Substack
Newsletter and creator platform that hosts your writing, podcast and video, runs the paywall, and drives discovery through its own app.
Who it's for
Writers who want to charge readers directly for a newsletter, podcast or video series without wiring up a CMS, a paywall and a payment processor themselves.
Standout details
- Publishing and hosting are free; the 10% cut only applies once you turn on paid subscriptions, so a writer who never charges pays Substack nothing
- Stripe adds roughly 2.9% + $0.30 per charge plus a 0.7% recurring-billing fee on top of that 10%, so a paid writer typically keeps somewhere in the mid-to-high 80s percent of revenue
- Notes, the short-form feed built into the app, is now the platform's main discovery engine; Substack told creators at an October 2025 event that the app alone had added 32 million free subscriptions and roughly 500,000 paid subscriptions in the prior three months
- A $100 million round in June 2025 valued Substack at $1.1 billion, with Andreessen Horowitz, BOND and The Chernin Group among the investors
- A breach in October 2025 exposed roughly 697,000 users' email addresses, phone numbers and account metadata; Substack said it only detected the intrusion after the data surfaced on a hacking forum in February 2026
What it is
Substack is a publishing platform built around one loop: write, put some of it behind a paywall, and let readers pay you directly. Underneath the newsletter it has grown into a fuller stack: native podcast hosting through its own recording studio, live video, a subscriber chat and comment layer, and Notes, a short-form social feed inside the app. All of it sits under one login, with Substack handling billing, delivery and the subscriber list.
Who should use it
Writers and podcasters who want to charge for their work now, not after they have evaluated three separate tools for hosting, payments and email delivery. It suits people building an audience from a standing start, since Notes and the app’s recommendation engine now send more new subscribers than links shared off-platform.
What stands out
The pricing is simple to state and easy to underestimate. Substack itself takes 10% only from paid subscriptions, but Stripe’s processing fee and its 0.7% recurring-billing surcharge stack on top, so the headline “10%” understates what actually leaves a paid writer’s account. Run the math against a platform with a flat monthly fee before assuming Substack is cheaper at scale.
Notes has changed where growth comes from, at least by Substack’s own account. At an October 2025 creator event, the company said the app had added 32 million new free subscribers and about 500,000 new paid ones in the prior three months alone, enough that a writer’s placement in that feed can now matter more than their placement in Google search results.
Two things are worth reading before committing a paid audience to the platform. Substack disclosed in February 2026 that a breach the previous October had exposed roughly 697,000 accounts, and the company said it found the intrusion only after the stolen data turned up on a public hacking forum, not through its own monitoring. Separately, its content policy stays deliberately light-touch: in 2023, writers including Casey Newton and Molly White left the platform over its refusal to remove extremist newsletters.
The verdict
For a writer who wants to start charging today, Substack removes most of the work between “I have an essay” and “someone paid for it,” and the free tier means testing that costs nothing.
The catches are specific, not hypothetical. The combined Substack-plus-Stripe fee eats into revenue more than a flat-fee platform would once a list is large, the 2025 breach is a real mark against trusting the platform with subscriber contact details, and the light content moderation is why some writers have left already. None of that undoes what Notes has done for discovery, but it is worth choosing Substack for those specifics rather than for the brand.
Honest verdict
Substack is the fastest way to put a paywall behind your writing without touching a payment API yourself, and the free tier costs nothing until you flip that switch. The number worth doing math on is the take rate: 10% to Substack plus Stripe's cut leaves a paid writer somewhere in the mid-80s percent of revenue, worse than platforms like beehiiv once a list is large and mostly self-driven rather than app-discovered. Anyone trusting Substack with subscriber emails and phone numbers should weigh the October 2025 breach, which the company only caught after the data leaked publicly, and anyone who wants a platform with tighter content moderation should read up on Substack's hands-off approach before building a paid list on top of it.
Published 4 Sept 2026