything you cover in under 30 minutes.
• How many local businesses could plausibly advertise, and how wealthy the area is.
• Whether there's enough happening to fill the newsletter every send, or whether you'll create it yourself.
• Who else is already pitching those businesses.

Most people who come to me are already in the right type of location. When they're in a city of 26,000 or in LA, I tell them plainly that no amount of wanting it fixes the location.