One of my guilty pleasures is reading blog income reports. It is inspiring to see how much money some bloggers are making, and I also learn a lot about which affiliate programs and other activities are producing the big bucks. I am extremely grateful to all of the honest bloggers out there willing to be transparent and share their experiences.
I am also very excited to annouce that from this month I am going to commit to publish what might very well be the world’s first monthly blog income roundup. It takes a lot of time to browse around the internet figuring out who is still updating their income reports, and sadly some of my original hero’s like Pat Flynn have stopped doing so. But on a positive note there is a constant flow of new bloggers starting out. Apart from sharing income statistics, most bloggers also share details about their goals, strategies, achievements and failures. If you are early in your blogging journey, you might actually learn the most from reading about the strategies and challenges overcome by someone someone making $100s or $1,000s a month rather than $100,000s. Some of the bloggers on the list still celebrate making $500+ in a month as a side income, while others routinely make 7 digits in a year.
I will also try my best to summarise what I learn each month from reading all of these income reports. I believe reading income reports, is a great way of keeping on top of what is happening in the blogging world. This month a lot of bloggers complained about traffic declines most likely caused by a couple of Google algorithm updates earlier this year and a typical summer slump in traffic. If you experienced the same, reading about other bloggers experience might give you more comfort knowing that you are not alone.
The following criteria have been used to select and rank the income reports to be included.
- A full year+ of live income reports with monthly updates (there are hundreds if not thousands of blogs out there that maintained an income report at some point in the past, but if the income report is not currently maintained, it is not going to be included).
- The list is ranked by rolling 1 year income. Blogging is unpredictable and sometimes earnings can double or halve from one month to the next, even for experienced bloggers. Using a rolling 1 year average will remove some of the short term fluctuations providing a more realistic picture of who is continuously bringing in the big numbers.
- When avilable, earnings are net of expenses. Some blogs require heavy advertising and commission spending to retain their income, whereas others run a super tight ship. Ideally we are interested to learn how much money is left over after expenses, not just how much gross revenue goes through the till.
Key insights from this month’s batch of reports.
Affiliate marketing remains a key income source for most bloggers. Some of the lowest earning bloggers on the list rely more heavily on advertising (especially Adthrive and Mediavine), whereas some of the highest earners have got a meaningful proportion of their income come from their own courses.
Affiliate relationships with Bluehost and Clickfunnels are responsible for some of the most mouth watering affiliate commissions booked by the bloggers on the list.
Many of the bloggers on the list use Tailwind to maximise their Pinterest traffic.
This month’s income reports
Without further ado, here is this month’s list of income reports starting with the lowest earner:
10th Lucky Mojito
July 2019: $564 (Gross Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $6,050 (Gross Income). $504/month on average.
Monica has been blogging since 2017, and writes about money making and savings tips, food, lifestyle and family.
Virtually all of the income was through advertising on Mediavine.
9th Liana Desu
July 2019: $2,449 (Gross Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $12,339 (Gross Income). $1,028/month on average.
Liana is a beauty blogger from Hawaii blogging about make-up. She is still in fulltime work blogging as a side hustle. She started her first blog in 2015 to keep family and friends up to speed with her adventures travelling Japan. In June 2018 she finally made the decision to start treating her blog as business for side income. It’s very inspirational to see what she has been able to achieve in one year, and on the side.
Liana currently predominantly makes her income through advertising, especially Mediavine adds.
8th Blog Ambitious
July 2019: $6,949 (Gross Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $31,531 (Gross Income). $2,628/month on average.
Blog Ambitions is a very helpful blog about how to make money blogging. The owner appears to be anonymous,
but runs 4 blogs in the following niches: Style (launched in 2018), travel (launched in 2015), home decor (launched in 2014) as well as blog ambitious (launched in 2017).
The owner makes most of his/her money through affiliate marketing, most notably rewardstyle and shopstyle, followed by sponsored posts and advertising (mainly Mediavine).
7th Johnny FD
July 2019: $10,145 (Net Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $78,843 (Net Income). $6,570/month on average.
Johnny quit his well paid job in 2008 to become a scuba diver instructor in Thailand and later a professional kickboxer. In 2013 he wrote a kindle book and started building a drop-shipping store. Since then he has generated in excess of $1m online while travelling the world as a digital nomad.
Johnny has got a diverse set of income streams including drop-shipping affiliate sales and dividend income from savings over the years.
6th One Hour Professor
July 2019: $21,844 (Gross Income) & $16,736 (Net Income).
1 Year through July 2019: $241,768 (Gross Income) & $189,539 (Net Income). $20,147/month (gross) & $15,794/month (net) on average.
Ron Stefanski is a former college teacher. He started One Hour Professor along with a sprawling list of income generating niche websites on the side while still employed.
Income is roughly equally distributed between adsense and affiliate/ partnership income.
5th Local Adventurer
June 2019: $13,160 (Gross Income)
1 Year through June 2019: $288,398 (Gross Income). $24,033/month on average.
Esther has been blogging since 2013, and Jacob joined 3 years later. Together they now run one of the top travel blogs on the internet.
The majority of income is coming from sponsored product posts, followed by advertising (Mediavine) and affiliate marketing (Amazon etc).
4th Ryan Robinson
July 2019: $39,448 (Gross Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $402,528 (Gross Income). $33,544/month on average.
Ryan built his blog on the side and only quit his job as a content marketing consultant in 2019. Who better to teach you how to build a blog as a sidehustle? Ryan also interviews entrepreneurs on his podcast.
Ryan’s biggest income stream is affiliate commissions, particularly from Bluehost and some from Udemy, but he also generates income from course and book sales and sponsorships.
3rd Fat Stacks Blog
July 2019: $46,569 (Gross Income) & $37,450 (Net Income).
1 Year through July 2019: $486,319 (Gross Income) & $417,476 (Net Income). $40,527/month (gross) & $34,790/month (net) on average.
Jon Dykstra is making money from advertising including adsense across his 7 niche websites. He spends a meaningful amount of money on content creation.
2nd Create & Go
July 2019: $123,279 (Gross Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $1,570,725 (Gross Income). $130,893/month on average.
Alex and Lauren started out in 2015 building their wellness blog www.avocadu.com from $0 to $20K+/month before they started create and go.
Their income is roughly evenly split between affiliate commissions and sale of their own products (ebooks and online courses).
1st Entrepreneur on fire
July 2019: $183,659 (Gross Income)
1 Year through July 2019: $2,232,283 (Gross Income). $186,024/month on average.
If these numbers don’t get you excited then I don’t know what will. John Lee Dumas started his podcast (Entrepreneur on Fire) in 2012, and has been growing his income from a standing start.
His key income sources currently are:
- Online courses: Particularly podcasters paradise, where John is teaching entrepreneurs how to emulate his success running a podcast.
- Affiliate marketing: John’s top affiliate partnership is ClickFunnels, a fun and productive way to get introduced to this amazing piece of software is participating in the upcoming challenge One Funnel Away.
