Blog Revenue | FatWallet Refugee

Previous Article (WordAds Revenue for Q1 2026)

Last Updated July 7th, 2026.

Recorded early in May 2026

Updated Second Quarter Guidance

I was getting ready to post a Q3 report when i realized that i had posted the Q1 and Q2 reports too early, before all of the quarterly data became available.

So, instead of making a Q3 at this time, I will be updating this Q2 report. The next report for Q3 should be posted in October and will include July, August, and September ad revenues.

Ad Revenue by Month

April

The site received 9,669 views from 5,412 visitors averaging 1.79 views per visitor.

I wrote 31 posts in April.

Average CPM	Earnings	Ads Served
$0.26	$5.38	20,435

In April, I update a whole bunch of posts and even hit the republish button on them. That would account for the high number of posts listed for April. I don’t normally write that much unless I am inspired.

I did play some mobile games, but didn’t see much traction on the guides I wrote for them. I did some housekeeping in the wikis and cleaned up the Dragon Traveler and Cheerleaders GO collections.

Dragon Traveler has a big audience, so adding details to the wiki really improved my site traffic.

Unfortunately, there is now an English language mirror wiki from the official Dragon Soul Traveler (龍魂旅人) wiki that has received official recognition. I can’t really compete with a dedicated site with editors and authors.

If you do a Google Search for “Dragon Traveler wiki,” this site in in position 4, while the new dtwiki site is number 1.

May

The site received 10,058 views from 4,714 visitors averaging 2.13 views per visitor.

I wrote 15 posts in May.

Average CPM	Earnings	Ads Served
$0.22	$6.09	27,779

In May, I tried to ramp up my posting but didn’t find much success. I have several posts, from this period, with 0 page views. I continue to add new content to my running work, the “eBay Style Code Catalog.”

It’s only got 2 views, and I suspect they were from me, when I checked to see if the post was visible on Google Search.

June

The site received 7,040 views from 3,826 visitors averaging 1.84 views per visitor.

I wrote 6 posts in June.

Average CPM	Earnings	Ads Served
$0.30	$5.06	17,151

June was a slim month mostly because I was busy with my eBay stores and my travel blog Kasanje Travel’s. I enjoy street photography and local trips by car.

So, I didn’t do any game offers during this month. That meant I had no new content for this site.

Other Income Streams

Affiliates

I signed up for a couple of Affiliate programs however I have not had any earning from those platforms yet.

I have ads for the affiliates on most site pages in the sidebar.

eBay

I also include links to my four eBay channels: lafemme1st, fatwalletrefugee (FWR), golfforless, and kingcastlehomeimprovement. Sales are sporadic in the golf and hardware stores, this is primarily limited by my ability to acquire and stock quality goods in these area.

The majority of my eBay earnings come from the FWR and La Femme 1st stores. I sell men and women’s apparel primarily, although FWR does stock various knickknacks I’ve hopefully picked up.

eBooks

I briefly got into Amazon eBooks back in 2023 with the arrival of generative AI. I have since lost interest in that area and not been proactive in creating content.

The few items I have published do occasionally get viewed on Kindle Unlimited and I receive a few pennies now and then. It’s surprising since the AI tech back then was fairly rudimentary compared to the perfect images contemporary engines can create.

Things have suddenly improved since my last report in July.

This morning, I received an email saying that my PayPal account had received a payment from Automattic for $106.31. I checked my Ads panel and found that it is the exact amount in my balance.

I had assumed the payouts were manual and needed to be requested. But this assumption was based on posts I have seen in the WordPress Forums. It seems the payments are automatic after reaching the necessary threshold of $100.

My previous post would have covered the periods of April, May, and June. In those months, I received, $10.88, $11.01, and $6.07, respectively. My ads served in April and May averaged 150k, but in June, the numbers dropped, and I only had 70k ads served.

At the time of the drop, my site traffic had not decreased, which left me confused. What noticeably changed was that the CPM had dropped 75%. This may have resulted from increased site traffic from non-US sources, which don’t accrue the same degree of ad revenues.

In July and August, ads served dropped to 23k and 38k. However, my CPM increased from $0.09 in June to $0.27 in July and $0.36 in August.

This increase resulted in revenue of $6.54 in July and an improved $14.18 in August. This last amount was what pushed me over the $100 mark and triggered the payout I received.

My annual goal for the site is $74, which would cover the cost of the upgraded plan and custom domain name for 3 years. The domain was free for the first year.

That’s it for the third quarter report. I wrote more below, but I started reminiscing about sort of unrelated stuff.

In the past, when I would try to research hosting with other providers, I would ask for advice from people who had experience with other services.

I recall previously trying out Hostinger for a different website. I was on the free trial and had selected a basic plan.

Despite all the ads saying how low hosting was, they tried to pre-charge me $660 for a year of hosting before the trial had ended. I had to fight them on the charge before finally getting it removed and closing my account.

I tried a couple of others that were spoken highly of on Reddit, but I had similar experiences. All of this led me to decide that self-hosted sites with .org WordPress are actually more expensive than what WordPress.com offers.

I think the main difference between the platforms is the availability of Plugins on self-hosted sites. With a .com-hosted site, we don’t get plugin access without an upgraded plan, but .org sites get plugin access right out of the gate.

This revelation probably has soured some folks on the platform. I wonder, though, if self-hosted sites are too dependent on plugins? Would they be able to succeed without a crutch?

I see a similar trend with the introduction of AI to web design and other facets of online life.

People may start using it as a helpful aid, but soon enough, they become dependent on it for all of their activities. If the AI is offline or there is a bug, it cripples their ability to function.

It’s the same with plugins; when a bug appears or an exploit, the entire ecosystem is affected because everyone is dependent on these plugins.

Q1 Report for 2026

The information in this post is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to be legal advice. While I have tried to ensure that the content is accurate and current, I make no guarantees. You should seek legal or other professional advice before acting or relying on any of the information.