How to make money with your writing using Substack

An intro to the platform, plus case studies of how writers are achieving success

So what exactly is Substack? It's a platform that makes it infinitely easier than it’s ever been before to publish online, and be paid directly by your readers.

We make it easy to build an extremely valuable asset: an email list that lets you can reach readers directly in their inbox, reducing your dependence on any social media platform.

Substack is free forever if the content you publish is free, but you have the option to turn on paid subscriptions, and invite your most dedicated fans to support your work. After you turn on paid, you always decide what gets published free for everybody, and what is viewable only by your subscribers.

Everything you publish is self-contained on Substack, from text posts, to podcast episodes, to audio clips, to native hosted videos. You can build community via features such as a comment section on all posts, and chat on our app-based “group text”-style discussion feature.

With Substack you can send out emails to your free and paid users from the same platform, so your free list can become a funnel for your paid.

Substack is specifically designed to maximize ease of use—most people can get up and running sending out posts in 20 minutes.

When you publish on Substack, you always own and control your content, email list, and payment relationships, and these are portable off the platform at any time.

Substack’s most powerful feature is growth

Today, the Substack network is driving more than 40 percent of all subscriptions across the platform, and 12 percent of paid subscriptions. Discovery features like recommendations, cross-posting, leaderboards, and reader profiles help new readers discover and enjoy your work. 

When our founders launched Substack in 2017, their goal was to “make it simple to start a publication that makes money from subscriptions.” Fast forward to 2023, and thousands of writers are publishing on Substack. Some are making side hustle incomes; others, seven figures annually.

Why choose Substack?

On Substack, writers enjoy:

• Audience growth. Marketing isn’t all on your shoulders here. More than 40% of all new free subscriptions and 12% of paid subscriptions to Substacks come from within our network.

• A better financial model. The ad model demands that writers attract 40,000 page views every day to earn just $1,000 a month. With the Substack model, a steady base of 1,000 subscribers paying $5 each month earns you $60,000 per year. Try our calculator to estimate what you could earn.

• Zero tech knowledge required. We take care of everything except the hard part (the writing itself). Podcasts, videos, community tools and an app are all integrated seamlessly into the Substack publishing experience, giving your subscribers the best experience on the internet.

•  Ownership. You will always own your mailing list, subscriber payment information, and intellectual property. If you decide to leave, you’ll take what you’ve built with you

• A direct relationship with readers. Algorithms shouldn’t decide who sees your work. On Substack, writers control the relationship with their readers. Comments, threads, and chat encourage a sense of community amongst supporters.

Substack is free to use until you turn on paid subscriptions for your publication. One you turn on paid, Substack's platform fee is 10%, and Stripe, our payment processor, has a fee of 2.9%. The rest goes directly to your bank account.

Case studies of writers building successfully on Substack

• How Michael Fritzell quit his finance job to write full-time on Substack
  A Substack publication providing research on stocks in the Asia-Pacific region provides a full-time income.

• How Category Pirates invented a new form of publishing
  An interview with the #4 paid Substack in Business on their meaningful growth moments.

• How BowTiedBull created an ecosystem where anonymous writers rise together The #2 paid Substack in Crypto attracted an audience of tech and finance professionals while writing anonymously.

• How Justin Gage wrote for his past self and built an audience of 30,000
  A Substack that explains software engineering topics like APIs and containers in simple, easy-to-understand language has attracted over 2,000 paying subscribers.

• Noah Smith’s “try before you buy” approach
  Growth insights from an economics columnist and former Bloomberg writer who is now full-time on Substack.

• How Jørgen Veisdal found a payment model that works for evergreen writing
  A publication and podcast on the history of mathematics on how he uses his free list to grow his paid subscriber base.

Many writers, creators, and podcasters who've built up big followings on social media platforms are now adopting Substack. They love the control and ownership it provides—and how it lets them stop relying on an intermediary to reach readers and listeners.

Top writers on Substack are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while growing their audiences faster than ever before, and cultivating dedicated communities they fully control.

Getting started is easy

You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

For further guidance, here are step-by-step instruction on initial setup, including how to import any existing email list you may have, and how to make your first post: 
How to start a Substack in three easy steps

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.