Tangle’s executive editor and founder Isaac Saul. Picture: Tangle
A US-based politics newsletter makes most of its $4m+ in revenue from subscriptions despite offering most of its content for free.
Tangle Media was founded in 2019 by executive editor Isaac Saul, providing political news across the spectrum to allow readers “to look at US-focused politics through multiple lenses”, Saul told Press Gazette.
In similar vein to The Week , each newsletter offers “what the right is saying” and “what the left is saying” on a daily topic, alongside takes of international writers and Saul.
“We believe that audiences are divided into really tight little sectors right now,” Saul said. “Not a lot of people are being exposed to ideas and arguments that they might not like.”
This content, alongside a personal relationship built with readers, helped Tangle reach $4.15m in annual revenue, including $500,000 sourced from ads, in 2025, with 85% of its revenue stream sourced from paid subscriptions and 15% from ads.
Today, its newsletters sent via Ghost are its core offering – of which its has a daily weekday edition, a Sunday edition and a members-only edition called Press Pass.
Its daily newsletter has 470,000 subscribers, including 71,000 paid subscribers. Combined with its Sunday newsletter, Tangle has more than 500,000 subscribers. Press Pass is sent to all paid subscribers. All newsletters have an open rate of around 60%, according to Saul.
Tangle also offers a podcast (one free, one subscriber only), Youtube channel and live events.
Despite providing 85% of its newsletter and podcast content for free, Tangle coverts 16% of free subscribers to paid members.
This is an “inverted typical model”, whereby “most news organisations will give you maybe 10 or 20% of their content for free”, said Saul.
“I really believe that most of the quality journalism and news content that exists right now is behind a paywall, and I want people to be able to access really quality stuff for free,” he added.
Tangle offers membership for $59 a year, which includes removal of newsletter ads, members-only newsletter content, and the Press Pass newsletter.
For $199, readers also get a first look at new products and access to the podcast ad free. The premium podcast costs $59 alone.
Tangle’s model is “membership-first”, Saul said. “I want to be accountable to our audience and our readers, and not have to worry about which way the winds are blowing in the economy or with advertisers.”
Newsletter ads are text-based and direct-sold or sponsored content, while its podcast ads are programmatic. Revenue from events is not yet significant.
Conversion through upsell emails
A key driver of Tangle’s 16% conversion rate is its upsell emails with an informal tone, said Saul.
“We’re really good at [converting] because we tell people a really personal story about what we’re going to do with the money and why we need it,” he added. “We are able to maintain that conversion rate by – [either] once a month, once a quarter – reaching out to our audience and asking them to support our work.”
These upsell emails lean into a more informal with subject lines such as “yes, I’m asking for your money”.
A Media Operator recently reported that the newsbrand saw a deceleration in its conversion since the beginning of 2026.
This was due to Tangle acquiring “more new readers through Meta instead of other newsletter ads or through organic growth”, said Saul, adding these readers are “less engaged”.
This was remedied with an direct email plea: “The day after that article came out, we sent a big upsell email to our mailing list and we got close to 2,000 new paid subscribers in 48 hours,” said Saul, adding the company is “back on track”.
In the last 30 days, its paid subscriptions were up 3%.
Refining its Meta targeting is now a “primary growth strategy”, Saul said, adding Tangle is reassessing Meta’s tools to target readers “more likely to pay”.
The company, which has 12 full-time staff (nine editorial), launched its free podcast in 2020, followed by a paid-for podcast in 2025. Both average 15,000 to 25,000 downloads per episode. Its Youtube channel has gained 30,000 subscribers since 2023.
While premium podcast content includes exclusive interviews, premium newsletter content includes original reporting and deep dives requested by readers.
“If we’re getting an email every hour up from people saying, ‘can you explain how Iran became Iran?’ Then maybe we do a deep dive on the history of Iran and interview a bunch of experts and flesh that out… and then we’ll publish that as a members only piece of content,” said Saul.
How is Tangle building its audience relationship?
Tangle has spent its six years since founding building its audience engagement, using a strategy of sending a reader question and news-based survey in its newsletter.
Once a year, Tangle also sends a survey to readers to ask about their experience of Tangle – “why they subscribe, why they don’t, what their demographics are, to better understand who our audience is”, said Saul.
Tangle’s most recent survey at the end of 2025 received 20,000 responses. It uses feedback to “replicate that persona in our advertising and find more people like them who might come in and pay for a subscription”.
Between January 2025 and November, its advertising revenue increased 150% from $20,000 a month to $50,000. It is projecting earning up to $90,000 a month by December 2026 if it continues its current strategy.
In November 2025, the publisher launched an SMS service, similar to other politics-based sites Politico and The Hill – though Saul said its new platform is “not trying to compete” with either of these outlets.
[Read more: The joy of text: Publishers use old tech to reach new readers ]
“We want to build a more personal relationship with our audience,” he said.
“I do a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. I text out preliminary, half-baked ideas about the stories we’re going to cover… let people into the process a little bit.”
Saul added: “I think it’s really smart to diversify the way you can reach your audience… SMS is like a safety net a little bit, in case it ever gets weird on the email front.”
Tangle’s newsletter (top and bottom left), and the trending posts on its website.
‘The biggest, least known newsletter’
Once told it was “the biggest, least known newsletter” at a newsletter conference, Tangle is on a mission for the newsbrand to be “more of a household name”.
In 2025, Tangle grew its free subscribers by 38%, its paid subscribers by 23% and its monthly recurring revenue (MRR) through the platform by 42% to £337,000.
By December 2026, it wants to reach 795,000 subscribers (+59%), including 92,000 paid (+33%), and hit $471,000 (+39%) in MRR.
“If people don’t pay for your content, you’re probably not offering a lot of value,” he said. “That’s a signal from the market that what you’re doing might not have legs for the long term. So don’t ignore that.”
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