2026 is The Year of the Newsletter

If 2024 was the year of the podcast, 2025 was the year of the newsletter.

And I know what you're thinking: "Rhona, newsletters? That's not new."

You're right. Newsletters never went away. What's changed is that companies are FINALLY waking up to what creators have known for years: you cannot build real relationships through algorithms.

Today I'm breaking down a Wall Street Journal article that dropped earlier this month about the newsletter boom, and more importantly, what this means for founders and marketers who want to build authority, not just chase likes.

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So here's what's happening.

Substack hit 5 million paid subscriptions in early 2025. That's up 67% from the year before. Beehiiv, a newer player, grew their newsletter count by 60% to 140,000 and nearly doubled revenue to $28 million.

But it's not just the platforms growing. Look at WHO is showing up:

 Michael Burry, the guy who predicted the 2008 crash, just launched a Substack called Cassandra Unchained. He's got over 76,000 subscribers paying up to $379 a year to read his investment theories.

Charli XCX started a Substack. She wrote a piece about the realities of being a pop star that went viral.

Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, launched Fresh Hell and has 75,000 subscribers. She said something that stuck with me: "It's more intimate with your own work when it's just you and your audience."

Even legacy media is getting in on this. The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, the Paris Review — they all added Substack newsletters in 2025. Newsweek and Time moved their portfolios to Beehiiv.

And here's the quote that sums it all up from Beehiiv's CEO Tyler Denk: “There is a stronger push on owning your audience and distribution.”

So why is this happening NOW? Three reasons.

Publishers have lost reliable traffic from Facebook, which has deprioritized news. Google is now serving AI summaries instead of sending people to your content. You can't depend on platforms to get your message out anymore.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot. When anyone can generate a 30-second video or a quick hot take with AI, the bar for short-form content drops. It all starts to look and sound the same.

But long-form? That's where you prove you actually know what you're talking about. That's where depth wins. That's where trust is built.

The article mentions Dave Jorgenson, who built the Washington Post's TikTok presence. He left to start his own newsletter. And he said something that should make every founder pay attention: "Audiences these days trust individual journalists more than they do established media outlets."

Replace "journalists" with "founders" and you've got your content strategy.

 Okay, so what does this mean for founders and marketers? Here's my take, and I want to be really clear about this:

 Newsletters aren't for selling. Actually, very salesy newsletters don't work.

 If you want to build authority and gain trust from your intended audience — whether that's clients, candidates, or employees — you cannot rely on algorithms to get your message out there.

 A newsletter is how you build that trust. It's how you ensure that the people who WANT to hear from you actually get to.

 Now, does that mean you abandon social media? No. Social media is for discovery. It's how people find you.

 Your newsletter is where you go deep. It's where you establish relationships. It's where you move from "I've heard of them" to "I trust them."

 Think about it this way: Social media is the party where you meet someone. Your newsletter is the coffee meeting where you actually get to know each other.

I've seen this work firsthand. I've had two incredible guests on The Workfluencer Podcast who've built newsletters that transformed their careers and businesses.

 Hebba Youssef built I Hate It Here into the most-read HR newsletter with over 160,000 subscribers. She's not selling anything in that newsletter, she's saying what others won't about employee experience. And that authenticity? That's what built her audience.

Hung Lee has been writing Recruiting Brainfood for over 10 years. Every Saturday, he writes it himself and hits send manually. No team. No AI automation. Just one guy showing up consistently. He's only missed twice in a decade — and both times his readers reached out to check if he was okay.

 THAT'S the relationship you build with a newsletter. People notice when you don't show up. They care. They trust you.

 Here's what I want you to take away from this:

 If you're a founder doing founder-led marketing, or a marketer enabling founders to build their voice, newsletters need to be part of your strategy in 2026.

 Not because it's trendy. But because it's the one channel where YOU control the relationship.

 No algorithm deciding if your audience sees your content. No platform throttling your reach because you didn't pay for ads. Just you and the people who raised their hand and said "yes, I want to hear from you."

So that's the trend. 2025 was the year the newsletter business reached a fever pitch. And 2026? That's the year YOU decide whether you're going to own your audience or keep renting it from algorithms.

 If you want to go deeper on this, go back and listen to my episodes with Hebba Youssef and Hung Lee.

 And if you're thinking about starting a newsletter but not sure where to begin, hit reply and let me know. I'd love to hear what's holding you back.

Until next time.

I really enjoyed getting to meet so many of you IRL last year and I hope to meet many more of you this year! Here’s where you can find me next: