The highest-paid rich bloggers are making bank. Every day, bloggers worldwide publish 7.5 million posts and the highest-paid bloggers make over $2 million annually.
As I’m sure you’d expect, there is big money in blogging. In fact, did you know that the blogging industry was worth $400 billion?
It’s never too late to start a blog with HostGator. And who knows, one day you might end up on this list of highly-paid bloggers. If you’re interested in adding your voice to the mix, you’re going to want to look at the bloggers on this list to learn from them.
Ready to see the list? Let’s do this.
Table of Contents
17 highest-paid rich bloggers of 2023
1. Arianna Huffington (HuffPost)
Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post, which started as a left-leaning blog and has since grown into one of the most popular news sites on the planet. She also recently launched an updated website in collaboration with Microsoft that features more personalization options.
HuffPost adds new articles to the site daily. Ariana makes $250 million a year and over $4 million a year from advertising revenue on The Huffington Post alone. She receives a salary from AOL and has other projects going on, but it’s safe to say that this is probably the bulk of her income.
While Arianna is no longer the President and Editor-in-Chief at HuffPo, she is the founder who started it back in 2005.
2. James Altucher
James Altucher is a former hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, and bestselling author who provides financial advice through his blog and podcast. He makes most of his money from book sales and affiliate marketing.
He has written more than 20 books, and all of them are about a variety of topics that include finance, entrepreneurship, and achieving success.
James posts new content on his blog every Monday and Thursday, but he also takes an unannounced “mini-sabbatical” from time to time to focus on other projects. He is currently working on a screenplay for a TV show and is also creating a card game.
James makes over $800,000 a year from his books, affiliate marketing deals, speaking engagements, etc.
3. Tim Sykes
Tim Sykes is a former day trader who now works as an investor and entrepreneur. His blog focuses on investing advice and blogging tips, primarily for new bloggers to monetize their traffic. Tim makes his money from various affiliate marketing deals, including the Amazon Associates program.
In addition to blogging, Tim also does webinars that teach people about his unique trading strategies. Plus, he runs a popular YouTube channel in which he posts content that is similar to what you would see on his blog.
Tim has more than 200 articles and videos combined published on his blog and several products available for purchase. This includes a course that teaches bloggers how to make money through affiliate marketing deals.
Research shows that most rich bloggers get 42.2% of their earnings via affiliate marketing. As for Tim, he makes $120 million per year and a little over $120,000 a year from affiliate marketing deals.
4. Josh Steimle
Josh Steimle is the CEO of MWI, a digital marketing agency specializing in helping businesses increase their online presence. His blog focuses on Internet marketing and entrepreneurship advice for new bloggers.
Josh has both free and paid content available on his site, which helps people learn how to make money through affiliates.
5. Brian Clark (Copyblogger)
Brian Clark is the founder of CopyBlogger and a famous marketing blogger. His site offers articles, free ebooks, and other types of helpful content for entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses. Brian also writes about the SEO industry and how companies can improve their rankings on Google by following his advice.
Clark is a traveling entrepreneur and writer who founded CopyBlogger to teach up-and-coming bloggers how to create more engaging content no matter the subject of their blog. Since launching CopyBlogger back in 2005, Brian has helped his site grow to more than 500,000 subscribers while bringing in $32 million per year.
6. Perez Hilton
Perez Hilton is a celebrity gossip blogger who has been quite successful in the field of entertainment. Although he tends to be controversial most of the time, Perez posts new articles almost daily and gives his opinion on various topics from time to time, which has gained him a lot of popularity both online and offline.
Perez makes roughly $40 million a year from his blog and related projects. He also makes between $500,000 and $1 million every year from merchandise sales.
7. Melyssa Griffin
Melyssa Griffin is a social media expert who also runs a blog covering various topics, including fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. She shares her tips on how people can become more popular on Instagram and YouTube by following her advice and using tools such as Hootsuite for social media management.
Melyssa’s blog has grown quite a lot over the past few years, with now more than 450,000 people following her work across various platforms.
Melyssa makes about $25 million a year from her blog posts selling online courses.
8. Pat Flynn (Smart Passive Income)
Pat Flynn is a famous (and rich) blogger who covers a wide range of online entrepreneurship and digital marketing topics. He has written numerous books on those two subjects, which have been quite successful as well. Pat also writes about software development and speaks at live events from time to time.
Pat runs his own business, the Smart Passive Income Blog. This blog has almost half a million subscribers, and Pat makes roughly $25 million per year from his podcast, courses, and blog.
9. John Lee Dumas (Entrepreneur on Fire)
John Lee Dumas is the founder of Entrepreneur on Fire, and he has been quite successful in the field of entrepreneurship. His podcast features interviews with top entrepreneurs worldwide, including well-known influencers such as Tim Ferris and Barbara Corcoran.
Since launching his blog back in 2012, John has amassed more than 650,000 subscribers. Most of his income comes from affiliate marketing deals with various companies and services, such as JLD Unrestricted, ConvertKit, etc.
John makes roughly $20 million a year from his website and related ventures.
10. Peter Rojas (Engadget)
Peter Rojas is a technology entrepreneur and blogger who founded the top-rated tech news site Engadget in 2004. He has since left Engadget and started a new blog called Gizmodo.
Peter makes most of his money from his blog, where he posts weekly roundups of interesting things that can include anything from new gadgets to funny videos. He also makes a decent amount of money from affiliate marketing deals and other related projects like speaking engagements.
Peter makes over $50 million a year from his blog and has even received venture capital funding for some of his other ventures in the past.
11. Rand Fishkin (Moz)
Rand Fishkin is the founder of Moz, a company that provides marketing tools and services to businesses. He also runs one of the most popular SEO blogs on the internet and various other projects. Rand makes over $19 million a year from his blog, which he updates almost daily. Most of the content is related to search engine optimization, but he has also been known to write about other things like cryptocurrencies from time to time.
Rand makes roughly $35 million a year from affiliate marketing deals and other related revenue streams. Most of the money comes from his blog, though.
12. Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)
Darren Rowse is a blogger who writes the popular ProBlogger blog, where he shares tips on how people can make money from blogging. He’s been writing about online business and blogging for more than ten years now, which has helped him gain many readers.
Most of his income comes from affiliate marketing deals with various companies, but he also makes a decent amount of money from selling ProBlogger books and products. Darren makes roughly $4.8 million a year from his blog.
13. Pete Cashmore (Mashable)
Pete Cashmore is the founder of Mashable, a popular tech blog. He’s been writing about technology-related topics since 2005 when his blog was still in its early stages.
Hailing from Scotland, Pete founded Mashable in 2005. He was only 19 years old and living at his parents’ home when he founded the company. It goes to show that you are never too young to become an entrepreneur.
Fast forward to today, you can view news about technology, entertainment, social good, and life. What started as a top 10 blog has grown into a $30 million yearly money maker.
Mashable gets roughly 20 million unique visitors per month, and Pete has been able to turn this into quite an enormous empire for himself despite being in his 30’s.
He makes most of his money from advertising revenue, affiliate marketing deals, and sales of Mashable books. Pete also hosts some events like the Mashable Awards from time to time.
14. Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Michael Arrington is the founder of TechCrunch. He also has a popular blog in which he writes about various topics, including his investments. Michael makes over $30 million a year from his businesses and another $5 million from affiliate marketing deals.
Arrington made most of his money from founding and selling companies like Rompus and X.com. He now spends his time investing in new startups and running a venture capital fund called CrunchFund.
15. Envato Tuts+
Envato Tuts+ is a highly successful blog that provides tutorials and courses to teach people to become better designers, developers, or entrepreneurs. It has grown hugely in recent years, with over 1 million subscribers to date, which helped it attract the attention of investors.
The company now makes most of its money by selling various premium courses and offering freelance business services to clients, including logo design, website development, and other similar things.
16. Jeff Rose (Good Financial Cents)
Jeff Rose is the founder of Good Financial Cents, which provides hundreds of money management tips to its readers. Launched in 2008, his finance experience stems from being a Certified Financial Planner.
He also runs two other popular blogs called Pipe Dreams and Planting Money Trees, where he writes about various topics related to entrepreneurship.
Jeff makes most of his money from affiliate marketing deals and advertising revenue generated by his three blogs. On Good Financial Cents, he blogs about subjects such as insurance, taxes, banking, credit, retirement, and more.
He makes roughly $175,000 a year from his blogs, which is quite impressive for someone who initially started blogging as a hobby.
17. Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary Vaynerchuk was one of the first bloggers to embrace social media and help businesses grow their online presence through his actions. He also owns various properties like VaynerMedia, which allows companies to get better exposure online.
Vaynerchuk makes most of his money from advertisements that play before his YouTube videos and book sales related to entrepreneurship or social media marketing. He makes over $4 million a year from these sources alone.
Rich bloggers: The bottom line
Want to become like the rich bloggers on this list?
You’ll first need to start a blog and then create great content. Remember to keep your blogs at about a 7-minute read as they are the most popular according to Tech Jury. Be active on social media and grow your audience.
While it won’t happen overnight, your blog will grow over time. Realize that every one of the rich bloggers on this list started with a newly registered domain name and an empty blog. So, don’t be discouraged thinking it’s too late to get started. It is never too late!
