Email list value calculator: revenue per subscriber and what dead addresses cost
In short: Type your list size, the share of addresses that cannot receive mail, the revenue you credit to email and your sending platform's bill. Get revenue per subscriber, per reachable subscriber and the yearly bill carried by dead addresses. Limit: It uses the revenue you type; email attribution is never exact.
Revenue per subscriber is the revenue you credit to email in a month divided by the subscribers on the list. If some addresses cannot receive mail, the reachable ones are worth more each, and the platform bill spent on the others buys nothing. This calculator works out both from your numbers and shows each step.
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From a check of your own list. Enter 0 if you do not know.
Use the figure from your own reports.
The numbers in the boxes are examples to show how it works. Replace every one with your own; nothing here is a benchmark.
- Revenue per subscriber
- $0.30
- Revenue per reachable subscriber
- $0.34
- Bill on unreachable, a year
- $360.00
- Net from email, a year
- $69,000.00
This treats all revenue as coming from the 17,600 reachable subscribers and the bill as growing with the number of contacts. If your platform charges a flat price, the bill line does not apply.
The math, with your numbers
- Addresses that cannot receive mail = 20,000 x 12% = 2,400 (rounded)
- Reachable subscribers = 20,000 - 2,400 = 17,600
- Revenue per subscriber = $6,000.00 / 20,000 = $0.30 a month
- Revenue per reachable subscriber = $6,000.00 / 17,600 = $0.34 a month
- Bill per contact = $250.00 / 20,000 = $0.0125 a month
- Bill carried by unreachable addresses = $0.0125 x 2,400 = $30.00 a month, $360.00 a year
- Net from email = ($6,000.00 - $250.00) x 12 = $69,000.00 a year
Next step
Find out how many of your subscribers are really unreachable.
The share above is the one you typed. A check of the list gives the real count, and the addresses that cannot receive mail can come off the bill.
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Sample result
20,000 subscribers earning $6,000 a month are worth $0.30 each, and $0.34 per reachable subscriber.
- Per subscriber
- $0.30
- Per reachable
- $0.34
- Dead-address bill a year
- $360.00
What this means for you
On a per-contact plan, the 2,400 unreachable addresses carry $360 of the bill a year.
- Your revenue and bill
- Per reachable subscriber
- Cost of dead addresses
- Math shown
- List
- Value
- Calculator
By SimpleVerifier Team · Last updated · Runs in your browser; nothing you paste is sent to us
How do I work out what an email subscriber is worth?
- Enter the subscribers on your list and the share of addresses that cannot receive mail, from a check of your own list.
- Enter the revenue you credit to email in a month, from your own reports.
- Enter what your sending platform bills a month.
- Read revenue per subscriber, per reachable subscriber and the yearly bill on unreachable addresses.
Example
- You enter
- 20,000 subscribers, 12% unable to receive mail, $6,000 of email revenue a month and a $250 platform bill.
- You get
- 2,400 unreachable addresses, 17,600 reachable. $0.30 per subscriber and $0.34 per reachable subscriber a month. Unreachable addresses carry $30.00 of the bill a month, $360.00 a year, and net from email is $69,000.00 a year.
- Limits
- Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded. The bill line assumes pricing by contact count; revenue is the figure you type.
How is it worked out?
Revenue per subscriber is monthly email revenue divided by all subscribers. Revenue per reachable subscriber divides the same revenue by the subscribers who can receive mail, since an unreachable address earns nothing. The bill per contact is the platform bill divided by subscribers.
The bill carried by unreachable addresses is the bill per contact times their number. Net from email is revenue minus the bill, times 12.
When does the bill figure apply?
Only if your platform prices by the number of contacts. Many do; if yours charges a flat price, removing addresses does not change the bill and you can ignore that line.
The share of unreachable addresses is the one you type. If you do not know it, enter 0 to see the revenue figures alone, or check the list to get the real number.
What does the value tell you?
It puts a number on a subscriber, which is the number to hold against the cost of getting one. For that, use the cost per lead calculator. For how a list shrinks over time, use the list decay calculator.
It is an average. Your best subscribers are worth far more than the figure and many are worth less.
Who uses this tool, and for what?
- Email marketers
- Put a value on a subscriber to judge what a lead magnet or an ad can cost.
- Newsletter owners
- See what dead addresses cost on a per-contact plan.
- Ecommerce teams
- Compare list value before and after a clean-up.
- Agencies
- Show a client what their list earns per head.
What can’t this tool tell you?
- It uses the revenue you type; email attribution is never exact.
- It averages across subscribers, so it hides the gap between your best and worst.
- The bill line assumes pricing by contact count.
- It describes one month and does not forecast.
Common questions
- What revenue should I enter?
- Revenue you credit to email in a month, using the attribution you already trust: last click, a promo code or a flow report. The page does not set a rule for you.
- Why is revenue per reachable subscriber higher?
- The same revenue is divided by fewer people. Addresses that cannot receive mail never open or buy, so the money came from the rest.
- How do I find the share that cannot receive mail?
- Check the list. The result of a verification run gives the count of addresses that do not exist or cannot receive mail.
- Does this predict revenue?
- No. It describes the past month with your numbers. It does not forecast.
- My platform has a flat price. What now?
- Ignore the bill-on-unreachable figure. Revenue per subscriber and per reachable subscriber still apply.
- Is my data uploaded?
- No. It runs in your browser.
Authentication and capacity are half of deliverability.
The other half is who you send to. Every hard bounce counts against the domain and inboxes you are sending from, and nothing in DNS can tell you which addresses on your list are dead.
- Bulk verification with real SMTP mailbox checks
- Hard bounces removed before a send, not discovered after
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