Blog Income Report for March 2021: How I Made $101,814 This Month

7 years ago when I was 26 years old, I was working at a pizza place making $9 an hour.
I had failed out of college, got let back in (barely), finally graduated after six years (with a stunning 2.0 GPA), and had no idea what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
I was short-sighted, broke, miserable, drinking too much, and viewed this life as my all-to-certain future.
But at 26, I hit a breaking point and enough was enough.
I got into personal development, went to seminars, started working on my mental health, ran a marathon, and got my first real job.
Success came from the small daily choices I made.
After five years in digital marketing, I felt like I finally learned enough to give blogging a try.
So I took what I learned in the startup world and launched AdamEnfroy.com in January 2019.
And now it makes over $100,000 per month.
My ultimate goal is to prove that it’s still possible to build a profitable blog today, starting from zero.
And I remember the small milestones:
- Getting my first few visitors back in January 2019.
- Seeing that 8 or 9 people were on my blog before I went to work that day and feeling proud.
- Making my first affiliate sale of $3.
- Hiring my first writer month 3.
- Planning a goal of $5,000 a month.
- Planning a goal of $10,000 a month so that I could quit my job.
- Realizing, “holy shit” this is actually working.
And when I think about the road to $100k a month, it wasn’t a mountain to climb – just a deliberate strategy and small daily choices to make consistent progress.
If I can do it, anyone can.
1. Blog Income in March 2021: $101,814
In March of 2021, my blog brought in $101,814 with an 83.6% profit margin.
This equates to a profit of $85,137.
That’s insane and one of the main benefits or running an online business.
Think about it this way.
If I owned a restaurant and my profit margin was 6% (the high-end of the industry average), I would have to make $1.42 million in sales to generate the same profit of $85,137. That’s a restaurant making $47,300 every single day.
If my restaurant was running 24/7 and the average customer paid me $25, I would need 1,892 customers per day, 78 per hour, or 1.3 every single minute.
Ultimately, my blog has created a passive income stream that, in the real world, would be like someone walking in the door of my restaurant and handing me $25 every 46 seconds.
That’s mind-blowing for a business I started for $3 a month.
Here’s a quick snapshot of my profit and loss for March 2021 in QuickBooks:

And here’s a detailed view of my sales numbers, mainly in the form of affiliate commissions:

Affiliate Marketing Revenue: $78,965
Overall, I brought in $78,965 from 58 different affiliate programs.
This is an 84% revenue increase compared to March of last year when affiliate revenue was $42,923.
Right now, I’m in over 200 affiliate programs – some are one-time payouts, some are recurring; some are great and some suck.
The way that my blog has continued to make money irrespective of traffic is that many of the affiliate programs pay me on a recurring basis. For example, if someone signs up for Convertkit through one of my affiliate links, Convertkit pays me 30% every month as long as that person remains a customer.
So I’m not generating $78,965 in new commissioned sales every month, but new sales AND a bank of recurring payments from existing customers.
If my blog were to somehow disappear tomorrow, I’d still be making money until all customers churn out from every recurring affiliate program I’m in, which could take years.
Ad Network Revenue: $12,952
In March, my Mediavine ad revenue was $12,952.
As you can see from the screenshot below, payout dates for this ad revenue are delayed by a few months, so this payment was based on traffic levels I received in December 2020:

I expect this ad revenue number to decrease a bit over the coming months as I saw an overall traffic dip early in the year.
My Other Revenue Sources:
- SEO consulting for two clients: $8,700
- Digital product sales: $1,197
Expenses in March 2021: $16,677
Overall, the cost of running my blog in March was $16,677.
Here’s a breakdown of the main costs:
- Freelancers (the team): Between a few writers, an outreach specialist, and a course creation expert/partner, I spent $11,410 on remote contractors.
- Software costs: Office supplies and monthly software costs came in at $1,754.
- Meals, entertainment, and travel: I spent some money in March to go to Austin, Texas to shoot my online blogging course.
- Insurance: My health insurance and media liability insurance came in at $824.
- Equipment: I bought $428 of new studio equipment.
- Accountants: I paid my CPA company $332.
Side Note: when it comes to taxes, I will also add a number of write-offs to these totals, including:
- Home office: I can deduct a percentage of my mortgage based on the square footage of my office.
- Mortgage interest: I can deduct all mortgage interest.
- Phone and internet: I deduct 50-75% of my cell phone and home Internet usage.
- Payroll: As a single-member S Corp, I pay myself a salary, which also allows me to contribute to a solo 401k, both lowering my tax burden.
When you’re first starting your blog, it’s totally fine to keep it a sole proprietorship until you’re generating a substantial income. I kept my blog as a sole proprietorship for a little bit too long. To keep things clean, the best route is to make sure your expenses and profits are all going into one bank account so it’s easy to organize in QuickBooks.
Traffic for March 2021: 332,854
My blog’s traffic has been dipping since January and landed at 332,854 in March.
This is mainly due to decreased rankings for some very high-volume terms that I was ranking well for late last year like business ideas, how to download YouTube videos, how to grow your Instagram, etc.
These high-volume keywords helped with ad revenue, but aren’t very important to affiliate income or to my overall business.
Remember, traffic does not equal revenue.
Another potential pitfall I’m avoiding is that I’m not “all in” on one affiliate program, one blog post, or one sub-niche.
If one blog post loses traffic, others can pick up the slack.
This is where pivoting based on your Google Knowledge Graph comes in.
Instead of focusing on random high-volume keywords to get vanity metrics like traffic, I’m going all-in on keywords that match my knowledge graph in the blogging, software, video, and course space.
That’s where Google thinks I’m an expert and where I’m pivoting my focus to.
In addition to pivoting my focus to match my knowledge graph, I’m also pivoting my blog to an online course business, which will bring a new revenue stream once it’s launched in late April/early May. π
Email Subscribers for March 2021: 46,100
As of March 2021, I have over 46k subscribers on my email list. I currently use Convertkit for email marketing, which I find is a great option for bloggers.
Our Blogpreneurs Facebook Group is also growing quite fast, with 6.9k members as of today. There are a lot of awesome discussions going on and some really cool bloggers helping each other out. Please join us if you haven’t already.
Tasks Completed in March 2021
- Traveled to Austin, TX, and shot over 30 hours of in-depth content for my blogging business course – to be released very soon (more details to come)!
- Published four new posts on my blog.
- Created new video content for my email list (join on my home page)
- Bought a house in Orlando, Florida, and moved my business down there (follow me on Instagram) – hooray for sunshine and no state income tax.
That’s It For My Blog Income Report for March 2021
I want these blog income reports to prove that with the right strategies, making life-changing money with a blog is still possible. You just have to treat your blog like a startup, pivot, adapt, learn, and update your strategies for 2021.
Over the last four months, I’ve been deep in the weeds working on my blogging course.
And after a ton of work, the course is almost ready to go. After researching the competition and already shooting 30+ hours of in-depth content (with a little more to go), I’m 100% confident it’s already the best blogging course in existence. π
It’s a full 12-week learning experience and the curriculum covers:
- Niche selection and the brand of you
- Blogging mindset
- Blogging like a startup
- Decoding search intent
- WordPress tech stack and setup
- Keyword monetization
- Blog content creation
- Advanced link building
- Affiliate marketing and monetization
- Outsourcing and scaling
I’m so excited to launch this course and build the best blogging community in the world around it.
While there are some other blogging courses out there, they’re from people who got their start 5-10 years ago and have been selling the same product for years. The truth is, very few of them actually know about the stuff I’m teaching and I can’t wait for you to be a part of it.
That’s it for now – thank you so much for reading and I’m grateful you found your way here.
Hi, Adam. Your progress is really Amazing. I’m happy for you, I have read many posts of yours in the last few months I inspired alot and a great follower.
Well Done.
Thanks for reading!
Absolutely Genius, keep it up, Adam.
Thank you
As always inspiring Adam!
And that Restaurant example was perfect to show the power of online business:)
Thank you!
Wow. This is great sir.
I’m very far from where you are but I can’t deny your impact in my blogging business.
Thank you for your input and insights.
When the goal is all achieved, I will send a proper testimonial.
More success and wins, Adam.
Thank you. Just keep going! π
Adam,
You inspire me to not give up. I found you through Pat Flynn a year ago. Thank you for your transparency and the constant push to never give up. I live in Orlando, Fl and hope you find it your happy place to live! You have made my day sir!
Thanks Angela! I love Orlando so far. π Thanks so much for reading and for the kind words. I’m glad you found your way here.
Hi Adam,
Love the post.
Could you consider writing a post, or explaining more, on how to manage tax/ accounting/ employers side of blogging – I myself, and I’m sure many other new blog startups, would love to get your knowledge on this.
Thanks!
Hey Jamie – yeah that’s a good idea for a blog post/video. Thanks for the idea!
Hey Adam, I’m really happy for the growth of your blog in a little period of time. It’s an inspiration for me that something big can happen in a lit of Time as a blogger.
Thanks Wale!
Hi,
does your Affiliate income Include your Revenue from email Affiliate Links?
Maybe a tiny, tiny percentage. It’s 99%+ affiliate revenue from organic Google rankings.
Eagerly waiting for your blogging course! π
(Just a two weeks ago I started off with my website)
Great and well done Adam.
Hi Adam,
The numbers are mind-blowing. We all strive to hit those numbers, but as you pointed out, it is a gradual persistent process that will eventually gather the desired result. That is, if one could maintain consistency and learn from those who are already killing it.
Thanks a lot for sharing. It’s a motivation.
Hi Adam
Thanks again for a great article.
It’s really impressive and well done by you. I have been following you for a very long time, and often slip into your blog and find learning and inspiration from your articles.
You are an inspiration to many, but I will never reach you to the sock holders, or have the same wisdom. But now also care about it, because even though we are a bit in the same niche (as there are many of us), we humans are different. We write and create and market our stuff differently.
The wisdom I lack within the world of SEO backlinks I will outsource over time because I do not think as a writer but as a business owner.
The best greetings
Adele
Thanks for the nice comment and best of luck!
Dude.
I saw that big number and said to myself “yeah, but they never show the expenses. He probably made, like, five bucks.”
I was shocked to see you share the whole burrito.
What?! Woot!
Thanks for the energy boost!
Haha thanks! And that is true – most blog income reports don’t actually show the expenses. Trying to change the game. π
Hi Adam
Thanks for the article.
I’ve been following your success and progress for a while and I am happy for you.
You have been an inspiration to me.
Wish you more success. Continue to motivate present nubies and future bloggers.
You are a trailblazer in many ways, especially your transparency and letting us know that it is still possible to succeed as a blogger today.
Best wishes
Winston.
Thanks so much for following, Winston. I’m glad you found my blog and that you’re liking the content. π
I am amazed at your website and its content. I am considering starting a blog. I am just not sure exactly how to start ?? You are an inspiration.
If you sign up for my email list on my home page, you get hundreds of pages of free content to start a blog, a 15-page blog launch checklist, a daily video series, and a lot to give you the steps for free. π
Hi Adam,
Your content became more mind-blowing article after another and another but how do you manage almost 60 affiliate programs? Just curious if there is any management system in place or. Thanks and Keep up this great stuff man
I’m in over 300 now and it’s not too difficult. Each program has its own dashboard, but really you just need to grab the affiliate link and add it to your site. Over time you can just check each one month’s report or wait until you get a payment via PayPal.
Adam this is so amazing! I love reading your blog post, they inspire me to continue my blogging journey. It’s not easy but as you said with the right strategies the results are rewarding. Thank you so much!
Thanks Kerry!