August 2025 Income Report: How to Scale Online Business Profitably

Last Updated on October 10, 2025

As part of the $1K/Day Experiment, I’m continuing my monthly Income Reports for Success with Soul about how to scale online business profitably without social media. Today I’m sharing the exact strategies that helped me maintain 40% profit margins while scaling Facebook ads profitably, plus the “boring” system that generated $8,976 in passive income from a simple course upsell.

Welcome to the 11th installment of my Income Reports—part of The $1K/Day Experiment, my behind-the-scenes journey to making $1,000 per day in passive product sales without relying on social media.

If you’re new here, these reports are equal parts income transparency and behind-the-scenes business therapy as I attempt in real-time to scale my online business profitably. Think: if your business journal and your bank account had a baby, and that baby loved spreadsheets and cycle syncing.

August was the month I officially became a profitable advertiser AND finally learned that sometimes the most profitable decision is walking away from being “right.”

Between hitting $220K in rolling 12-month revenue, scaling my Facebook ads from cautious testing to confident investment, and making one of the hardest business decisions of my life (spoiler: it involved $8,500 and my ego), August taught me that sustainable scaling isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right things consistently.

If August had a theme, it would be “strategic maturity.” Some days I was deep in course upsell tech striving to create more passive income and maintain a profit margin that would make my CPA weep with joy. Other days I was choosing my mental health over…well, doing much work at all. But through it all, my business kept generating consistent revenue while I continued to scale without sacrificing my soul.

Let’s dig into exactly how I maintained 40% profit margins while scaling Facebook ads with a 2x ROAS, aka the “boring” systems that are quietly building my social-free online business one automated sale at a time.

Note: While these posts are public for anyone to read, if you want to get an even deeper look into exactly what I’m doing in my business to make consistent daily sales without ever posting on social media then I invite you to grab your unfiltered backstage pass here.

The Numbers: Healthy Online Business Profit Margins

• 12-Month Rolling Revenue (Sep 2024–Aug 2025): $219,629.43
  • → This is the total earned in the last 12 months. I now lead with this number because it’s a more accurate picture of the health of my business. Income flows seasonally, and single-month snapshots are misleading.
  • 12-Month Average Monthly Revenue: $18,302
• 12-Month Rolling Net Profit: $141,974
• 12-Month Rolling Profit Margin: 64.64%
• August Total Revenue: $17,142.08 (35.8% was recurring)
• Expenses: $10,231.46
  • Paying out my affiliates (want me to pay you too? sign up here! it’s free!)
  • Software (like Fathom, Descript, Poppy AI, Manychat, ClickUp, and Kartra)
  • Meta ads testing ($5,584.66…whew this really shot up last month as I started scaling my profitable ads!)
  • Training and education ($540) – Rick’s AI Playbook membership, mastermind investments
• Net Profit: $6,911 (40.32% profit)

Note: I am not counting my payroll and distributions as an expense as it’s just paying myself and taxes. But now that I’m an S-corp again, I am legally required to pay myself a salary as a W-2 employee of Success with Soul.

So, last month, I officially switched things up so these income reports focus more on the big picture: rolling 12-month revenue and profit rather than snapshots in time.

And I’m proud to say that although my profit margin dipped from the usual 60-70% to 40%, I was still able to maintain healthy margins while drastically increasing my Facebook ad spend.

That $5,584 in Facebook ad spend? It’s not just an expense—it’s an investment in profitable customer acquisition. When you know your numbers (average customer lifetime value, conversion rates, profit per sale), scaling ad spend becomes a strategic decision, not a desperate gamble.

And honestly, 40% profit margins for an online business is still exceptional. Most traditional businesses would kill for 40% profit margins. The fact that I can maintain this while actively scaling proves that the systems I’ve built are fundamentally sound.

And that 35.8% recurring revenue? That’s my insurance policy against the feast-or-famine cycle that destroys so many online businesses. When over a third of your income is predictable and recurring, you can take bigger strategic risks because your baseline is covered.

Most Purchased Courses from the Shop

Let’s start with what you all were actually buying this month, because nothing screams “data-driven CEO” like product sales spreadsheets and celebratory snacks (I’m partial to chocolate-covered sea salt pistachios from Trader Joe’s, if you’re curious).

My top sales by product were:

1. Beyond the Scroll: How to Create a Static 9-Grid (with Templates!) (116)
2. Launch Lab (81)
3. The Room: Weekly Group Coaching Calls for Accountability + Community (57)
4. Mindful Business Academy (41) – we added an upsell to all of our products to MBA and it’s converting so well (almost selling at least 1 a day!)
5. The $1k/Day Experiment (30)

Worth noting: I sold an average of 14 products per day in August.

My top sales by revenue earned were:

1. The Room
2. Mindful Business Academy
3. $1k/Day Experiment
4. Beyond the Scroll
5. Launch Lab

Worth noting: I made an average of $585 per day in June, NOT including affiliate and sponsor income. This comes out to an average order value of $40.75 (an 28% increase from July)

Least Purchased Courses

These are the underdogs that really deserve more credit!

• Home + About Page Toolkit
• Unlimited Voxer Coaching
• Pitch Perfect CustomGPT

What’s New!

• Brand iOS: Train AI to Write Copy That Sounds Exactly Like You
• Back Office Bot Squad: Build CustomGPTs + AI Assistants That Work Like You (So You Don’t Have To)
• Next-Level Nurture: Easy, Automated Emails That Build Loyalty + Repeat Buyers
• Inbox Income: Long-Term Evergreen Emails That Make You Money (Even When You’re Offline, Overwhelmed, or Over It)
• The SMB Online Evolution Partnership

Most Popular Affiliate Links

• Kartra
• Amy Porterfield
• Elizabeth Stapleton’s Legal Templates
• Rick Mulready’s AI Playbook

Most Popular Coaching Offers

• The Room
• Inbox Insights
• 1:1 Coaching Calls
• Voxer Coaching

Traffic Without Social Media: 6.2k pageviews…kind of

Note: this screenshot comes from Fathom Analytics, which I much prefer to GA4.

Okay, plot twist. For months, I’ve been watching my pageviews seemingly decline and wondering if my SEO strategy was failing or if people were just losing interest in my content. Turns out, I had a major tracking blind spot.

Somehow, my Kartra pages stopped being tracked by Fathom Analytics. And most of my high-traffic pages live on Kartra: sales pages, lead magnet opt-ins, course portals, and checkout pages. Basically, all the pages where people actually convert into customers weren’t being counted.

So, my “declining” traffic wasn’t actually declining. I was just missing a huge chunk of my actual visitor data. It’s like trying to measure your business success while wearing a blindfold over one eye.

What this tells me: First, never trust a single data source to tell your whole story. I was making strategic decisions based on incomplete information, which could have led me to “fix” problems that didn’t actually exist.

Second, the traffic I was seeing in Fathom (6.2k pageviews) was primarily blog content and my main website pages. The fact that this traffic maintained strong engagement metrics (low bounce rate, high time on site) while my sales were still consistent tells me my content strategy is working—I just wasn’t seeing the full picture.

Third, this is exactly why I focus on revenue metrics over vanity metrics. While I was worried about declining pageviews, my business was actually growing. Revenue doesn’t lie, even when pageviews do.

The lesson for you: Always cross-reference your analytics with your actual business results. If the numbers don’t match your reality, dig deeper before making major strategic changes.

Steal this strategy: Create a monthly “data audit” where you check that all your tracking is working properly. It takes 10 minutes and can save you from months of strategic confusion.

Focus on metrics that actually matter to your bottom line. Pageviews are nice, but conversion rates, email subscribers, and revenue are what pay the bills.

My top-performing pages were:

1. Beyond the Scroll Challenge (running ads to this, so the upsell and hub page are also in the top 3)
2. My Homepage
3. MBA Sales Page
4. Everything Page
5. About Page

Growing Email List Without Social Media: 1,192 new subscribers (up from 9,130 active leads in July)

Note: this screenshot comes from my dashboard in Kartra.

Now THIS is what I’m talking about! August was my strongest month for list growth in 2025, and it’s directly tied to my shift from ad-phobic to ad-strategic.

42% of these leads came from Facebook ads, with a cost per lead of $$4.94. What I love about this is that I’m not just buying random email addresses—My Beyond the Scroll Challenge attracted people who are genuinely interested in building sustainable, profitable businesses without the social media hamster wheel.

These are my people, who are actively looking for alternatives to social media marketing, and they’re converting into customers at higher rates than general “business tips” subscribers. In fact, this free challenge goes directly to a tripwire that converted at 17% on totally cold leads. And then 55% went on to add our bump offer, and 8% added on MBA on the upsell page. HOT DANG!

What this tells me: Paid traffic works when you’re strategic about it. I’m not just throwing money at Facebook and hoping for the best—I’m targeting specific pain points (social media burnout) and offering genuine solutions, tweaking my creative, my audiences, my funnel until I hit upon a winning combination.

The compound effect is real. Each new subscriber isn’t just a number—they’re entering my evergreen email sequences, getting nurtured through my content, and many will become customers over the next 6-12 months. This is how you build sustainable revenue growth.

NOTE: Just a quick note to point out that while it’s amazing that Kartra gives us data like how much each subscriber is worth and their lifetime value, this isn’t 100% accurate for my business because we also sell through Shopify. And that isn’t counted towards these numbers.

Key Takeaways: How to Scale Online Business Without Social Media

1. The MBA Upsell Strategy: How to Create Passive Income with Course Upsells

Here’s the thing about “boring” systems—they’re only boring until they start making you money. In August, my MBA upsell strategy generated $8,976 in accrued revenue from just 17 sales.

Let me break down exactly how this works:

The Setup: On July 23rd, I added a simple $44/month for 12 installments upsell to all of our thank you pages. Not complicated. Not fancy. Just a straightforward offer that appears for 30 minutes after someone makes any purchase.

The Psychology: People who just bought from you are in a “yes” mindset. They’re already invested in your ecosystem and trust your recommendations. This is the perfect time to offer them more value, not six months later when they’ve forgotten why they loved you. Couple that with a truly irresistible discount and BAM!

The Numbers: 52 visits to that page, 17 conversions = 33% conversion rate. Each sale is worth $528 once they complete all 12 installments (assuming they don’t fail). That’s nearly $10K in additional revenue from a system I set up once and forgot about.

The Lesson: Stop overthinking your upsells. You don’t need complex funnels or perfect timing. You need a good offer presented to the right people at the right moment.

Steal this strategy: Add a time-sensitive upsell to your thank you pages. Make it valuable, relevant, and easy to say yes to. Test different offers and price points. Then let it run while you focus on other things.

2. Business Energy Management: The $8,500 Lesson

This was the hardest business decision I made in August (probably all year if I’m being honest), and probably the most important one for my mental health.

The Situation: $8,500 in customer payments were routed to an old PayPal account tied to a business I sold in 2021. The buyer refused to return the money despite multiple attempts to resolve it professionally. She literally stole it from me, misappropriating the funds and I have an amazing case to sue her for conversion and unjust enrichment (according to the 2 lawyers I spoke to about my options).

The Old Me: Would have fought this to the bitter end. Hired said lawyers. Spent months obsessing over the injustice. Let it consume my mental energy and creative bandwidth. Wasted my precious time and energy trying to clawback the funds in any way I know how. And believe me, I toyed with that for a few days and even filed a fraud dispute with Paypal so they are investigating her crimes.

The New Me: Had a lightbulb moment during a conversation with my friend who was dealing with her own landlord drama. She said something that stopped me in my tracks: “I’d rather be happy than right.”

The Decision: I chose to let it go. Not because I didn’t deserve that money (I absolutely did), but because chasing it was costing me something more valuable—my peace of mind and creative energy.

The Math: $8,500 sounds like a lot of money. But when I calculated the opportunity cost—the hours I’d spend fighting, the mental bandwidth it would consume, the stress it would create—I realized I could generate that $8,500 faster by focusing on new revenue streams instead of clawing back old ones.

The Mindset Shift: This wasn’t about being a pushover or letting people walk all over me. This was about protecting my most valuable resource: my energy. Every hour I spent fighting this battle was an hour I couldn’t spend creating content, serving clients, or building systems that would generate far more than $8,500 in the long run.

What this tells me: Sometimes the most profitable decision is walking away from being “right.” Scarcity mindset says “fight for every penny.” Abundance mindset says “let it go and create more.”

The lesson for you: Your energy is finite and precious. Don’t spend it on battles that drain you, even if you’re technically in the right. Ask yourself: “Is this worth my peace?” More often than not, the answer is no.

3. The 7-Day Refund Policy: Treating Customers Like Humans

After years of having a no refunds refund policy, I made the controversial decision to switch to 7 days no questions asked on everything, including memberships (which remain cancel anytime).

It feels so good to treat my customers the way I want to be treated, as trustworthy people who won’t “cheat the system,” while also setting clear boundaries about what I will and won’t tolerate.

A shorter refund window encourages people to actually engage with the content instead of letting it sit in their downloads folder for a month before deciding they “don’t have time” for it.

The lesson for you: Your refund policy should reflect your values and protect your business sustainability. There’s no “right” answer—only what works for your business model and customer base.

4. The Energy-Revenue Connection: Data-Backed Cyclical Business

August was a masterclass in working with my energy cycles instead of against them, and the financial results prove this isn’t just “woo-woo” nonsense—it’s smart business strategy.

The Experiment: I aligned my business activities with my menstrual cycle and energy patterns.

Luteal phase = admin and systems work.
Menstrual phase = rest and strategic thinking.
Follicular phase = creative content.
Ovulation = visibility and sales.

The Results: Despite taking a hotel retreat during my menstrual phase and working fewer hours overall, I maintained strong revenue and profit margins while scaling my ad spend.

The Science: When you work with your natural energy rhythms instead of forcing yourself to be “on” all the time, you’re more efficient during your high-energy phases and more strategic during your low-energy phases.

Sustainable scaling isn’t about working more hours—it’s about working smarter during the hours you do work. Rest isn’t the opposite of productivity; it’s a prerequisite for it.

The lesson for you: Pay attention to your natural energy patterns and plan your business activities accordingly. You’ll get more done in less time and feel better doing it.

Steal this strategy: Track your energy levels for a month and notice patterns. Then batch similar activities during your high-energy times and save administrative tasks for when your energy is lower.

What’s Working: Scaling Profitably (No Social Media!)

Think of this like a checklist for what to do in your business if you want to make daily sales without social media, especially if you’re an introvert or neurodivergent entrepreneur like me!

• An Everything Page and Shop
• Low-cost tripwires on every single lead magnet, plus pop-up tripwires on every single thing I sell, with bumps and 1-click upsells on EVERYTHING!
• Creating an all-access pass/everything offer and breaking out its components into a la carte options to meet folks where they’re at
• Asynchronous coaching; Email coaching has been going AMAZING and our weekly group coaching in The Room is growing, resulting in thousands of dollars every month in recurring revenue.
• A super engaging evergreen welcome series with a 50.31% open rate and 5.59% click-from-opens rate that makes sales and leads into a weekly sales sequence for my shop that’s also converting super well.
• Sending my live weekly Sunday newsletter, “The Whole Soul List” where I make multiple offers every week while connecting with my people on a much deeper, personal level.
• And finally, I think the fact that I am a Clockwork Queen (aka I manage my time really well) and have so many efficient, automated systems in place, and take such good care of my mental health and wellbeing, all allow me to show up as my best self, maximize productivity and really feel in a creative flow with endless energy and passion for the work I do. I am so so grateful every single day that this is how I get to spend my time. I absolutely adore my job!

September 2025 Goals: Launch Testing

• Scale Ads: My Beyond the Scroll challenge funnel is finally profitable at nearly 2x ROAS, so it’s time to increase my daily ad spend and see how far I can push it before performance drops. I’d also like to add in some ads for some of my other offers and see if I can get any ads going directly to a sales page to convert. Perhaps switch my funnel up from the daily sales webinar to lead to selling $1k/Day instead of MBA upfront.
• Continue Rolling out the New Room Retention Strategy: The Airtable data is showing me exactly when members are most likely to cancel and which touchpoints drive the highest engagement. Rachel and I’m ready to migrate our community to Skool and implement the milestone rewards system we designed.
  • One thing I’m really excited to test is hosting the entire month of September as “Get it Done Month” with a Daily Sales Challenge for Room members to see how it impacts both results and client engagement.
• Run my 38th Birthday Sale: I’m going to test-drive a promo-style where I do 5 days of daily deals in preparation for Black Friday and my 38th birthday at the end of September is perfect timing.
• Run a DCA Affiliate Promo: I’m partnering with Amy Porterfield for the sixth year in a row to help her promote Digital Course Academy and I’m testing doing a very minimal launch style to see if I can repurpose as much as possible from past years and still make five-figures.

The Bottom Line: How to Scale Online Business Profitably

August taught me that scaling profitably isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right things consistently and having the courage to let go of what’s not serving you.

Whether that’s walking away from a $8,500 fight that would drain your energy, implementing “boring” systems that generate passive income, or finally investing in ads after years of being afraid—profitable scaling requires both strategic thinking and emotional maturity.

The businesses that thrive long-term aren’t the ones that grow the fastest or make the most noise on social media. They’re the ones that build sustainable systems, maintain healthy profit margins, and prioritize the mental health of their founders (and employees).

My 40% profit margin might be lower than usual, but it’s still exceptional by any industry standard. More importantly, it’s sustainable. I’m not sacrificing my health, my family time, or my sanity to hit these numbers.

That’s what success with soul really means—building a business that serves your life, not the other way around.

If you’d like a closer look at how I make daily sales without social media, consider joining me in The $1K-a-Day Experiment for unfiltered insights and access to my evolving strategies.

FAQS: Online Business Profit Margins