A year with a clear denominator
Defector's September 2024–August 2025 table approximates total revenue at $4.65 million, including $3.8 million in subscriptions, against $4.55 million in operating expenses. The publisher warns that these stylized figures differ from official financial filings. Our reading: an approximate gap between annual totals is not an audited profit or a cash balance.
A separate fifth-birthday post said 87% of more than $20 million earned across five years came directly from subscribers. That cumulative proportion uses a different period; it should not be applied to the Year 5 total. For our own model, the discipline is to record the accounting period next to every number and keep revenue, operating costs and cash on separate lines.
Source notes: Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025 · Five Years Of Defector
New streams did not replace the core
The Year 5 account names podcast advertising, non-subscriber display ads, consulting and Apple News+ as additional income. It says direct display sales lagged hopes, with more programmatic backfill than desired. Its earlier Year 4 report explained the display test as a way to help fund hiring while preserving an ad-free subscriber experience.
This is a useful business-mix design, not evidence that every site should install ads. The publisher chose a bounded non-paying audience, a reason for the additional income, and a different experience for people paying directly. Inference: the product distinction may help make a paid subscription tangible. The public report does not quantify whether ads increased conversion, affected reading, or produced positive incremental contribution after sales and implementation costs.
Source notes: Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025 · Defector Annual Report, September 2023 – August 2024
The renewal cliff remains work
The report's trial-cancellation snapshot preceded the group's full-price transition. It therefore could not settle long-run retention. Our practical question is what happens after a discount expires: an early snapshot should trigger a later cohort review, not become a permanent churn assumption in a spreadsheet.
A subscriber count on one date, trial starts, an eligible renewal cohort and annual recognized revenue answer different questions. Combining them into a single conversion rate would manufacture evidence. An operator can instead record the number eligible to renew, successful renewals at full price, payment failures, recovered payments and the labor spent on that cohort. That measurement design is our editorial recommendation, not a claim that Defector uses those exact dashboard fields.
Source notes: Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025
What a smaller publisher can test
The reported expense categories include staff compensation, benefits, technology, professional help and freelance work. Inference: cost structure matters as much as a new revenue line when the approximate annual totals sit close together. A solo publisher cannot assume the same editorial cadence, worker-owner structure, podcast audience or distribution. Nor does one documented year tell us what a new site's first year will earn.
The practical test is to define a paying reader promise, measure full-price renewals on the eligible cohort, and add a second line only with a named audience and delivery cost. Keep the accounting periods intact. The case illustrates diversification around a real subscription core, including the friction of finding new subscribers and selling direct ads. It does not provide a universal churn benchmark or a transferable revenue-per-reader figure.
Source notes: Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025
Sources & limits
Financial figures are the publisher's stylized approximations; promotion outcomes were incomplete at report time, and stream-level contribution is undisclosed.
- Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025
Publisher annual report · Source published 19 November 2025 · Primary source checked · 16 September 2026 - Defector Annual Report, September 2023 – August 2024
Publisher annual report · Publication date not stated · Primary source checked · 16 September 2026 - Five Years Of Defector
Publisher retrospective · Source published 10 September 2025 · Primary source checked · 16 September 2026
Source claims and editorial judgments remain separate. Send a correction with the passage and supporting evidence.
