Substack

This Substack review covers what Substack is used for, its key features, Substack pricing and fees, how discovery works, where it shines and falls short, and how it compares with other newsletter tools. Substack is a publishing tool built around one idea: a writer owns a direct relationship with readers, and readers pay the writer directly. You write in a distraction free editor, send each post as an email and a web page, and turn on paid subscriptions when you are ready. Substack reports 5 million paid subscriptions and tens of millions of weekly readers on its about page.

What is Substack used for?

Substack is used to publish a newsletter and build an audience that pays. Typical Substack publications are independent journalism, commentary, fiction and essays, niche expertise such as finance, tech or health, coaching and education, and podcasts and video shows. Solo creators start free, write weekly, grow an audience of free subscribers, then offer a paid tier with extra posts, archives, community chat or perks.

It also works as a simple blog. Every post lives on a web page with comments, so a Substack publication doubles as a website without a separate CMS. Writers, journalists, podcasters and video creators use it because the platform handles hosting, email delivery, payments and the reader app in one place.

Key features

• Editor and publishing: a clean editor for longform posts with images, embeds, footnotes and paywalls; each post goes out by email and to the web and the Substack app.
• Paid subscriptions: monthly and annual plans, founding member tiers, free trials, gift subscriptions and group subscriptions, all with recurring payments through Stripe.
• Podcasts and video: host a podcast or publish video posts, including paid-only episodes and live video.
• Community: comments, subscriber chat and Notes, a short-form feed where writers and readers post and restack each other.
• Growth tools: recommendations between publications, welcome sequences, win-back campaigns and conversion analytics (Substack).
• The Substack app: readers follow many publications in one app from the Apple App Store and Google Play, which is also where much of the discovery happens.
• Substack Defender: legal support for writers facing legal threats over their work; Substack says it has supported dozens of creators since 2020.

Substack pricing, platform fees and the transaction fee

Substack is free to start and free to leave: there is no monthly fee, no plan tier and no contract. It makes money only when you do. According to Substack's about page (September 2026), writers keep 90% of subscription revenue, and Substack takes a 10% platform fee, minus credit card processing.

The usage metric is revenue, not subscribers. A publication with 10,000 free subscribers and no paid plan pays nothing. A publication with 100 paid subscribers at $10 a month earns $12,000 a year before fees, as Write Build Scale works out in its two-year review.

The cost surprise to check is the combined fee. The 10% platform fee comes on top of Stripe's card processing, which Substack's help center lists as 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, so the total transaction fee is higher than 10%. Email Tool Tester puts it at up to 13% (Email Tool Tester). At high revenue, a flat-price platform where you pay a monthly fee instead of a percentage can be cheaper. For comparison, Email Tool Tester lists Kit at 3.5% plus $0.30 for paid subscriptions and Beehiiv with no commission on subscriptions.

Payments, Stripe and your subscribers

Substack supports recurring subscriptions through Stripe. You connect a Stripe account once, set a monthly and an annual price, and Stripe handles the recurring payments, card details and payouts; the money goes to your own Stripe account, not to a Substack balance. Readers can subscribe for free or pay, and every new subscriber lands on your list, which you can export as a CSV file together with your posts.

That export is the main difference with social platforms: the audience is yours to take elsewhere. Paying members stay tied to Stripe, so moving a paid Substack publication to another platform usually means reconnecting the same Stripe account. For example, a writer who moves to Ghost can keep existing paid subscribers billing without asking them to sign up again, as long as the new platform supports Stripe.

How free subscribers become paid: discovery and growth on Substack

Most email tools send your newsletter and stop there. Substack is also a network. Recommendations let one publication suggest others to new subscribers, Notes puts posts in front of readers outside your list, and the app has trending topics and leaderboards. Substack says more than 30% of paid subscriptions and more than half of new subscribers come from its network, and that over a million posts are discovered in the app every day (Substack).

That network is the main reason creators pick Substack over a pure email tool: it helps new readers discover a Substack publication and connect with writers they already read. Success is not automatic, and viral Notes alone rarely build income. It is not a search engine, though: growth still depends on writing consistently, collaborating with other writers and giving readers a reason to pay. Readers can also follow a publication in the app instead of subscribing by email, which is worth knowing when you plan how you reach your audience.

Where Substack shines — and where it falls short

Strengths:

• Free to launch, with no monthly platform fees until you earn money.
• Built-in discovery through recommendations, Notes and the app.
• Newsletters, podcasts, video and community in one publishing tool.
• A direct relationship with readers, who pay you through Stripe.

Trade-offs:

• A 10% fee plus Stripe's transaction fee gets expensive as income grows.
• Limited design control: the look is clean but minimal, with few branding options for the publication and emails.
• Basic segmentation and automation compared with a full email marketing tool.
• Much of the growth happens inside Substack's app rather than in your own channels.

How Substack compares

• Ghost: open-source publishing with memberships, a flat monthly price and 0% of revenue.
• Kit (ConvertKit): email marketing for creators with automations, tagging and paid newsletters.
• Mailchimp: broad email marketing for businesses rather than paid writing.
• MailerLite: affordable newsletters with automation and landing pages.
• Memberful: memberships and paid newsletters on your own WordPress or website.

Is Substack worth it?

Substack is worth it for writers, journalists and creators who want to start free, grow through a network of readers and earn from paid subscriptions without running any technology. For a new newsletter, the free start and built-in discovery are hard to beat. It is less of a fit when a newsletter already earns a lot, because the percentage fee grows with income, or when you need advanced email automation, segmentation or full design control; Ghost or Kit then usually make more sense. If you want help with a publishing or membership setup beyond Substack, the low-code agencies and developers on LowCodeDevs can build it.

Sources

• About Substack: features, the 10% fee, and paid subscription and discovery figures.
• 2 Years on Substack, Write Build Scale: discovery, revenue and who Substack suits.
• Substack alternatives, Email Tool Tester: fees and limitations (it says Substack has no welcome sequence; Substack's own page lists welcome sequences and win-back campaigns).