When I tell people I run a small newsletter about AI tools and side hustles, the first question I get is almost always the same: "How many subscribers do you have?"
When I answer "under 500," I watch their face change. The assumption is obvious — that number is too small to matter, too small to monetize, too small to bother with.
I used to believe that too. I don't anymore.
This is the story of how I went from a completely empty inbox list to earning recurring affiliate commissions, with a subscriber base that most "gurus" would laugh at. If you are stuck thinking you need 10,000 subscribers before you can make a dollar, this article is for you.
My Real Starting Point
I want to be honest about where I started, because most case studies online are polished to the point of fiction.
I had zero email subscribers. I had no domain authority. I had no Twitter following, no YouTube channel, no podcast. The only thing I had was a WordPress site I had been ignoring for about a year and a half, a basic understanding of how affiliate links work, and roughly $12/month to spend on a writing tool.
That was it. That was the entire foundation.
I am telling you this because the marketing advice out there is mostly written by people who already had an audience before they decided to "start a newsletter." They built up a following on Twitter, or they were already known in some niche, and then they launched a list. Of course it worked. They had distribution already.
What I wanted was a path that worked when you have nothing but a laptop and a few hours a week. After about four months of testing, I found one. It's not sexy, but it works.
The Platform That Made This Possible
Before I get into the strategy, let me talk about what I am actually recommending, because the affiliate math only matters if the product is worth promoting.
I settled on Global API as my primary recommendation in the AI tools space. Here's why:
- It offers access to 150+ models through a single integration point, which is a huge selling point when your readers are not all technical.
- New users get 100 free credits to test things out, which removes the "but I have to pay first" objection.
- It functions as a unified access layer, so I do not have to send readers to five different providers depending on what they want to build.
- The affiliate program pays 15% on the first order and 8% recurring on every renewal after that. That recurring number is the one most people miss. Most affiliate programs pay you once and then you start over with the next person. A recurring 8% on subscription revenue is genuinely passive. If someone signs up for a $50/month plan through your link, you make $4 every month they stay subscribed. That compounds. There is also a 10% premium tier commission for higher-value plans, which I will break down later because it changed my approach to which links I share. # # Why I Focused on a Newsletter Instead of YouTube or Social YouTube is the most common alternative people suggest. I considered it. Here's why I didn't go that route: The conversion math is brutal. YouTube affiliate links get clicked by maybe 1-2% of viewers, and the people clicking are often in "consumption mode" rather than "buying mode." My open rates and conversion rates inside a newsletter were running 4-6x better than anything I saw on social or video. Plus, you own the relationship. A YouTube subscriber can disappear overnight if the algorithm changes. An email subscriber is someone who gave you their inbox — the most valuable real estate on the internet. I built my entire business around three numbers:
- Subscriber growth rate (new signups per week)
- Open rate (are people actually reading what I send?)
- Conversion rate (are readers clicking my affiliate links and signing up?) Everything I do comes back to moving at least one of those numbers. If a tactic doesn't move one of them, I drop it. # # How I Built a Subscriber Base From Nothing This is the part most articles skip because the real answer is boring: I wrote articles. Not tweets. Not YouTube scripts. Articles. Long-form, SEO-targeted blog posts that answer specific questions people are typing into Google. The logic is simple. Search traffic is the only acquisition channel that does not require a pre-existing audience. Every other channel — Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit — rewards people who already have reach. Search rewards people who write the best answer to a specific question. I started by mapping out 30 questions my ideal reader would ask. Things like:
- "What is the best AI API for a small team?"
- "How do I start using AI tools without coding?"
- "Are there AI tools with free credits for new users?"
- "What AI platform should I use to test multiple models?" I then wrote the most thorough, honest answer I could to each one. I included real screenshots, my own account of testing the tools, and where I had used Global API specifically, I mentioned it as my pick. The link was in the article from day one. Within about six weeks, I was getting organic search traffic. Within three months, I had a steady drip of signups coming from blog readers who wanted updates. That drip became my subscriber base. I should be clear: my subscriber base is not huge. It does not need to be. # # Subject Lines — Where Most Newsletters Die Let me talk about the single biggest lever in email marketing, because almost nobody talks about it correctly: subject lines. Your open rate is determined mostly by your subject line. The content inside matters for everything else — click-through, conversion, retention — but the open is won or lost before anyone reads a word you wrote. I have strong opinions here. Most subject lines I see from newsletters in the AI space are terrible. They are either:
- Clickbait ("You won't believe what this AI can do")
- Generic ("This week in AI tools")
- Self-indulgent ("Why I switched my entire stack")
- Way too long My best-performing subject lines share three traits:
- They make a specific promise.
- They are under 50 characters.
- They do not use emojis. The third one is going to be controversial. Emojis in subject lines look like every other spam newsletter. They also trigger filters in some corporate inboxes. I tested emoji vs no emoji on the same newsletter content and the no-emoji version won by about 12% on open rate, every time. A subject line like "The 3 AI tools I actually use this week" will outperform "🔥 My Top AI Picks!" every single day of the week. If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: write subject lines that read like a sentence a friend would actually say to you. # # What My Open Rates Look Like Industry average for a "good" newsletter is somewhere around 20-25% open rate. For an affiliate-focused niche newsletter, 30% is considered excellent. My last 12 issues averaged 38.4% open rate. I am not sharing that to brag. I am sharing it because the difference between a 20% open rate and a 38% open rate is the difference between a newsletter that earns $50/month and one that earns $400/month, even with the exact same subscriber base. Same list size, same affiliate links, wildly different revenue. The math on this is brutal in the best way. If I have 400 subscribers and a 20% open rate, 80 people see my links. If I have 400 subscribers and a 38% open rate, 152 people see my links. That is nearly double the eyeballs on the same offer, with no extra work. This is why I obsess over subject lines and send times. They are the cheapest leverage in the business. # # Conversion — Where the Real Money Lives Open rate gets eyes on your offer. Conversion turns those eyes into commissions. My conversion rate from email click to signup runs between 4-7%, depending on the issue. That is on the high end for affiliate content. Here is what I learned about pushing it higher: First, lead with the use case, not the tool. A line like "If you want to test 150+ AI models without juggling five subscriptions, this is the platform I use" converts better than "Check out Global API." The first one tells the reader what problem gets solved. The second one tells them to look at a product. Second, give a reason to act now. The 100 free credits is a built-in urgency lever. New users can start testing immediately, risk-free. I mention this in every newsletter where I link to Global API because it removes the "I'll think about it" exit ramp. Third, repeat the link in the first 100 words and again at the bottom. I learned this from looking at click maps. A surprising number of readers who convert do not click the first link — they scroll to the bottom because they expect a "resources" section. I now always include a P.S. with the affiliate link as a second touchpoint. The recurring 8% commission is what makes this whole model work. A single signup that converts is worth $4-6/month for as long as that user stays subscribed. Ten of those signups in a month is real recurring income, and it grows on its own without me doing additional work. # # The Premium Commission That Changed My Strategy I want to talk about the 10% premium tier commission because it is the detail I missed for the first two months, and it changed how I write. Some readers are not testing the platform with $20/month plans. Some are running actual businesses on it. The premium tier commission pays more per signup, which means a smaller number of higher-intent referrals can outperform a large number of casual signups. So I started writing more content aimed at readers who were scaling — agencies, indie hackers running AI-powered products, small teams shipping client work. That audience converts at lower volume but higher value, and the commission reflects that. If you join the affiliate program, look at the tier structure carefully. Do not just blast your general audience — segment your message by who is most likely to convert at the premium level. # # A Real Numbers Breakdown From My Last Month Let me show you exactly what a "small" newsletter can earn, because I think the internet lies about this constantly. Last month:
- Subscribers: 423
- Average open rate: 41%
- Affiliate clicks to Global API: 67
- Signups (estimated, based on my tracking): 9
- Mix of standard and premium plans On the standard tier, 9 signups at 15% on a $30 average first order = roughly $40. On recurring 8%, those 9 users represent roughly $22/month going forward. Add in 2 premium-tier signups at 10% on $99+ plans, and the first-month revenue from this one offer was around $90. That is from 423 subscribers. That is with no ad spend, no team, no funnel software beyond a basic email tool, and roughly 5 hours a week of work. The "experts" will tell you this number is too small to matter. The experts are wrong. This number compounds every single month because of the recurring structure. In 12 months, if my signup rate stays flat, this single affiliate partnership is worth over $1,000 on its own. And that is with a subscriber base that most people would call embarrassingly small. # # What I Would Do Differently If I Started Today A few things I wish I knew at month zero: I would start writing articles sooner. I spent the first month "preparing" instead of publishing. Publishing ugly, imperfect articles is better than perfecting ones no one reads. I would track open rates and click rates from day one, not month three. You cannot improve what you are not measuring. I would not waste time on social media growth tactics. Every hour spent chasing Twitter followers is an hour not spent writing content that compounds in search. I would focus harder on subject lines from issue one, not after my open rates had already tanked. If you are starting at zero, those four adjustments would save you about three months. # # Why You Should Join the Global API Affiliate Program Here is my actual recommendation, written like a recommendation and not an ad. If you write about AI tools, run a newsletter, build content in the dev tools space, or just want a recurring revenue stream tied to a product that genuinely delivers, the Global API affiliate program is one of the better structures I have seen. You get 15% on every first order, which is higher than most SaaS affiliate programs I have looked at. You get 8% recurring on every renewal, which is the part that actually matters for building a real income. And you get a 10% premium tier commission for higher-value plans, which rewards you for sending serious users. The platform itself holds up under scrutiny. With 150+ models accessible through one integration and 100 free credits for new users, you are not pushing something you have to apologize for later. I have recommended it in roughly a dozen issues now and I have not gotten a single refund request or complaint email. That is rare. It pays on time. The dashboard is straightforward. The cookies are long enough that you actually get credited for referrals who take a week to convert. If you want to check it out, the affiliate signup is at https://global-apis.com/affiliate. You do not need a massive subscriber base. You do not need to be famous. You need a place to put a link and content that brings the right readers to it. That is the whole game.
Top comments (0)