Real World Copywriting Income: What 14 Students Say

How much do Real World copywriting students make? The Real World, the online learning platform formerly called Hustlers University, publishes no figures for any campus. What it does publish is promotional interviews, and the Copywriting campus, now called Strategic Marketing, has more of them than any other. This page sets out what 14 copywriting students say, in their own words and with the time in each video: when the first money came, how it grew into retainers, and who had a head start. For what the campus teaches, see the Strategic Marketing campus review.

Who is on this page?

The Real World’s home page carried 20 interview videos labelled Copywriting, with 15 different students. Two of them aren’t quoted here: one was under 18 when filmed, and one interview includes sensitive personal history. Seth is added: Seth’s caption says Content Creation & AI, but Seth’s own story is copywriting. That makes 14 students, 12 of whom give a figure.

The videos have no dates, and most look like 2023, when membership cost $49 or $50 a month. It is $99 a month, or $996 a year, today (checked October 19, 2026). Every quote was checked against two separate machine transcripts of the video’s audio. How to weigh figures like these is explained in how to read Real World income claims.

How much do they say they make?

Student	In the student’s words	The Real World’s caption, and notes
Belmin	“making 2-3K a month” (2:15); “up to like 20K in euros” in the first year (2:36)	$10,000/month. Later figures are joint with a partner. Belmin’s case study
Paul	“four or five thousand” in an average month (1:22)	$5k/month. Over 10k a month jointly with two friends (1:34)
Austin	“probably between four to 6,000 a month. Sometimes more than that” (1:48)	$500,000/year. The caption’s own text says $6k a month
Federico	“around 5K, 10K, this kind of range” (1:07)	$10,000/month
Nikolai	“roughly around like seven to 12 K depending on the month” (0:45)	$10k+/month. Was already making two to three K a month on joining
Ronan	“around eight grand per month” (2:47); in another video, “7K confirmed” plus an undisclosed share (0:31)	$8K/month; $7k+/month. Was making about two grand a month before
Earl	“upward of 45,000” in total (2:02); later “upwards of sixty grand” (2:19)	$45,000/18 months. Two videos, two totals
Ardi	First paying client: “three thousand eight hundred” (3:39); later, “Directly, I’ve made over $20,000” (3:17)	$5,000/month. No monthly figure in Ardi’s words
Veteran G	“I made about 90K just in four months” (1:34)	$20k/month. A management consulting background
Shahraja	“five figures a month right now” (2:29), agency revenue	$10k+/month. The agency opened before joining
Mathew	“32,000” for February (0:26): a client’s store sales	$25k/month. Not Mathew’s income
Seth	“about 6,000 just in copywriting” (3:43)	$10k/month. Seth’s case study
Saad	No figure	$30,000/month. The caption’s figure isn’t in either video
Orson	No figure: “I know that that’s not a hard figure” (1:15)	$10k+/month

The monthly figures run from Belmin’s 2 to 3K to Nikolai’s seven to 12K; Veteran G’s 90K in four months is higher still. They mix revenue and income, and most give no currency. Results vary, and many members earn nothing.

From first project to retainer: the steps students describe

The clearest thing in these interviews isn’t the size of the figures. It’s the order things happened in.

Stage	What students say
1. Learning, no income	Earl spent the first two weeks learning “this whole new skill that I’d never heard about before” (0:55). Seth made nothing for four or five months.
2. Outreach	Austin did cold email “about 90 days of doing that continuously every single day” (0:14). Shahraja’s team “sent out like a thousand cold emails” (2:02), many to the wrong leads.
3. A small first payment	Federico: “I got paid 35 days after I joined” (1:17), “like pennies” (1:44). Belmin: 250 bucks for a first project after two months.
4. A retainer	Austin’s third client paid “$2,000 a month” (0:25). Belmin went from $100 projects to “$600 retainers”, then “1K retainers” (1:46).
5. Beyond writing	Ronan now works as “Strategic partner” to the businesses (1:13). Austin hired an employee; Belmin, Paul and Ronan work with partners.

A retainer is a fixed monthly fee for ongoing work, such as running a client’s emails. In these stories it’s what turned a few projects into a monthly income.

Belmin: one hour a day, then retainers

Belmin, from Belgium, was a business student who joined after seeing an Andrew Tate post on YouTube. Belmin was put in the copywriting campus “because I was money poor and time poor” and started with one hour a day, as the platform advised (1:01). Then:

• Month two: “after two months, I got my first client, and I made 250 bucks for my first project” (1:16). Belmin worked out that it paid for five months of Hustlers University, which cost about $50 a month then.
• After that: “$100 there at the beginning, and then got into like $600 retainers” (1:46), then 1K retainers.
• Then: “making 2-3K a month just from The Real World” (2:15), and “up to like 20K in euros” in the first year (2:36).

The caption says $10,000 a month. Belmin’s later, bigger figures are joint with a business partner. The whole story is in Belmin’s case study.

Austin: 90 days of cold email, then a $2,000 retainer

Austin, from the USA, was in a regular job a year before the interview. Austin put in “somewhere around five, six hours a day” (1:39) and sent cold emails every day for about 90 days before a client said yes. That client “put me on a retainer for $2,000 a month. This was the third client I ever got” (0:25), to manage an email list. The same client later added another $1,200 a month to ghostwrite Twitter and LinkedIn posts (0:52).

Austin’s clients came in a cluster: “I landed my first four clients within two weeks of each other” (2:38). Today Austin makes “probably between four to 6,000 a month”, has had months over 10K and has hired an employee. Austin’s caption says “$500,000/year”; Austin’s own words don’t.

Who had a head start?

Several of the higher figures come from students who weren’t starting at zero:

• Nikolai: “At the time I joined, I was making like two to three K a month.” (2:29)
• Ronan: “I was making roughly like two grand a month back then” (2:28), fixing dishwashers, before reaching about eight grand.
• Veteran G: “I was working in management consulting” (2:31), with Fortune 500 companies. Veteran G started making money within the first month and made about 90K in four months.
• Shahraja: opened a marketing agency in May 2022, then bought the team Hustlers University memberships to train them in copywriting (0:00 to 1:08).
• Saad: “I already had skills”, and the campus “helped me monetize it” (1:21, interview with Tristan Tate).

None of that makes their stories untrue. It means a beginner shouldn’t read their figures as a target. The students who say they started with nothing, such as Belmin, Earl and Federico, also report the smaller first payments.

Where captions and students differ

• Austin: the caption says “$500,000/year”; Austin says four to 6,000 a month.
• Saad: the caption says $30,000 a month; neither of Saad’s videos gives a figure.
• Belmin: the caption says $10,000 a month; Belmin says 2 to 3K a month on Belmin’s own work.
• Mathew: the caption says $25k a month; Mathew’s “32,000” is from “Shopify analytics from my client” (0:11), so it is a client’s sales.

In the other direction, Paul’s caption ($5k a month) matches Paul’s own words. More examples are in how to read Real World income claims.

What did the copywriting campus teach them?

The students describe more than writing:

• Outreach. Austin credits the cold outreach techniques taught in the Copywriting campus for finding the $2,000 client (1:06).
• Marketing strategy. Ronan says the professor “teaches way more than just copywriting itself” (2:20), including how to become a strategic partner in a client’s business.
• Feedback. Shahraja says the team learned by reviewing other members’ submissions in the campus, an “iron sharpens iron” environment (3:31).

The campus is now Strategic Marketing. Its lessons cover persuasion, using AI and landing clients, and The Real World lists it among the options that need no starting capital. The member behind this site took it in the Hustlers University days: it taught him to write landing-page copy that sells the benefit, not just the features, and the hardest part was carrying that into conversations with clients. His view of who it suits is in the Strategic Marketing campus review.

Who is copywriting not for?

• People who won’t sell. Every story above involves outreach: cold emails, messages or networking. Writing alone earned nobody a client.
• People who need money in the first month. First payments here came after two weeks at the earliest and after four or five months at the latest, and they were usually small.
• Shy people, in the experience of the member behind this site, since selling your writing means talking to clients.
• Anyone looking for a guarantee. The Real World’s Terms of Use say it doesn’t guarantee any financial outcome.

What these figures can’t tell you

• How typical they are. The Real World chose these students for videos meant to sell memberships. Copywriting students who earned nothing aren’t interviewed.
• Whether they’re true. No accounts are shown, and this site hasn’t seen any.
• What the work looks like now. The interviews are mostly from 2023, before the rename to Strategic Marketing and before much of today’s AI tooling.
• What you would earn. Nothing here is a prediction. Results vary.

The figures for every campus are in how much Real World students say they make, and the timelines in how long until your first client or sale. For a graded answer to the bigger question, see does The Real World work.

What to do next

If you’re deciding whether to join for this campus, start with the Strategic Marketing campus page and the review of whether The Real World is worth it. If you’ve decided, the current plans are on the plan page.