Three numbers decide whether Substack works for you: it takes 10% of subscriptions, Stripe takes 2.9% plus 30 cents, and roughly 5% to 10% of free readers convert to paid.
Run those against your list size for a realistic answer. Here is how to make money on Substack, and what each route pays.
What Substack Takes and What You Keep
Substack is a publishing platform that combines blogging, email and subscription payments. Founded in 2017, it now carries a $1.1 billion valuation and around 5 million paid subscriptions.
You create a Substack newsletter with its own web page and mailing list, publish free content or paid posts, and turn on payments when ready. Substack handles hosting, delivery and billing, plus podcasts and video.
The fees:
- Substack takes 10% of subscriber payments as a platform fee.
- Stripe takes 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.
- That leaves roughly 86% to 87% of a $10 monthly subscription reaching you.
With 100 paid members paying $8 a month, that is around $690 a month after fees. Useful, not life-changing, which is why earning money on Substack usually means stacking several income streams.
Turn On Paid Subscriptions
You set a monthly and an annual price, then decide which posts sit behind the paywall.
- Do not monetize on day one. Building free subscribers first establishes trust and shows you what people value. Writers who paywall immediately end up with a small free list and few subscribers paying at all.
- Pricing. Most newsletters charge $5 to $10 a month. Discounted annual plans cut churn and put a year of revenue up front.
- Use previews. Substack lets you publish part of a paid post publicly, so free readers see the opening before the paywall. Show enough to prove the value: the first sections of a guide, or 15 items from a list of 50.
- Offer real perks. A paid subscription should give more than extra posts: archive access, a compiled PDF of your best work, discount codes, early access or subscriber-only chat.
- Run time-limited discounts. Substack’s Special Offers feature supports this, and Substack notes that discounts of around 20% tend to convert fence-sitters.
Bring On Sponsorships for Extra Revenue
Substack does not run ads, but you can sell sponsorship directly. This is the fastest route to revenue for writers with a decent free list and few paid subscribers, because sponsors buy reach, not conversions.
Approach brands you would recommend anyway, not every inbound offer. A newsletter that promotes anything loses the trust that made it worth sponsoring.
Price on engagement and niche rather than raw subscriber count. A 3,000-person list of software engineers is worth more to the right sponsor than 30,000 general readers.
Earn Commission From Affiliate Links
Recommending products you already use through affiliate links costs nothing and compounds quietly. Amazon’s affiliate program and creator-focused networks both work. To understand how commissions work, see our guide on affiliate marketing.
Follow two rules when using affiliate links:
- Recommend only products you’ve used. Readers may ask follow-up questions about your experience.
- Disclose affiliate relationships. Clearly label affiliate links and explain that you may earn a commission. A simple “Affiliate Link” note or a footer disclosure satisfies the requirement in most regions.
Per-sale earnings are usually small, so treat affiliates as a supplement, not a main course.
Sell Ebooks, Courses and Digital Products
Your newsletter is both a marketing channel and a ready audience, which makes ebooks, paid reports, online courses and other digital products easy to launch.
Gergely Orosz, who writes The Pragmatic Engineer to over a million subscribers, sold an ebook straight to that audience. The list did the marketing.
One limitation: Substack has no built-in storefront for one-off purchases. Promote it in your posts and sell it on an external platform.
Promote a Business You Already Own
If you sell merchandise, software, crafts or an ecommerce range, your Substack can sell it too. Write useful content on an adjacent topic and mention the product occasionally.
Do not turn the newsletter into a catalog. Readers can tell, and a newsletter that reads like a real publication sells better.
Growing the Free Subscribers Who Fund Everything
Every revenue route above scales with your free subscribers, so growth is the real work.
- Subscriber referrals are built in, with reward tiers you configure. Comped months of the paid newsletter cost nothing to offer and turn readers into recruiters. Tracking and fulfillment are automated.
- Notes is Substack’s short-form feed, and posting there puts you in front of other publications’ readers. It is currently the closest thing Substack has to organic discovery.
- Chat is a subscribers-only group chat in the Substack app, similar to a private Discord. It deepens the relationship with paying members, which reduces churn.
For related reading, see our guides to blogging alternatives, getting paid to blog and website monetization.
Who Actually Owns Your Audience
You can export your email list from Substack at any time, so your subscribers are portable.
What is not portable: the publication URL, Notes discovery, the payment relationship, and the 10% you hand over on every payment. As a newsletter grows, that fee becomes its largest single expense.
Plenty of writers eventually run both, keeping Substack for discovery while owning the archive and paid tier on their own site. That path starts with reliable VPS hosting, which gives a growing publication speed and control, plus the ability to keep 100% of what readers pay.
For a related membership model, see our guide to How to Make Money on Patreon: Memberships, Pricing, and Growth.
Conclusion
You can make money on Substack through paid subscriptions, sponsorships, affiliate links, digital products and promoting a business you already run. Build the free list first, expect 5% to 10% of it to convert, and budget for the 10% fee. Stack two or three streams rather than relying on one.
Next Steps: What Now?
- Publish free posts consistently before enabling payments.
- Set monthly and discounted annual pricing.
- Turn on subscriber referrals with a comped-month reward.
- Post regularly in Notes for discovery.
- Approach two sponsors you would genuinely recommend.
- Calculate your revenue after the 10% fee and Stripe costs.
