Free · Runs in your browser · Nothing stored

Email Revenue Calculator

What one send is worth, what a month of sending is worth, and what a single subscriber is worth — from list size down to order value.

✓ Recalculates as you type✓ The formula is printed on the page✓ Your figures never leave the tab

Your list

Click rate here is click-to-open: the share of people who opened and then clicked.

SubscribersOpen rate%Click-to-open rate%

Conversion rate%Average order value currencySends/mo

Method

The arithmetic

The chain narrows once per step: subscribers who open, openers who click, clickers who order, and orders at their average value. The click rate is click-to-open — measured against openers rather than against the whole list — because that is the definition the two rates multiply correctly under. Dividing the revenue of one send by the whole list gives the figure a subscriber is worth each time you press send.

opens = subscribers × open% · clicks = opens × click-to-open% · orders = clicks × conversion% · revenue per send = orders × order value · per month = per send × sends · per subscriber = revenue per send ÷ subscribers

Worked example

One run through the numbers

A list of 25,000 at a 40% open rate produces 10,000 opens. A 10% click-to-open rate is 1,000 clicks, a 2% conversion rate is 20 orders, and at an order value of 75 the send is worth 1,500. Four sends a month is 6,000, and one send is worth 0.06 per subscriber on the list.

Swap in your own figures — the result recalculates as you type.

Before you act on this

Where this number misleads

Click rate is reported two different ways and they are not interchangeable. Click-to-open divides by openers; plain click-through rate divides by everyone the email was sent to. On the figures above the same campaign is a 10% click-to-open rate and a 4% click-through rate, so a calculator that does not say which it wants produces an answer that is wrong by the open rate.
Open rates have been unreliable since mail clients began pre-fetching images on the recipient's behalf, which registers an open nobody performed. Clicks and orders are the figures worth building a decision on; the open rate is best treated as an input to this estimate rather than as a result in itself.
Revenue per subscriber is the number that makes list decisions concrete. It converts an abstract list size into a per-send figure, which is what a platform subscription, a list-growth campaign, or a re-engagement effort has to be measured against.
This estimates one send in isolation. Sending more often does not multiply revenue indefinitely — unsubscribes and fatigue rise with frequency — so a monthly figure built by multiplying a single send is an upper bound rather than a forecast.
A subscriber acquired has an acquisition cost behind them. Putting the per-subscriber figure next to what it cost to add them is the comparison that decides whether list growth pays, and the CAC and LTV calculator is where that comparison belongs.

Asked often

Email Revenue Calculator: questions that come up

What is the difference between CTR and CTOR?

Click-through rate divides clicks by emails delivered. Click-to-open rate divides clicks by opens, so it measures the message rather than the subject line. This tool asks for click-to-open because it already has the open rate as a separate step, and using click-through rate here would count the open rate twice.

Why is revenue per subscriber so small?

Because it is per send, not per lifetime. A figure that looks negligible against one email becomes substantial once it is multiplied by the sends in a year, which is precisely why it is the right unit for judging list growth.

Should this include the cost of the email platform?

Not in the chain above, which estimates revenue only. To judge whether the platform pays for itself, compare its monthly cost against the monthly revenue figure — a comparison that gets easier to make the larger the list is.

Does this work for a newsletter with no products?

Only if a send has a measurable value per conversion. Where the revenue comes from sponsorship rather than orders, the conversion and order value inputs stop describing anything real, and revenue per send is better measured directly.

Carry on

The next number

Run the numbers →