So... should I move my newsletter to Substack too?
That's the question I was asked at least 5x at the newsletter conference.
And no wonder: A quick glance at Twitter makes it look like everyone is moving to Substack...
- Ben's Bites quietly migrated from Beehiiv
- New York Magazine moved over one of their daily newsletters
- Prolific creators Dan Koe and Justin Welsh launched new newsletters on the platform
... and that's all just in the past week!
So what's the big deal? Why is Substack so hot all of a sudden?
Creators who want to move give me three main reasons for the switch:
- (They think) Substack is cheaper
- (They think) Substack's built-in discovery features will help them grow faster
- (They think) Substack has built a high-quality audience of smart readers who are willing to pay for written content
But is the grass really greener on the other side? Should you move (some of) your newsletter to Substack?
Let's take a look at each of those 3 claims individually to figure it out 👇
Claim #1: Substack is cheaper
A frequently mentioned benefit of Substack is that it's free to use. You can host your newsletter website and email an unlimited number of subscribers without paying a monthly fee.
The only time Substack makes money directly from you is if you run a paid membership. In which case Substack takes a 10% cut of your paid subscription revenue.
So for free newsletters at least, Substack is definitely the most affordable platform.
Things look different for paid newsletters though.
Many newsletter operators argue that Substack's 10% cut of subscription revenue is too high if you run a successful paid newsletter. Much more than other platforms like Kit, Ghost and Beehiiv charge — even considering their added monthly subscription fee.
So paid newsletter operators almost definitely shouldn't move to Substack purely to save on costs.
But what about free newsletters?
Should they move to Substack to save money?
In my opinion, it depends what you're optimizing for: Is your main goal to reduce costs? Or to maximize profits?
Substack is great for the former. A successful free newsletter can probably save $100-1k/month by switching to Substack.
But relying solely on Substack is a terrible move if you care about making money.
Why?
Opportunity cost: Substack is missing core revenue-generating features you find in platforms like Beehiiv and Kit.
To name just a few...
- ad booking software
- SparkLoop paid recommendations
- Automations & personalization in emails
Smart newsletter operators can earn an easy +10% increase in revenue with any single one of these features. Likely much more.
For a successful newsletter, that's an extra $10k-1m+ in annual profit you're saying goodbye to when you move to Substack. Which completely outweighs the ~$hundreds in monthly savings.
My verdict: It's technically true that free newsletters will save money by switching to Substack. But I don't recommend it because you'll lose out on 2-10x more potential revenue than you save.
Claim #2: Substack helps you grow faster
It's no secret that Substack can drive huge newsletter growth through their discovery features.
Lenny's Newsletter can attribute a big chunk of their 1m+ readers to Substack's recommendations and notes tools, for example.
Other, large creators see similar effects: If you're big enough for Substack to "boost" your profile in recommendations (or well-connected enough to guarantee that other, top Substackers will recommend you), you'll see a very healthy influx of new subscriber growth.
Tapping into this source of new subscribers is no doubt a big part of why Justin Welsh and Dan Koe started new newsletters on Substack.
But what about the "normies"?
What about the rest of us — the 99.9% of newsletters on Substack who don't already have hugely successful newsletters and connections to top creators?
It turns out, we're not so lucky.
Substack can only prioritize the "top" creators in their discovery features by deprioritizing everyone else. Other publications on Substack receive (on average) significantly fewer referrals than they send out.
I've yet to meet a Substacker who receives a significant # of new subscribers from Substack's network without putting in a whole bunch of effort. And definitely not more than they'd get from putting the same effort into the recommendations features of a tool like Kit, Beehiiv or SparkLoop.
My verdict: Unless you can get a deal with Substack (or convince several high-profile Substackers to recommend you), starting a publication on Substack won't lead to faster growth.
But: This may change in the near future as adoption of their "Notes" feature grows, and existing social networks like X continue to crackdown on posts containing links.
Treating Substack as a social network with blogging functionality (a bit like Medium or LinkedIn) seems like a safe bet!
Claim #3: Substack = quality readers who will pay for content
10m+ people are regular Substack readers. There's no doubt they skew intelligent and affluent.
And — with over five million paid subscriptions — Substack readers are clearly willing to pay for quality written content in a way that readers of non-Substack newsletters don't seem to.
Especially if that writing is hosted on Substack, where they already enjoy the reading experience and "adding another subscription" is only one easy click away.
My verdict: In my opinion, this is the most compelling argument to writing on Substack.
I don't think it's worth moving your newsletter to Substack completely, just to tap into their audience (there are 10-100x more, potential good readers off Substack than there are on it).
But, if you have a paid tier or membership for your newsletter — and you write the kind of engaging, long-form content that will resonate with Substack's audience — you should probably explore creating or cross-posting some content on Substack to supplement your main newsletter.
So... should you move to Substack?
The very short, blanket answer: Probably not.
Unless you're very friendly with the Substack team (or some of their top creators), you'll grow faster and make more money with a newsletter hosted on a "real" newsletter platform, not a hybrid social network/newsletter/blogging platform.
BUT...
Just because you shouldn't use Substack as the home for your main newsletter, doesn't mean you shouldn't be using Substack at all!
They're clearly building a large, engaged audience of smart people who love to read (and pay for) newsletter content.
And — if that trend continues — it isn't something to ignore. Especially at a time when organic reach on other social platforms is tanking.
I don't know yet whether it's better to treat Substack as a social platform, or a home for a secondary newsletter (funnelling into your main one).
But, IMO, Justin Welsh, Ben and Dan might be on to something.
