Newsletter frequency is one of the most debated topics in email marketing. The answer is not universal. It depends on your audience, your content model, and your capacity to deliver quality at the chosen cadence.
But some frequencies are objectively better than others for specific use cases. Here are the data-backed recommendations.
The Frequency Spectrum
Daily **Best for:** News-driven content, market updates, curated link digests **Open rate impact:** 25-35% (lower per-issue but highest total engagement per month) **Subscriber expectations:** Must be scannable in 2-3 minutes. Nobody reads a 2,000-word newsletter every day. **Churn rate:** Highest of all frequencies (2-4% per month). Many subscribers will eventually feel overwhelmed. **Content requirement:** Low depth, high breadth. Think 300-500 words plus curated links. The daily format favors curation and brief commentary over original analysis.
Twice Weekly **Best for:** B2B operators, investors, and professionals with high information needs **Open rate impact:** 35-45% **Subscriber expectations:** One "light" issue (roundup or curated) and one "heavy" issue (original analysis or deep dive) **Churn rate:** Moderate (1-2% per month) **Content requirement:** This is the sweet spot for the Growth plan. Enough frequency to stay top of mind, enough space to provide real depth.
Weekly **Best for:** Most newsletters. The default recommendation for a reason. **Open rate impact:** 40-55% **Subscriber expectations:** This is your main event. Readers block time for it. The content should be worth their investment. **Churn rate:** Low (0.5-1.5% per month) **Content requirement:** 1,000-2,000 words of original content. This is the format where voice, perspective, and depth matter most.
Biweekly **Best for:** Resource-constrained publishers, niche audiences with lower information velocity **Open rate impact:** 45-60% (highest per-issue, but only because you are sending so infrequently) **Subscriber expectations:** Each issue must justify the two-week wait. If readers can get the same content elsewhere in the interim, your newsletter becomes expendable. **Churn rate:** Low per-issue but surprisingly high long-term. Readers forget about biweekly newsletters.
Monthly **Best for:** Almost nobody. Seriously. **Open rate impact:** 30-40% (despite the low frequency -- readers literally forget they subscribed) **Churn rate:** High long-term attrition through both unsubscribes and disengagement **Content requirement:** Must be exceptionally high-value to justify the cadence. Detailed reports, original research, comprehensive analysis.
The Decision Framework
Ask yourself these three questions:
1. How quickly does information in my space become stale? If you cover fast-moving topics (tech, markets, policy), you need higher frequency. If you cover evergreen topics (leadership, strategy, frameworks), lower frequency can work.
2. How much time can I (or Ted) invest per issue? Higher frequency requires lighter-touch formats. You cannot write a 2,000-word original essay every day. But you can curate five links with brief commentary every day.
3. What do my competitors send? If every newsletter in your space sends weekly, consider whether twice-weekly gives you an edge or whether it just creates noise. Differentiation in frequency can be a competitive advantage.
Our Recommendation
Start weekly. It is the safest bet for most audiences. Once you have 3-6 months of data, evaluate whether increasing to twice-weekly improves engagement and growth. If your audience is in a fast-moving space and responds well to more frequent touch points, move up.
On the Scale plan, Ted supports daily newsletters. For operators who want to be the morning read for their industry, daily is a powerful frequency -- but it requires the right content model (curation-heavy, brief, scannable) and the right audience (professionals who check email first thing every morning).