Thoughts On Beehiiv's 2026 State of Newsletter Report

This week, Beehiiv published their 2026 State of Newsletters report. It’s comprehensive, building on data they’ve got from tens of thousands of publishers, plus Q&A’s with some of the top names in the space.

Having the information doesn’t automatically mean it’s clear what to do with it. So this week, I wanted to share the things that caught my eye, and talk about what’s worth acting on, what to be cautious of, and what can be safely ignored.

It’s a good report, definitely worth a look. You can find it here in its entirety:
🔗 https://www.beehiiv.com/blog/the-state-of-newsletters-2026

Beehiiv’s 2026 State of Newsletters Report

Here’s What Caught My Eye…

1. Average open rate rose to 41%+ in 2025

2. "Reader engagement has become the new email deliverability firewall."

3. Newsletters using Recommendations grew 2.75x faster on average

4. 2026 will elevate “IRL” to a key strategy for community-driven newsletters.

5. Many of 2025’s breakout newsletters built more than an audience – they built a community. 

It’s all interesting, but in my view, not equally worthy of influencing your strategy for the year. Below I’ll expand on what to pay attention to, what to be cautious of, and what to ignore when making plans for your business this year.

1. Average open rates rose to 41%+ in 2025 (Ignore)

Below, you'll see a few charts showing open rates by day and time. I include them because they're interesting, BUT in my opinion, writers are better off ignoring them, and choosing their send day/time based on what makes most sense for their personal schedule or time-blocking goals.

Reason: These are not really significant differences day to day (the biggest spread is 1.04%, and the average variance is ~0.31%). That's not big enough to override other priorities. Especially when you calculate the impact changes would have on revenue.

Yes, of course – we want as many people as we can reasonably get to open the email.

But open rates climb for days after an email sends because everyone processes their inbox differently. Not based solely on what time you send, or what day, or even how clever the subject line is.

The thing that really drives consistent opens is recognition – readers see your name, remember that they like your stuff, and open

There's really only one kind of newsletter that really needs to be worried about squeezing every fraction of a percent they can out of their open rates: Lists of 1M+ readers charging advertisers based on open rate.

With 1M readers, a difference of 0.3% is 3,000 people. If you're charging a $100 CPM, that's $300 for the day. Still not earth shattering money, but if you have a few advertisers in each email, it adds up. Especially if you’re sending daily, as many of those lists are.

So with big newsletters, scrutinizing open rates can make a material difference in revenue.

For everyone else, longevity – continuing to publish – is going to be more important to revenue, so you're better just picking the day that works for your schedule so you can stick with it. (Maybe don't send Saturday though 😜)

2. Newsletters using Recommendations grew 2.75x faster on average, while Boosts added an average of 84 subscribers per month. [Be wary of this]

In theory, recommendations and boosts are great. If you're networked with a few other writers in your space, recommending each other, it should be a win-win-win for you, your friends, and the reader (who finds new, cool writers to follow).

But there are two problems:

First, people often don't realize when they're signing up for recommended emails. So readers from this pool can be less engaged, which (as we saw above) is becoming more important.

Worse, when it comes to paid boosts, sometimes other publishers exploit this system and you can spend money here without much to show for it.

To offer a story – I saw one company that thought their list was growing like wildfire. They were using boosts (so, paid referrals) and had added 10k+ readers in a month which is unheard of for a new publication.

This had ripple effects. The founder thought this was a signal of product-market fit, and serious decisions were being influenced by this data.

Well, turns out their growth manager had his own secret newsletter. He figured out how to get completely irrelevant readers in India for pennies, then "boost" them to his employer for $1-2/ea. They spent six figures before a much more competent editor caught him and had to scrap him and the entire list.

This KIND of thing isn't as rare as it sounds.

Because most newsletter writers don't know how to monetize effectively, Boosts represent an almost irresistible source of early revenue. But if that's the only way they're making money, they have an incentive problem. The content of their newsletter becomes less and less important to them. Ditto for the quality of readers.

Over time, the only thing that matters is getting readers as cheap as possible and selling them as fast as possible.

Again, this tool can be useful. But play here at your own risk, and think seriously about whether the growth drives real revenue. Everything needs to tie back to that.

Speaking of…

3. "Reader engagement has become the new email deliverability firewall." [🚨 Pay attention big time]

To me, this is probably the most important thing to be thinking about.

One of the main trends I'm tracking is the shift toward AI in the inbox. It's early, but in the coming years, I expect we'll see email clients like Gmail do more and more screening/summarizing, rather than showing emails directly to users, and they’ll base those decisions not merely on spam risk, but also, their comprehensive understanding of what the user interacts with elsewhere in their life.

Writers are going to have to be thoughtful about what's in the email in order to maximize the odds that…

• They get into the inbox at all, and

• Readers actually READ (and don't just have AI summarize)

Let me be really clear about that: Your revenue – whether you’re selling ads, subscriptions, or other front- and back-end products – depends on readers actually reading, so they can see the offer, understand the value, and buy.

Other industries are already grappling with this.

A story from the software world that went viral this week. Tailwind, one of the most popular style libraries in the world, used to advertise their paid products in the “Documentation” section of their website.

Readers would start off using the library for free, go to the documentation to answer questions, see the upgrades, and buy.

But now, LLMs are doing all the coding or answering code questions. So no one goes to the documentation directly. The product has NEVER been more popular, yet revenue fell 80%, and they had to lay off three of their four developers.

You need to be actively working on this.

Everyone’s guessing at this point, but I’m thinking a lot about how to write the kinds of things people won’t want to have summarized. So far the two things that come to mind for me are…

• Content so valuable to them they won’t want to risk missing something (e.g., networking or fundraising opportunities if you write for startup founders)

• Voice-heavy stuff, where the summary is less important than hearing someone talk through something as only they can

One reason it’s so important to understand how media companies monetize is because the newsletter’s role in that will certainly change. It won’t go away. But if you’re locked into thinking of the email as the entire business, rather than one part of it, you’re risking a lot.

So… What Matters Most In 2026?

AI's role in the inbox is undeniable. People need to be thinking about that. But it's not a short-term issue. The things that matter this year are the same things that have always mattered:

• Make great stuff

• Stick with it when it gets hard

• Consider community/in-person where appropriate

• Study how to monetize, because almost everything else is a distraction

The full report's a fun read

🔗 Link: https://www.beehiiv.com/blog/the-state-of-newsletters-2026