One weekly edition. Three sections. If you sell something Austin should know about, we should talk.
The Austin Newsletter is one free email a week about the city. No purchased lists. No second sends. No clickbait subject lines. The reader is an Austin local who cares about where to eat, what to do this weekend, and what is actually changing in the city, and many readers run Austin restaurants, shops, and services themselves.
That is the audience your brand sits next to: one that trusts the recommendation because it is editorial first. A sponsorship here is worth something for the same reason the newsletter is.
Every placement is sold by the calendar month and runs in every edition that month.
$180 a month
The only inline sponsor in every edition that month: one block between editorial sections, 60 to 90 words plus a link. Written in our voice, marked as sponsored.
Best for Brands with a story to tell, not a banner to run.
Founding rate $150 a month for the first sponsors.
$90 a month
The band at the bottom of every edition that month, with a one-line message and a single call to action. Clean, quiet, hard to miss.
Best for Events, time-limited offers, or simple brand awareness.
Founding rate $75 a month for the first sponsors.
$325 a month
One section (Eat, Do, or Know) is presented by your brand in every edition that month, with a short sponsor line in it. We still write the section, your brand is never its subject, and the disclosure is clear. No inline sponsor runs that month.
Best for Category-defining brands that want the whole moment.
Founding rate $270 a month for the first sponsors.
A month is every Thursday edition dated in that calendar month, in the email and in the web copy of each edition. When a month has five Thursdays, the fifth edition comes at no extra charge.
If we send fewer than four editions in a month, you get a quarter of that month’s price for each edition short of four, as a credit toward your next paid month or as a refund, your choice.
Each month runs one inline sponsor or one section takeover, plus one footer band. Each placement is yours alone for the month, and two sponsors in the same category never run in the same month.
An inline sponsor gets up to two versions of its copy a month. The footer band gets one, and so does the takeover’s sponsor line. We write it in our voice, and you approve the final copy before it runs. A new version is due by 5pm CT on the Monday before the Thursday it first runs.
One report at the end of the month, with a row for each edition: delivered, reported unique opens, and unique clicks on your link. It carries measured numbers only, with no forecast of clicks, customers, or return. Opens are labeled as reported, because Apple Mail Privacy Protection records some opens that no one made.
A sponsorship buys no coverage: no pick in any section, no Dish of the Week, no Spotlight, no Awesome Austinites feature, and no Shortlist listing. It also includes no mention in our social posts or anywhere else on the site.
The minimum is one calendar month, then month to month. We do not sell single editions.
We send an invoice. A month is booked only when its invoice is paid, and payment is due by the Monday before that month’s first Thursday. An unpaid reservation holds nothing.
A month is priced at the rate in force on the day it is paid, and a paid month never re-prices. You can pay up to three months ahead, with no extra discount for it.
The sponsor running a placement can pay for the next month in it before anyone else, until the 15th of the current month. That never covers a month another sponsor has already paid for.
A mid-month start works only when it is paid together with the following full month. Each remaining edition of the partial month costs a quarter of the monthly price.
You can move a paid month once, with at least 14 days’ notice before its first Thursday. Paid months are not otherwise refundable. The one exception is a month with fewer than four editions, credited or refunded as above.
Open to the first two businesses on the inline-or-takeover slot and the first two on the footer band, in the order their first month is paid. Each business gets one founding run.
The first founding month must be paid by 11:59pm CT on December 31, 2026, and must run no later than March 2027.
A founding run is up to three consecutive calendar months on the same placement, starting with the first month it runs. No founding month runs past May 31, 2027, and the founding rate holds for the whole run, whatever the list size.
A gap month, a fourth month, a switch of placement, a month after May 2027, or a moved month that breaks the run moves you to the list rate then in force.
A mid-month start before the first full month is billed at a quarter of the founding rate for each edition, and it does not count toward the three months.
Every sponsored placement is labeled as sponsored. We write it in the newsletter’s voice, and we will not run anything for a place we would not send a friend to. That line is the whole reason a recommendation here carries weight, and we hold it.
The full policy, including how we handle affiliate links and gifted experiences, lives on the disclosures page. More on who is behind it on the about page.
Prefer email? Write carissa@theaustinnewsletter.com. No fee to ask, and no obligation.
What to do, eat, and know in Austin, in a five-minute read.