Remember when it was the intern who was assigned to do the corporate newsletter? A few clicks and flourishes inside Microsoft Publisher and the newsletter appeared.

Of course, newsletters have gone digital, but they’ve done a lot more than that. In essence, newsletters have gone multimedia. Large newsletter companies now all offer video and audio options with their digital print newsletter business.

Sounds Profitable , the trade association for the podcasting industry, revealed The Podcast Atlas in the summer, a new study that maps how audiences move across audio podcasts, video podcasts, social media, short-form clips, and newsletters within the modern creator economy. The findings, unveiled during a keynote presentation by Sounds Profitable Partner Tom Webster at VidCon, found that 73% of podcast listeners would follow a creator from audio to video, while 71% would follow that creator from long-form content to short-form clips, demonstrating that audience loyalty is tied more closely to creators than to any single platform or format.

Based on a survey of more than 5,000 U.S. consumers, The Podcast Atlas identifies five distinct territories that make up today’s creator ecosystem: audio podcasts, video podcasts, short-form clips, social platforms, and newsletters. According to the results, rather than competing with one another, each serves a unique role in how audiences discover, engage with, and build relationships with creators.

Supporting the entire ecosystem are social platforms and newsletters. Social platforms provide the reach, distribution, and daily engagement that help creators find new audiences, while newsletters create direct, owned relationships that are independent of platform algorithms. Among newsletter subscribers, 87% said podcast newsletters lead them to listen to episodes, underscoring the value of owned channels for audience retention and re-engagement.

The findings suggest that creators and advertisers alike benefit when they view podcasting not as a standalone medium but as part of a broader creator ecosystem.

“Industry conversations often center on audio versus video, but that’s a false choice. The Podcast Atlas demonstrates that the real opportunity isn’t choosing between formats, it’s understanding how each format contributes to a larger audience journey," said Webster.

How does The Podcast Atlas relate to newsletters? Webster’s quote elucidates a key principles of the podcast ecosystem. First, podcast consumers will follow creators they enjoy and admire through a range of media formats. Second, multiple media options – from video to newsletters – all contribute to the discoverability of podcasts.

Why do podcasters need newsletters? Podcasters need newsletters because email lists provide a direct, algorithm-free connection to listeners that creators truly own

Did you know that the return on investment (ROI) of email is about 40 to 1? Some sources, like Campaign Monitor , state that it’s even as high as 42 to 1.

What does that mean? It means that for every $1 you invest in email, the average return you should expect is $42. In other words, if you were to invest $50 per month in email, you could expect $2,100 in return. If you spend $150 per month on email, that return jumps up to $6,300.

How does email stack up against social media?

Well, email newsletters are 40% better at converting audiences than Facebook or Twitter.

Most people think email newsletters are just kind of annoying, boring, or even spammy, but data is showing otherwise. It’s not just marketers raving about email. Consumers are raving, too. According to MarketShare, 61% of email subscribers want to receive promotional emails every single week. 38% want to receive emails more than once a week.

Those stats are based on promotional emails. Imagine how many more people want non-promotional emails in their inbox, like say… an engaging newsletter from their favorite podcaster?

First, let’s review the big players in the newsletter space.

Substack is a premier platform for independent writers and journalists. It operates on a simple, streamlined model that allows users to easily publish content and charge readers for paid subscriptions. According to Sacra , Substack has surpassed five million paid subscriptions and generates roughly $450 million in lifetime writer gross revenue. The platform reached positive cash flow and operates on a straightforward monetization model. Estimated at $45 million in annualized revenue (ARR), Substack has over 35 million active subscriptions across the platform. The top 10 authors collectively rake in $40 million annually, and the top 27 newsletters generate an estimated $22 million For active paid newsletters, the average subscription is $10/month or $96/year. The average Founding Member tier costs $310.

beehiiv is built by the growth team behind Morning Brew . It is highly favored by creators for its built-in monetization and growth tools (like referral programs and ad networks). beehiiv is a rapidly growing email newsletter and creator platform. Founded in 2021 by former Morning Brew employees, it operates as a challenger to platforms like Substack by not taking a revenue cut from its creators’ subscriptions. According to Sacra , it has 40,000+ monthly active users, featuring nearly 15,000 paying subscribers, with over $30 million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) and a valuation of $225 million.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is also top choice for digital creators and bloggers. It provides robust email automation, tagging, and seamless integration with digital products and courses. According to LinkedIn , it has $15.8M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), and a valuation of $47.5M.

Mailchimp: The long-standing powerhouse best suited for small businesses and e-commerce. It offers comprehensive marketing features, deep analytics, and CRM capabilities beyond basic newsletters. Acquired by Intuit in 2021, it boasts over 13 million users globally. It holds the largest market share in the marketing automation and email marketing sectors, sending up to one billion emails daily.

You want features? These newsletters have Features!

Creator-media portal beehiiv said it hired Ainsely Rossitto as head of podcasts, a sign that the company, best known, perhaps, for its newsletters, is eager to tackle other parts of a new wave of influencer-focused platforms.

Rossitto had been vice president of digital strategy and operations for podcasts across Paramount and previously held roles at NPR.

I interviewed Ainsley Rossitto several weeks ago and found her insightful, meaning that she finds value in situations others might not have seen. At Paramount Audio, she oversaw a sprawling and robust collection of brands, from CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and Star Trek, while also expanding video podcasts onto Paramount+. Bringing such a high-profile exec on board at beehiiv reinforces that company’s commitment to podcasting integration into its platform.

Recently, Ainsley weighed in on the Spotify skip-ahead feature for ads, making a strong case that creators need more control over their content and its distribution.

She explains: "Listening platforms are an essential channel for reaching audiences, but they should be one part of a creator’s business, not its entire foundation. Creators also need a direct relationship with their audience and reliable ways to bring people back, deepen engagement, and generate revenue beyond downloads. The point isn’t to move away from listening platforms. It’s to use them for reach while building the relationship and the business on channels you own."

Ainsley is also a feature speaker at the high-profile Podcast Movement in New York City later this month. She told me, "At Podcast Movement in NYC, I’m excited to join Miral Sattar , Lynn Kestin-Sessler, and Arielle Nissenblatt, for “From 0 to 1 Million Downloads: Building Trust with Families, Sponsors, and the Podcasting Community.” Ainsley adds, “We’ll get into what it really takes to build a show from scratch, grow an audience, earn trust, and attract sponsors, with practical ideas you can put into action.”

“We are really putting a lot of firepower behind podcasts and it’s a big, big focus for 2026 and beyond. We think it’s a huge opportunity,” says Tyler Denk , co-founder and CEO of beehiiv, during a recent interview. “We feel like we are on the ground floor in terms of being able to capture and provide opportunities to podcasters.”

Signaling that beehiiv supports indie podcasters, the company has 0% Platform Fee, meaning it takes no cut of your paid newsletter revenue. Customers only pay Stripe's standard processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).

When creators have to tap multiple service providers, says Ainsley Rossitto, “it’s going to be hard to win that audience, and know where it is and monetize it and scale it.”

By the end of 2026, beehiiv plans to support video, ad tech, analytics, and monetization tools, all tied to podcasting. Executives at Beehiiv believe the hire will lend the company more momentum after a first quarter that saw it strike partnerships with brands and creators including Hearst, The Washington Post, Caper, LA Material, Hope King, Kyle Poyar and Tom Sietsema.

Here's what beehiiv's podcast hosting includes:

  • Automatic distribution to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and Castro. Upload once, publish everywhere.
  • IAB-certified analytics. Track downloads by country, listening app, device, and operating system. Advanced bot filtering means you see real listeners, not inflated numbers.
  • Interactive transcripts. Every episode gets a full searchable transcript. Listeners can skim, search, and jump to the exact moment they want. The transcript boosts your SEO and makes your content discoverable by AI search engines.
  • Private podcast feeds for paid subscribers. Bundle exclusive episodes with your existing beehiiv subscription tiers. No separate Patreon required.
  • One-click archive import. Already hosting elsewhere? Drop in your RSS feed and beehiiv migrates your entire back catalog automatically.
  • 0% revenue share. beehiiv takes nothing from your podcast subscriptions, sponsorships, or product sales.
  • SEO-optimized episode pages. Each episode publishes as its own webpage on your beehiiv site with metadata, transcript, and embedded player.
  • Available on every beehiiv plan , including the free tier.

Of course, beehiiv isn’t the only newsletter to synchronize podcasting and newsletters. Acast and Kit just announced a partnership designed to help creators build and monetize their audiences across multiple formats. By offering platform access and hosting incentives, the collaboration lowers the barrier to entry for podcasters looking to launch newsletters and newsletter creators looking to expand into audio.

The partnership reflects how storytelling has evolved beyond a single platform. By pairing audio and text, Acast and Kit give creators the infrastructure to expand their narrative influence and monetize everywhere - meeting fans in their inboxes as effortlessly as their podcast feeds.

It’s the latest step in Acast’s push to help creators grow and monetize across audio, video, social and beyond, following the launch of video publishing on Apple Podcasts and Acast’s acquisition of creator network Backyard Ventures earlier this month.

Mike Leonard, Senior Director, Global Content Development, at Acast said: “The reach and influence of our creators spans far beyond podcasting, now living in video, on social feeds, and beyond. Newsletters, for example, have proven to be an impactful medium for diversifying content, discovering new audiences, and cultivating a following of engaged subscribers outside of podcasting.

Mr. Leonard continued: "The reverse is just as powerful for newsletter writers: adding a podcast turns text into dynamic audio, opening up a whole new way to build a following. We’re excited to partner with Kit to give creators even more ways to grow and monetize their fandom.”

Nathan Barry, Founder and CEO of Kit said: “Email is still one of the best ways for creators to own the relationship with their audience. While people won’t read more than a few hundred words from their inbox, they’ll happily listen to a podcast directly into their ear for an hour. Our partnership with Acast makes it easy for creators to build both, so the audience creators own in the inbox is the same one listening to creators in their headphones.”

Creators who join through the partnership will receive sign-on offers that scale with their existing audience. To learn more about the Acast/Kit partnership, visit: Acast and Kit .

Substack hasn’t been napping at the wheel either. The company has improved its transcript editing tools to make multi-speaker episodes easier to edit, so that creators can now merge speakers when its transcript generator identifies more speakers than your podcast has, and label unassigned speakers, reassign speakers, and correct labeling errors.

In June, Substack launched reply rules to help creators shape the conversation happening across their Substack community. This feature allows creators to set their own community standards and auto-hide post comments, note replies, and subscriber chats that don’t meet them. The system learns every time a creator hides a reply and preemptively moderates replies it thinks the creator would take action on yourself.

Now reply rules are available to non-English publications and apply to non-English comments and replies, so everyone can set the terms for their corner of the internet, no matter where they live or what language they speak.

Substack creators can now tailor sections of a post for different groups without creating separate posts for each one. You can add personalized content blocks to written, podcast, or video posts that are visible based on a reader’s subscription status, including free, paid, or founding subscribers.

Also, a new feature in Substack allows all publishers have access to creator match, a new feature that helps creators easily find relevant collaborations with other publishers. Creator match identifies writers and creators with similar audience sizes and interests, then curates them, ranked by how promising the collaboration could be for both of you. You can find the feature in publisher dashboard .

Collaborating with other Substack publishers is one of the most powerful routes to grow on the platform, and it’s how many Bestsellers got their start. Lenny Rachitsky of Lenny’s Newsletter and Elena Verna of Elena’s Growth Scoop ; Packy McCormick of Not Boring and Noah Smith of Noahpinion have collaborated via cross-posts, recommendations, and podcast episodes, or shared each other’s work in a Note. These collaborations put your work in front of like-minded audiences and give new readers a reason to subscribe: they’re discovering you via a publisher they already trust.

How podcasters can benefit from these newsletters

The universally accepted game plan for podcasters hoping to monetize their show (s) was to have a robust website. Yet, with the feature-laden benefits of digital newsletters, podcast creators can use the newsletter as its website with robust multimedia features.

Newsletters via beehiiv, Kit, or Substack have powerful SEO features, often saving creators money in having to fork over thousands for a SEO specialist for their website. In a January 2026 article – Blog SEO in 2026: Why beehiiv Beats WordPress – writer Victoria Kurichenko how beehiiv has powerful SEO tools.

She writes: "SEO success has helped beehiiv attract more visitors to their blog through organic search results, which means more eyeballs on their platform. Getting more traffic usually means more clicks, more signups, and better overall engagement. From Steven’s GSC screenshot, you can see that the average organic click-through rate (CTR) across all 900+ beehiiv’s posts is 1.1%. It means that out of over 1 million impressions (organic views), over 1% of users clicked on beehiiv’s search results. It’s impressive!"

She adds: "With beehiiv, you get even more SEO capabilities. You can choose whether each post, paid or free, should be open for indexing."

These days, you don’t need to build a custom-coded site (like I did with WordPress) to grow and monetize your content. Platforms like beehiiv, Kit, and Substack can handle it all for you.

Moreover, the burgeoning video and audio capabilities of these newsletters enables creators to link their video and audio content with their digital print content, providing their customers with that Holy grail of of one-stop shopping content.

It’s important to note that with the tools available today, a predominately diigtal print newsletter creator can record audio to include in the newsletter using on their cell phone – IOS of Android – and one app like Spotify for Creators, which is free.

On the August 3, 2026 of PodBiz with John Kiernan and Norma Jean Belensky, Ainsley Rossitto of of beehiiv guested on the show.

On the podcast, Ainsley noted that, "The more you can spend on actually creating your content... and less with building or website hosting... the more we can consolidate the stack of tech... the better it is for them.”

She also brought up a key point for all creators – audio, video, and print: “Real monetization starts with understanding and owning your data.”

Finally, for independent podcasters creating a community instead of just an audience is a critical boiling point for podcasters who want to sustain a business. A listener/viewer watches or listens to a podcast episode then goes away until the nest episode drops. A community, however, follows the creator through their digital footprint from newsletter to Patreon page, and from their social media clips to their live shows.

Newsletters have that interconnected functionality that websites do not. The format, the content, and the tools breed connectedness, which creates that cohesive sense of community.

Keep in mind that one of the most successful businesses in the world in this century has been Starbucks. As we all know, their business isn’t just about coffee. It’s about community. Here’s Starbucks founder, former long-time CEO and chairman emeritus Howard Schulz commenting: "I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community."