Despite growing to a $1.1 billion valuation and 5 million paid subscribers, Substack maintains a refreshingly straightforward business model: readers pay writers directly for content they love.

Substack isn’t limited to text-based newsletters either. You can publish podcasts and video content in your Substack feed, so creators in any medium can find an audience—whether you write about the history of innovation, share garden-inspired recipes, or something completely off the wall. 

Let’s break down exactly what Substack is, how it works, and the tactics to make money on the platform.

What is Substack?

Substack is a publishing platform that lets you send newsletters and build a paying audience on your own terms. Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi founded it in 2017 with a simple idea: give writers a way to earn money directly from readers, without relying on ads or big media gatekeepers.

Substack works by combining the powers of blogging, email, and subscription payments into a single easy-to-use service. As a writer, you create a publication that gets its own Substack web page and mailing list. Readers can find your posts in their inbox, on the web, or in the Substack app—where they can read articles, listen to podcasts, watch videos, or even join chats with their favorite creators, all in one place. 

You can turn on payments and start converting readers into paying subscribers whenever you’re ready. Substack handles the tech and distribution so you can focus on writing, giving you direct access to your audience.

Substack vs. email marketing platforms

Substack isn’t just an email marketing service like Mailchimp or Kit—it’s an entire publishing ecosystem. Your posts live on a public site where anyone can discover them (great for SEO and sharing), and readers can interact by liking or commenting.

Substack also has social features like Notes (a short-form feed) and Chat (a community group chat), which let you interact with readers right on the platform—something traditional email tools don’t offer. This means Substack feels less like a one-way email blast and more like a community or mini social network centered on your content.

Who uses Substack? 

A wide range of creators use Substack today, from journalists and novelists to chefs and musicians. For example, punk poet and singer-songwriter Patti Smith uses Substack to share her diary entries and host musical livestreams for fans. The platform has enabled well-known novelists like George Saunders and Ottessa Moshfegh, as well as more recently established writers like Emily Sundberg, to turn newsletters into revenue streams. Even scientists are finding their way to Substack. This range shows that Substack success isn’t reserved for big names—it’s about consistent value delivery to your specific audience.

Brands on Substack

Brands have discovered that Substack works differently from typical sales channels. Rather than using the platform to push inventory, retailers build community through essays, personal stories, and behind-the-scenes glimpses that happen to exist alongside their products.

Here are some ecommerce brands using Substack:

• Ghia publishes Night Shade, penned by founder Melanie Masarin, as a journal exploring travel, food, and design—with the non-alcoholic apéritif itself appearing only occasionally in the newsletter’s pages.

• Saie Beauty launched From the Saie Office, a newsletter where the clean makeup brand shares office culture, staff recommendations, and spotlights on other women-owned businesses.

• Crown Affair founder Dianna Cohen’s newsletter, Take Your Time, discusses personal growth and mindful living rather than promoting hair care products, positioning wellness as the brand’s true offering.

• Still Here New York publishes Still Here World, featuring quirky essays on clothing and occasional product glimpses.

How to make money on Substack

• Turn on paid subscriptions
• Bring on paid sponsorships
• Make commission from affiliate links
• Sell ebooks and courses
• Promote your ecommerce store

Here are the most common ways Substack creators earn consistent income, including some advice from Ghia founder Melanie Masarin on how she approaches monetization with her Substack newsletter, Night Shade.

Turn on paid subscriptions

The most straightforward way to earn money on Substack is to enable paid subscriptions for your newsletter. You can still publish free content, but decide to paywall some posts for paying members (many creators choose something like $5 to $10 per month or around $50 per year).

Substack takes 10% of subscriber payments as a platform fee, while Stripe also takes a credit card fee (2.9% + 30¢ per transaction) and a billing fee for recurring subscriptions (0.7% for recurring payments). The rest goes to you, the content creator. The best part is the recurring income: subscribers often stay on month after month if you keep delivering value, giving you predictable revenue for your creative business.

The temptation to monetize immediately is strong, but patience can pay off. Building an audience first with free content allows you to establish trust and understand what your readers value before asking them to pay. “I wrote Night Shade for free for 18 months—it started as a creative outlet. I loved doing it, but time is finite, so I eventually put it behind a paywall to justify the hours I was putting in,” says Melanie. “I chose the minimum Substack price of $5 per month, and sign-ups ended up being double what I expected.”

Bring on paid sponsorships

Even though Substack itself doesn’t run ads, newsletter writers can earn money through sponsorships. This means partnering with a company or brand relevant to your newsletter’s audience demographics and featuring them in your next sendout for a fee. The brands you partner with for sponsored content should feel like an extension of your newsletter, not compromises.

For Melanie, this meant being proactive—reaching out to potential advertisers like Vestaire Collective rather than reflexively accepting every inbound brand offer that came her way. “I actually pitched Vestaire myself,” Melanie says. “I’ve been shopping there since they launched over 10 years ago, so it was a natural fit. More brands are reaching out now, but I’m very protective of Night Shade. Moving it to a paid model lets me say no to sponsorships without guilt.”

Make commission from affiliate links

Affiliate marketing is another income stream you can integrate into your Substack. This involves recommending products or services using special affiliate links and earning a commission when your readers click and make a purchase. Keep any affiliate recommendations relevant and genuinely useful to your readers. If your Substack is about outdoor hiking, linking to your favorite hiking boots or backpack makes sense—linking to a random vacuum cleaner, not so much.

When Melanie recommends something using affiliate links via Amazon’s affiliate program or ShopMy, readers take notice because she’s earned that trust through thoughtful curation. The most sustainable affiliate income comes from utilizing your genuine taste and authority, not from pushing products that don’t fit your voice. “Fashion and home do best,” Melanie says. “My readers are active shoppers, but they care about quality and individuality. They’re not shy about spending on something special—I sell more luxury products than I buy myself!”

Be sure to follow disclosure rules. In many regions, you must inform readers that links may earn you a commission—a simple note like “Affiliate Link” or a footer disclosure works. While affiliate earnings per sale are usually modest, they can accumulate over time, especially if you have a large archive of posts attracting organic traffic through Google and other search engines.

Sell ebooks and courses 

Substack writers can also monetize by selling digital products—typically ebooks, paid reports, or online courses—to their audience. Your newsletter can be both a marketing channel and a delivery platform for these products.

For instance, Gergely Orosz, the writer behind the Pragmatic Engineer Substack newsletter, which has more than one million subscribers. He penned an ebook called The Software Engineer’s Guidebook and recorded an associated audiobook readers can also purchase. Whether you’re an expert in engineering, fashion, or personal finance, you could create a multiweek course and promote it to your subscribers.

While Substack doesn’t offer a built-in storefront for one-off products, you can promote your product in your posts and then use an external platform like Shopify to handle the transactions. Some creators also use Substack itself as the medium for courses, setting up a paid-only series of posts that function as lesson modules. 

Promote your ecommerce store 

If you have products of your own outside of Substack—whether it’s merchandise, a software tool, crafts, or an ecommerce business—your Substack can be a channel to drive sales. In this scenario, the newsletter itself might not be the direct moneymaker, but rather a marketing funnel for your main business. It may even be a free newsletter.

Let’s say you run an online store selling handcrafted jewelry. You could start a Substack about fashion and styling tips, grow a following through interesting free content, and occasionally plug your jewelry store or specific items in your posts.

Avoid turning your newsletter into a pure catalog. “Night Shade was never meant to be a marketing channel for Ghia—it was more of an escape from it,” says Melanie. “But both projects come from the same creative place, so they end up speaking to each other.”

Substack tips and best practices

• Provide previews of paid content
• Offer true perks behind the paywall
• Discount annual subscriptions with a time-limited offer
• Use Substack’s social community features
• Turn on subscriber referrals
• Cross-promote your Substack
• Collaborate with other Substack writers
• Lean into Substack SEO features

Once you’ve got the basic monetization methods down, dig deeper into the platform’s growth features.

Here’s how to accelerate your subscriber growth on Substack:

Provide previews of paid content 

If you do offer paid-subscriber-only posts, tease them with free previews. Substack allows you to publish a portion of a paid post publicly, then put the rest behind a paywall. By giving free readers a taste of what’s behind the curtain, you can entice them to upgrade.

For example, you might share the introduction and first few sections of an in-depth buying guide for a home-office setup and then insert the paywall right after 15 of 50 items have been revealed. The preview should be interesting and satisfying on its own, yet leave a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out). When free readers hit the paywall, they’ll see a prompt to upgrade along with a list of your subscription benefits.

Over time, some percentage of your free audience (5% to 10%, according to Substack) may decide to support you because they’ve seen firsthand that your paid material is worth it.

Offer true perks behind the paywall 

If you’re asking people to pay, make it worthwhile by offering meaningful perks behind the paywall. These perks can go beyond just extra posts—think of things that create a VIP experience for your community. Exclusive access to limited opportunities, early announcements, and behind-the-scenes access create real value that justifies the subscription price. Also, clarity is key: On your subscription page, clearly list what paid members get. If you deliver on those promises consistently, subscribers will stick around.

Night Shade provides perks that align with its content and feel like a natural extension of Melanie’s community. “I’m experimenting,” says Melanie. “Sometimes that looks like giving early supporters a discount code, sneak peeks, or first access to product drops. With one-off things—like vintage auctions or limited editions—I keep those behind the paywall because demand has to be managed.”

Here are a few examples of perks you might offer to paid subscribers:

• Exclusive bonus posts or newsletters (e.g., content that free readers never see)

• Early access to certain posts, episodes, or projects before you released them publicly

• Subscriber-only community access, such as a private Discord server or a special Substack Chat channel

• Live Q&A sessions or webinars just for subscribers (e.g., a monthly “ask me anything” video chat)

• Free or discounted products/merchandise if you have stuff to sell (subscribers could get a 20% discount code or a free ebook)

• Access to archives or premium resources (e.g., a searchable archive of all past issues, or a compilation PDF of your best work, available only to subscribers)

Discount annual subscriptions with a time-limited offer

Offering discounted subscriptions for a limited time can prompt fence-sitters to finally pull out their wallets. Substack has a built-in feature called Special Offers that lets you create time-limited discounts—for example, “20% off annual plan if you subscribe in the next seven days.”

Using discounts can give you a nice boost in conversions during a promotional window. Substack’s team has noted that discounts of around 20% tend to drive excellent conversion rates. It’s enough to feel like a savings, but not so much that you undervalue your work.

Use Substack’s social community features 

Substack has social features that can help you grow and engage your audience, namely Substack Chat and Substack Notes.

Substack Chat is a subscribers-only group chat built into the Substack app (and available on the web) where you can host real-time conversations. It’s similar to having a Discord channel just for your readers. You might use Chat to share quick updates, toss out questions or prompts for discussion, or just create a sense of camaraderie among your subscribers.

Substack Notes—essentially a short-form feed (think X, but within Substack)—is where you and other writers can post brief thoughts, links, quotes, and comments. When you post on Notes, readers of other Substacks, in addition to your own subscribers, can read your content. It’s a bit like having a microblog to share ideas that don’t warrant a full newsletter. You can use Notes to react to news, share a cool article you read, or highlight a snippet from your own archives to attract new eyeballs.

Turn on subscriber referrals

Substack has a nifty growth feature called subscriber referrals that can turn your existing subscribers into your marketing team. This feature lets you reward subscribers for referring new readers to your publication. Every subscriber gets a unique referral link to share, and when people sign up through that link, the referrer gets credit.

You can set up reward tiers to incentivize a certain number of referrals. Many writers even offer free comped months of the paid newsletter as a referral reward, since it doesn’t cost you anything extra to grant temporary access.

The system is automated and scalable: your fans help grow your list because it benefits them too, and Substack handles the tracking and fulfillment of rewards (like sending the comped subscription) automatically. 

Cross-promote your Substack

Growing your Substack means meeting your audience where they already spend time. While building an audience on Substack itself is important, amplifying your newsletter across other platforms extends your personal brand and drives sign-ups from different sources. Remember to add your social handles to your Substack profile. That includes your Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and X accounts.

Corre Larkin’s Substack, Coco Larkin Cooks, has more than 92,000 subscribers who receive a new recipe every Friday with detailed instructions, personal anecdotes about each dish, and an archive of past posts. She uses her 1.2 million Instagram followers to drive Substack growth through the Linktree link in her bio and through creative giveaways—like her weeklong promotion offering free paid Substack subscriptions bundled with bottles of her favorite olive oil to followers who tagged friends and subscribed.

Here are other ways to cross-promote your Substack on social: 

• Share on writing platforms. Post about new essays or newsletters on X, Bluesky, and Threads to reach engaged readers who are already thinking about ideas and writing.

• Use Instagram and Pinterest for visual promotion. Take screenshots of compelling quotes or imagery from your posts and share them as carousel posts or pins, directing followers to your Substack link.

• Add a link to your social media bio. Include your Substack URL prominently in your social media bio and in link-in-bio tools like Linktree so followers can easily find your Substack and subscribe.

• Include your Substack in email signatures. Add a link to your newsletter at the bottom of every email you send—a passive but consistent way to self-promote to professional contacts.

Collaborate with other Substack writers

Substack has a built-in Recommendations feature, where you, as a writer, can recommend other Substack publications to your audience with just a couple of clicks. Enabling recommendations means that when a new person subscribes to your newsletter, they might see a list of “Suggested Substacks” that you endorse. It can also trigger occasional recommendation emails to readers.

Beyond the formal feature, you can collaborate more directly: consider doing guest post swaps, mentions, or cross-posts with other Substackers. Hunter Harris’s Hung Up and Allie Jones’s Gossip Time are two of Substack’s most prominent popular culture newsletters. The two writers actively support each other’s work through public recommendations and collaborative pieces, with cross-promotion strengthening both communities.

Lean into Substack SEO features 

Don’t overlook search engine optimization for growing your newsletter’s reach. Substack content can rank on Google, and the platform has been improving its SEO features over time. To boost your discoverability, these are some SEO tips (pulled from Substack’s own SEO guide and best practices):

• Look for keywords. Envision your ideal subscribers and what search terms they use to find content similar to yours. Ask: Who am I reaching? What are they searching for?

• Tweak your SEO title. Limit it to 60 characters or less, insert keywords naturally (avoid stuffing), make it unique, and include your brand name at the end if it’s recognizable.

• Write a strong SEO description. Expand on the title with new information that makes readers want to click. Insert keywords by thinking like a marketer promoting to your target reader.

• Create readable URLs. Use phrases rather than numbers. Only edit the URL slug before publishing; changes after publication will break existing links.

• Add a social preview image. According to Substack, posts with images get two times more signups and 40% more clicks than those without. Substack compresses images automatically to support SEO ranking.

• Link to your Substack across the web. Add your URL to your website and social media bios. The more inbound links you have, the stronger your SEO reputation.