Hello subscribers, friends, and well-wishers! Typebar Magazine founder & editor Matt Wolfbridge here.
Normally we publish essays in Typebar, but today is a little different.
I've always admired the transparency with which independent outlets like Defector approach financial matters, publishing a detailed annual revenue report. If you're going to be a publication of the people, shouldn't the people be privy to the publication–at least as far as where their money is going?
In that spirit, allow me to lay out the vision and financials of the magazine. Note that I'm a one-person team hence the "back of the napkin" vibe of the analysis.
Current Goals:
Typebar Magazine's main goal is paying writers as much as possible to craft essays that excite them intellectually within a fair turnaround time. This is exceedingly rare in the online writing industry, as many writers could tell you. I, myself, started as a freelance writer and understand how hard it is.
Aside from that, we want to become self-sustaining. Typebar currently loses money. I erroneously posted on Bluesky (and then deleted after I saw the error) earlier in the week that we were only 20 subscribers away from breaking even when in reality the number is closer to 200. I apologize for the error and if anyone who subscribed off the back of that post feels misled, send me a message (matt@typebarmagazine.com) and I will refund you no questions asked.
Now, let me take you through the numbers.
Expenses:
If you're happy to just look at a chart, you can scroll to the end. If you wanna see the full breakdown, read on!
We pay $75 per essay or short story. Each issue contains 10 essays and one short story, so 11 published pieces in all.
$75*11 = $825
We also have to pay for the cover art! On average, it costs us around $400 to commission cover art from a real-live human artist (and we will always pay for the expertise of a human artist for our covers–forever).
$825+400 = $1,225
That brings the cost-per-issue of the magazine to $1,225. We do four issues per year.
$1,225*4 = $4,900
Typebar Magazine, in addition to quarterly issues, posts "Interstitial" essays every two weeks. That's roughly 26 per year at a $75 pay rate.
$75*26 = $1,950
But there's also "housekeeping" costs to consider. Typebar utilizes both the Ghost content management system as well as the suite of website enhancements offered by Outpost, a Ghost plugin used by several other independent media organizations like 404 Media and Hell Gate.
Ghost costs $35 per month and Outpost costs $45 per month.
$35*12 = $420 (ugh lol)
$45*12 = $540
$540+$420 = $960.
Thus, our total annual expenses for running the site come to $7,810.
$4,900 + $ 1,950 + $960 = $7,810.
I haven't shown this much work since math class! Let's talk about our income.
Income:
Our sole source of income (for now) is subscriptions.
We currently have 33 paid subscribers (though nearly 10x that amount free members). If you're a free subscriber reading this, maybe consider upgrading! We're currently running a 50% off sale to celebrate our two-year anniversary.
Our current monthly recurring revenue or "MMR" is $109 meaning on average each subscriber is paying approximately $3.30 a month or $39.64 per year (the number isn't uniform among subscribers because not every user signs up under the same promotion). How much are we making a year, then?
$109*12 = $1,308
Thus, when you take our income versus our expenses, Typebar Magazine is currently losing $6,502 per year. I am lucky enough to have part-time work supplementing my full-time income. I put the money from my part-time job into the magazine out of love for literary criticism and out of a desire to see the artform not just survive but iterate, evolve, and claw back the cultural perch that was taken from it.
But we live in a tumultuous era and that part-time job may not last. My full-time job may not last. I want Typebar Magazine to pay for itself in case of any financial emergencies I may face in an increasingly unstable world.
At the current average subscription rate of $39.64, Typebar would need 164 subscribers to break even.
$6,502/$39.64 = 164.03
That sounds daunting but it is surprisingly do-able! Especially, ahem, when there's a really great deal on annual subscriptions going on!
Future Goals:
What happens when Typebar Magazine starts making money?
We put the money back into the operation! In 2025 when we were still on Patreon, we were able to increase our pay rates from $50 to $75. We'd love to increase pay to $100 per piece in 2026. Of course, we'll need quite a bit more subscribers in order to do that.
Generally speaking, paying writers more will always be our first priority when we surpass revenue benchmarks. We daydream about a future where we pay $200 for each essay or short story.
In terms of more pie-in-the-sky goals? Each issue we hire a cover artist to make a magnificent cover. We'd also love to hire the same artist to do the featured image for each piece from the respective issue. Can you imagine seeing the issue module on the front page all with one aesthetic created by the artist? So many corporate-owned publications don't treat their homepage like a work of art and I want so desperately for Typebar to buck that trend–to make the homepage itself something to behold and artistically appreciate. But, alas, good art doesn't come cheap. This might be years away, unfortunately.
Forgive me if neither of these two goals sound terribly grand. I genuinely believe maintaining a slow cadence is what allows Typebar Magazine's writers to flourish. There's no rush to pull on the social media slot machine's levers like at mainstream outlets. We have no plans at the current time to add another issue per year or anything like that in 2026 or even 2027.
Typebar's current release cadence works great for the audience and for the writers. All I want is for Typebar to keep its momentum while making sure writers are paid more as the site grows its readership.
If you're a subscriber, I can't thank you enough for helping contribute to the survival of independent literary criticism and cultural analysis. If you haven't subscribed yet, now would be a great time due to the 50% off sale we're running.
If subscribing isn't in the budget right now, please tell your friends about us. Share an essay you liked with the group chat or in a Discord server you hang out in. Word of mouth is vital to an operation like ours.
Thank you all for your time and for reading Typebar Magazine.
