What do you think about starting a cold email agency? What is the ceiling — can I get to 70K a month or more?

#321 · can a cold email agency scale to $70k/m?

What do you think about starting a cold email agency? What is the ceiling — can I get to 70K a month or more?

The ceiling is virtually unlimited. The reason why is because cold email is quite productizable — there are only a couple of steps that really require a lot of human intellect and muscle. A quick example of how you could productize a cold email agency so you get almost unlimited output for the same fixed input: you could automate the process of buying domains, which is achievable via API endpoints. You can automate setting up mailboxes, also achievable via API endpoints or browser automation. You can automate finding offers that have worked really well for clients in similar verticals — presumably if you wanted to productize a cold email agency you'd just work with people in the same vertical, then copy and paste those offers, make minor context-dependent modifications, and run them. You can automate the process of replying, and you can automate iterating and managing that. Now you shouldn't automate everything, but when it comes to productization and scaling to 70K a month or more, you typically just need the same inputs done very similarly over and over again with minor modifications. Cold email agencies are probably one of the simplest and easiest ways to do so — that's a major chunk of the revenue that got me to over $70,000 in a month. So just productize the hell out of things across the stack. But note that when you start an automation agency you typically do custom work across a big swath of different client verticals and niches, and that's pretty difficult to scale to 70K a month. So typically what you have to do is close it down to a subset of those niches, sell a subset of the products you're currently selling to that subset of niches, and in that way make everything really similar over and over and over again.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Lead Generation

What is your strategy for finding clients or leads for a content creation and scheduler app targeting small businesses and social media agencies? Should I focus on SMBs, agencies, or both using cold email outreach?

Great question. I should make it abundantly clear that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. My hammer is cold email, so I try to solve every problem with it. Cold email isn’t always the most effective marketing method, but it’s like a video game where you keep playing the main character because you’re best at it. I would definitely use cold email. I’d start by pitching these SMA agencies. I’d go to Apollo and filter for 1‑11 staff, looking for digital marketing, digital agency, or creative agency. I’d use the OR operator to pull as many as possible—probably a list of 30 k to 50 k in the United States alone. Then I’d blast out my offer with the software, giving a free demo. I’d position it as if I’d read the person’s whole life story and built the software just for them. I’d mention that I’ve been following what they’re doing at [their company] and that I used to run a digital marketing agency (maybe I still do). I’d share that I’m suffering from XYZ problem and that this software is the solution I came up with. I’d want to put it in front of them to see if it has value. I’m 100 % confident that running their clients through my system will generate outsized returns, so much that I’m willing to guarantee it and give it away for free just to hear their thoughts. If they’re open to a quick call, we could jump on it. I’d approach this at the higher‑agency level, positioning myself as an agency owner talking to agency owners, not as a SaaS person trying to sell something. I’d get on as many calls as possible and frame them almost as partnerships: give them a trial of the software, let them solve their current problems with it, then use that feedback to improve the software faster and better. Once I have a ready‑to‑go version, I’d charge premium prices. And yes, I’d go straight cold email, starting with agencies because they tend to have more money than SMBs.

cold emaillead generationagenciessmb

youtube ↗Client Acquisition

Should I focus on cold email or Upwork to reach $5‑10 k per month, and if cold email, what tips would you give to start?

You have three main approaches: cold email, Upwork, or both—and you can also upsell existing clients on follow‑up work. There’s no need to pick just one; you can do both and see which works better. If a client is already getting great value from your automation, pitch them on additional scope or an incentive‑based arrangement. To start with cold email, consider the offer size, niche, and daily email volume per mailbox, and test different tactics to see what yields results.

cold emailupworkclient acquisitionoutreach

youtube ↗Pricing

Hey Nick, thanks so much for these valuable pieces of content. I'm able to run cold email effectively and generate leads with a reply rate of 5%. Hell yeah, my brother. The only problem I'm facing is to make the business profitable. For instance, if I charge a few dollars for my client, build a system that saves time for them, maybe generates revenue for them, but I'm not able to make enough money as I'm only charging a few bucks from them. Let me know I should plan my AI business to hit $50 to $100,000 a month. Keep doing the great work. Cheers.

You need to charge more, proportional to the value you provide. If you solve a $10,000-per-month money need, you can reasonably charge 30%–50% of that, i.e., $3,000–$5,000 per month. From the business owner's perspective, this is a simple ROI: hiring you should yield about a 3x return, acknowledging some uncertainty between the $3,000 fee and the $10,000 value. You can charge a proportion of the value delivered. Focus on profitability by charging significantly more for your services. On the expense side, avoid accruing unnecessary liabilities. Many who sell cold email or lead generation merely wrap a cold email product with minor added value and then bundle in unnecessary costs like email inboxes, platform fees, and domains. Instead, have the client pay for some of those costs so you're not left liable if you don't deliver results or fulfill guarantees. For example, one consulting client guaranteed a client $10,000 but only sought payment after delivering that amount; due to a long sales cycle, the client didn't receive the $10,000 for four or five months, while the consultant's ongoing email costs were $600–$700 per month, totaling $2,400–$2,800 over that period, yielding a 76% margin after COGS. Don't put yourself in that situation.

pricingvalue-based pricingROI

youtube ↗Lead Generation

Two years into building an automation agency alongside my consulting job I have three clients generating $20K revenue—one from Upwork, one from cold email, and one referred from that cold email client. The cold email ROI is great but relying on a single client per month isn’t repeatable. I’ve built several AI tools (SEO generator, social post generator, meeting summary tool, product copywriter) and have healthy inboxes but almost no meetings. I’m considering a productized, done‑for‑you service helping CFOs get invoices paid faster. Should I scrap the current model and go all‑in on one narrow offer, or does having only three clients in two years indicate something else is broken? Also, am I not doing enough outreach?

I think the core problem isn’t the offer itself but the amount of outreach you’re doing. Based on the numbers you shared you’re probably doing far fewer outreach actions than a typical agency—maybe 24 × less than you think. If you tally every email, DM, call, or LinkedIn message you sent in the first month you’ll see you could have done many more. The growth equation is simple: more outreach equals more leads, which equals more clients. So before you scrap the model, double‑down on consistent, high‑volume outreach (cold email, LinkedIn, etc.) and track those metrics. Once you have a reliable pipeline you can decide whether to specialize, but the immediate fix is to increase outreach dramatically.

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