What is one sponsored send worth?

Price on what a sponsor actually receives. For lists under about 5,000 subscribers, published flat ranges run roughly $250 to $750 for a dedicated email and $100 to $400 for an inline placement, and a flat rate beats CPM math at that size. Above that, direct-sponsor CPMs commonly run $15 to $40 for general-interest newsletters and $60 to $150 or more for B2B, technology, and finance audiences. Quote one placement at one price rather than a menu.

It depends far more on who your readers are than how many there are. General-interest newsletters run roughly $15 to $40 CPM. Leadership and career newsletters run about $60 to $130. B2B, SaaS, technology, and finance newsletters command the most, roughly $70 to $150 and higher, because their readers are decision-makers with budgets. Published figures vary widely between sources, so treat any single number as a starting point rather than a market rate.

Yes, and small lists often command a higher rate per reader than large ones. A sponsor pays for access to a specific room they cannot reach anywhere else, so a few thousand readers who share a profession or problem is a sharper buy than a hundred thousand strangers. Lead with exactly who your readers are, use your real numbers without hedging, and propose one placement at one price.

On opens, whenever you know your open rate. Opens are what the sponsor actually receives, and pricing on them is the argument that wins an engaged small list a better rate than its subscriber count implies. A 2,000-subscriber list opening at 60 percent delivers 1,200 real impressions, and saying so is more persuasive than quoting the list size.

No. Substack's Bestseller badge requires 100 paid subscribers, but a direct sponsorship needs nothing from the platform: you find the sponsor, set the price, and run the placement in your own words. Writers do this at every list size, including well before any paid tier exists.