Substack Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 8 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Free; 10% of paid subscription revenue plus Stripe fees
- Free plan
- Yes
- Best for
- Writers, podcasters and video creators who want to start free, grow through a reader network, and sell paid subscriptions without a monthly platform bill
- Platforms
- Web, iOS and Android apps, Substack TV app (beta) for Apple TV and Google TV; email delivery; podcast RSS to Apple Podcasts and Spotify
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
What is Substack, and is it worth using?
Substack is a free publishing platform for newsletters, podcasts and video. You get a publication, email delivery, a website, Notes (a short-post social feed), Chat, live video and a reader app, with no monthly fee and no subscriber limit. If you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack keeps 10% of each subscription payment and Stripe charges its own processing fees, according to Substack's help center on October 13, 2026. It's worth using if you want to start without upfront costs and value Substack's built-in reader network. It costs more than flat-fee tools once paid revenue grows, and it offers fewer integrations, with no documented public API.
- Best for
- Independent writers, podcasters and video creators who want to start free and sell monthly, annual and founding member subscriptions.
- Skip it if
- You earn substantial subscription revenue and would pay less on a flat plan, or need deep automations, a public API or your own sending domain.
- Strongest capability
- Network growth: recommendations, Notes, leaderboards, referrals and the app. Substack says over half of new free subscriptions come from inside its network (its own figure).
- Biggest limitation
- The 10% revenue share has no cap, iOS in-app subscribers can't be moved off Substack, and integrations are limited to pixels, analytics and a few connected accounts.
The Verdict
Substack's appeal is that you pay nothing to start and get a lot in one place. A free account includes newsletters, a website, podcast hosting with Apple and Spotify distribution, native video and live streaming, Notes, Chat, recommendations, referrals, drip emails and a reader app. Paid subscriptions are where Substack makes money: it keeps 10% of each payment, Stripe adds its fees, and iOS in-app purchases add Apple's 15% to 30%. That share never shrinks as you grow, so large publications pay far more than they would on flat-fee platforms. Integrations are thin, the custom domain costs a one-time $50, and emails still come from a substack.com address. Substack's own pages disagree on domain purchases, data portability, fees and advertising. From December 1, 2026, Substack will collect sales tax and VAT for creators. We score Substack 8.2/10.
Best for
Creators who want to start free, grow through a reader network and sell subscriptions without running their own stack.
Skip if
You already earn significant subscription revenue, need advanced automations or an API, or want full control of payments and sending domains.
The Background
What Is Substack?
Substack (substack.com, Substack Inc., San Francisco) is a publishing platform where creators run subscription publications. Every account can be both a creator and a reader. A publication combines an email newsletter, a website, podcast and video hosting, live video, Chat and comments, while Notes and the Substack app add a social feed and discovery across all publications. Creators connect their own Stripe account to sell monthly, annual and founding member subscriptions, and Substack takes a revenue share. In 2026 Substack added a TV app (beta), a Recording Studio, Subscriber Perks, segments and tags, and a native sponsorships program for Bestseller publications, and it will start collecting sales tax and VAT on creators' behalf from December 1, 2026.
The Product
Substack Features: What You Actually Get
Publishing: posts, email, podcasts and video
Every post can go out as an email and live on your site. The editor supports paywalls placed anywhere, scheduling, version history, templates, headline A/B tests, LaTeX, code blocks, polls and recipe blocks. Substack hosts podcasts for free with RSS distribution to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, including paid episodes, and hosts native video with auto-upload to YouTube and LinkedIn. Sections let one publication run several newsletters or podcasts, and an account can hold up to 10 publications.
A food writer sends a weekly free recipe email, puts the full meal plan behind a paywall, and publishes a paid bonus podcast episode that plays in subscribers' Spotify feed.
Network growth: recommendations, Notes and referrals
Writers recommend each other's publications in the subscribe flow, on their homepage and in digest emails, and see how many free subscriptions each recommendation produced. Notes is a public short-post feed, and leaderboards, the Explore page and creator match (launched August 2026) surface publications to new readers. A referral program rewards readers with tiered rewards, such as complimentary paid months. Substack's video page says more than 50% of new free subscriptions and around 25% of paid subscriptions come from within its network.
A new tech newsletter swaps recommendations with three similar publications and tracks which one sends the most new subscribers.
Community and live video
Chat is a private space for subscribers, with up to 16 chats per publication, each set to all subscribers, paid subscribers or founding members. Comments can be limited per post to paid subscribers. Live video runs from the iOS or Android app or from desktop over RTMP, with up to two co-hosts, scheduling, paywalled streams and an automatic draft post of the recording. Subscribers can watch videos and livestreams on the Substack TV app, in beta since January 2026.
A political commentator hosts a weekly paid-only live Q&A, filters the chat to questions, then publishes the recording as a paywalled post.
Paid subscriptions and monetization
Creators set monthly, annual and founding member prices (minimum $5 a month and $30 a year for US-dollar Stripe accounts; no yearly-only option). Free trials, coupons, gift and group subscriptions, Pledges before you go paid, Subscriber Perks and Boost offers are built in. iOS app purchases go through Apple and can't be disabled while payments are connected. Bestseller publications, or those with at least 100 paid subscribers, can publish a Creator Kit to join Substack's sponsorships program.
A finance writer collects pledges while free, turns on $8 a month and $80 a year plans, and offers a founding member tier with a quarterly call.
Data, imports and exports
Substack imports posts and subscribers from WordPress, Ghost, Medium, beehiiv, Mailchimp and others, and can import paid subscribers from Stripe. The Exports page produces a zip of posts, the subscriber list and stats, and the subscriber table exports to CSV, though Substack's help center says subscriber names can't be exported. Web subscribers' billing lives in your own Stripe account. iOS in-app subscriptions are managed by Apple and don't transfer if you leave.
A writer moving from Mailchimp uploads a CSV of opted-in readers, imports archived posts by URL, and keeps a monthly export as a backup.
Feature recap
- Free to publish with no subscriber limit; 10% of paid subscription revenue
- Newsletters, website, podcasts, native video and live streaming in one place
- Recommendations, Notes, leaderboards, creator match and reader referrals
- Chat (up to 16 per publication) and paid-only comments and streams
- Monthly, annual, founding, group and gift subscriptions; Pledges and Perks
- iOS in-app purchases through Apple, with optional price adjustment
- Substack-managed sales tax and VAT from December 1, 2026
- Imports from major platforms; exports of posts, subscribers and stats
The Numbers
Substack Pricing: Every Plan Explained
Substack has no plans or tiers. These fees come from Substack's help center ("How much does Substack cost?", edited September 29, 2026) and custom domain guide, checked October 13, 2026, in USD. Readers pay the price the creator sets; Stripe's fees depend on the country of your Stripe account.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free publication | $0 | $0 | Unlimited subscribers; newsletters, website, podcasts, video, live video, Notes, Chat, recommendations, referrals, imports and exports | Free newsletters and new creators |
| Paid subscriptions (web)Best value | 10% of each payment + Stripe fees | 10% of each payment + Stripe fees | Stripe card processing 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment and Stripe Billing 0.7% on recurring payments (one help article says 0.5%); local payment methods priced by Stripe; currency conversion 1% to 2% | Creators selling subscriptions |
| iOS in-app purchases | 10% of web price + Apple fee | 10% of web price + Apple fee | Apple's service fee (15% to 30%, per Substack) is deducted with Substack's 10%; choose to raise in-app prices or keep them the same; Apple pays out up to 45 days after the end of each month | Publications with many app readers |
| Custom domain (optional) | One-time $50 | One-time $50 | Connect a domain you already own on a subdomain such as www, with root redirects; no sales tax or VAT on the fee; emails still send from a substack.com address | Branded publications |
On a $10 monthly subscription paid by US card on the web, Substack keeps $1.00, Stripe takes about $0.59 in processing and $0.07 in Billing fees, and the creator keeps about $8.34 (our arithmetic from the fees in Substack's help center). At $10,000 a month in subscription revenue, Substack's share is $1,000 a month, which is why flat-fee platforms get cheaper as paid revenue grows; compare at your own list size, since their prices rise with subscribers. Substack's fee doesn't currently apply to creators with Stripe accounts in India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia or Thailand, though its help center says it will eventually. From December 1, 2026, Substack calculates, collects and remits sales tax or VAT on paid subscriptions at no extra cost; US and Canadian publishers have tax added at checkout. There is no trial to manage because publishing is free. Reader subscriptions renew automatically, with an email reminder about a week before annual renewals. Substack's refund policy refunds readers who ask Substack within 7 days of payment, unless they redeemed a perk or the creator marked the subscription non-refundable, and also covers dormant publications; the Publisher Agreement (updated July 20, 2026) says Substack's revenue share is non-refundable, and a creator who deletes a publication owes any refunds for the rest of readers' terms.
Read before you buy
Where Substack's own pages differ
Custom domains: the features page lists "custom domain purchase via Stripe (buy a domain through Substack)" and its FAQ says you can purchase a domain directly through the platform. The help center's custom domain guide (edited October 1, 2026) says Substack doesn't sell domains and the $50 fee doesn't cover registering one.
Leaving with your subscribers: the Substack vs. beehiiv page says that if you leave, you can take your audience and paid subscriptions with you, and the features page promises your complete subscriber list. The iOS in-app payments article says Apple doesn't transfer billing relationships, so app subscribers leave as email addresses only, and the email export article says subscriber names can't be exported.
Fees: the going-paid page says writers keep 90% of revenue minus credit card fees. The pricing help article adds a 0.7% Stripe Billing fee on recurring payments, while the reader payments article puts that Billing fee at 0.5%. The Publisher Agreement doesn't name 10%; it says the revenue share percentage is set between you and Substack when you register.
Advertising and roles: a help article (edited December 2025) says Substack's business model relies solely on subscriptions instead of revenue from advertisers, while Substack's sponsorships page and June and October 2026 blog posts describe a native sponsorships program with brands such as Uber and T-Mobile. The features page lists team roles as admin, editor and contributor; the help center lists Admin, Contributor and Byline.
Data and terms
Ownership, AI and content rules
Substack's Terms of Use (updated October 6, 2026) say you own your posts and subscriber lists, and grant Substack a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to display and distribute posts. The Publisher Agreement makes you the data controller of your list, lets Substack run content through automated and AI detection tools, and says that license does not permit training third-party AI models. A privacy setting asks AI tools not to train on your published content, which only works for tools that respect it. Either side can end the agreement at any time, Substack can remove publications at its discretion, and disputes go to JAMS arbitration in San Francisco.
The Content Guidelines (updated September 29, 2026) bar publications whose main purpose is advertising products, driving traffic to other sites or SEO, and say brands may need extra verification. Mailing-list imports must be explicitly opted in, and large imports go through a verification review. Paid publishing is limited to businesses Stripe allows. Support starts with a chatbot that Substack says resolves about 90% of issues; unresolved questions become email tickets, answered within 24 hours for publications with paid subscriptions enabled.
The Tradeoffs
Substack Pros and Cons
What we love
- Free to publish with no subscriber cap or monthly fee
- Newsletters, podcasts, video, live streams and Chat in one product
- Built-in network: recommendations, Notes, leaderboards and the app
- Web subscribers bill through your own Stripe account
- Substack will collect and remit sales tax and VAT from December 1, 2026
- Imports from major platforms, including paid subscribers from Stripe
What could be better
- 10% revenue share never decreases as revenue grows
- iOS in-app purchases add Apple fees, delay payouts and can't be disabled
- No documented public API or Zapier integration
- Custom domain costs $50, and emails still send from substack.com
- Support starts with a chatbot; 24-hour replies only for paid publications
- Substack's pages contradict each other on domains, portability and fees
The Audience
Who Should Use Substack?
Best for: writers starting from zero
New newsletters and podcasts pay nothing until they charge, and can grow through recommendations, Notes and the app before building an audience elsewhere.
Best for: creators who want community and video
Podcasters, commentators and video creators get Chat, live streams, paid episodes in Spotify and a TV app without stitching together separate tools.
Skip if: you have a large paid base or need automation
Once subscription revenue is substantial, a flat plan usually costs less than 10%, and businesses that need deep automations, an API or their own sending domain may fit beehiiv, Kit or Ghost better.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Substack
This is an editorial review, not a documented hands-on test. We didn't use a Substack account for this review. It's based on Substack's features, going-paid, video, switch, sponsorships and Substack vs. beehiiv pages, its Terms of Use, Publisher Agreement and Content Guidelines, 2026 posts on its official blog, and help-center articles on costs, reader payments, iOS in-app purchases, paid setup, unsupported countries, tax, custom domains, exports, imports, refunds, renewals, payouts, Boost, Pledges, Notes and Chat, live video, recommendations, referrals, perks, sections, team roles, Creator Kits, the MCP server, AI training and support, all checked on October 13, 2026. Where Substack's pages differ, we report both statements. No deliverability, growth or revenue results are claimed.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : First published. Editorial review based on Substack's features, going-paid, video, switch, sponsorships and Substack vs. beehiiv pages, Terms of Use, Publisher Agreement, Content Guidelines, 2026 blog posts, and help-center articles on costs, payments, iOS in-app purchases, tax, custom domains, exports, imports, refunds, payouts, community, live video, growth tools, Creator Kits, the MCP server and support, all checked October 13, 2026. Sub-scores are provisional pending editorial approval.
The Field
Substack vs The Competition
Substack competes with newsletter platforms that charge a plan fee instead of a revenue share. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 13, 2026.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substack | Free; 10% of paid subscription revenue plus Stripe fees | Yes | Publishing: posts, email, podcasts and video | 8.2/10 |
| beehiiv | Free up to 2,500 subscribers; Lite $49/mo billed yearly ($59 monthly) | Yes | 0% take on paid subscriptions with a built-in ad network | 9.4/10 |
| Kit | Free up to 10,000 subscribers; Creator $33/mo billed yearly ($39 monthly) at 1,000 | Yes | Visual automations and creator commerce | 9/10 |
| Ghost | Starter $15/mo billed yearly ($18 monthly) for 1,000 members; paid subscriptions from Publisher $29/mo yearly ($35 monthly) | No | Open-source publishing with 0% Ghost transaction fees | 8.4/10 |
| Mailchimp | Free up to 250 contacts (500 sends/mo); Essentials $13/mo for the first 12 months | Yes | Broad email marketing and integrations | 8.4/10 |
beehiiv: beehiiv's pricing page says it takes 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue, with only Stripe's fees, but paid subscriptions aren't on its Free plan and plan prices rise with list size. Substack is free to start and adds a reader network, app and live video.Read our beehiiv review →
Kit: Kit charges 3.5% + 30 cents on paid newsletters and digital products, including card processing, and offers a 14-day trial with no card. It suits creators who sell products and need deeper automations; Substack has a stronger discovery network.Read our Kit review →
Ghost: Ghost(Pro) takes no cut of subscription revenue on Publisher and above and includes a custom domain on Starter, but paid subscriptions start on Publisher. Ghost(Pro) gives no refunds.Read our Ghost review →
Mailchimp: Mailchimp is built for business email marketing rather than paid newsletters, with promotional pricing for the first 12 months and a 14-day trial on Standard and Essentials. Substack is the simpler fit for selling subscriptions.Read our Mailchimp review →
In The Wild
How People Actually Use Substack
A journalist launching an independent newsletter
Start free, collect Pledges while building an audience, then turn on paid plans (from $5 a month). Swap recommendations with similar writers and post on Notes to use Substack's network.
A podcaster moving from another host
Import episodes by RSS, keep free and paid episodes in one Spotify feed, and add Chat and live video for paid subscribers. Budget for Substack's 10% on subscription revenue.
A publication with a large paid base
Compare 10% of your monthly subscription revenue with flat plans from beehiiv, Kit or Ghost at your list size, and check how many paid subscribers came through iOS in-app purchases, since those can't move with you.
The Ecosystem
Substack Integrations
Substack is mostly self-contained. Its features page lists analytics pixels, a few connected accounts and import tools rather than an app marketplace.
- →Stripe (required for paid subscriptions)
- →Apple in-app purchases in the Substack iOS app
- →Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, Facebook pixel and X pixel
- →YouTube and LinkedIn auto-upload for video
- →Apple Podcasts and Spotify distribution; podcast RSS
- →Typefully scheduling (added August 2026)
- →Substack MCP server (read-only, Bestseller publications only)
- →Imports from WordPress, Ghost, Medium, beehiiv, Mailchimp, Tumblr and RSS
Integration details above are from Substack's features page, help center and August 2026 blog post, checked October 13, 2026. We found no public API or Zapier integration documented on Substack's features page or in its help center; the MCP server reads stats only and can't publish.
Common Questions
Substack FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Substack?
Substack is a strong place to start a subscription publication: it's free, covers newsletters, podcasts, video and community in one product, and its network can bring readers you wouldn't reach alone. The trade-offs grow with success. The 10% share has no cap, iOS in-app subscribers stay with Apple, integrations are limited, and several of Substack's own pages overstate portability and domain options. Run the numbers against flat-fee platforms once paid revenue is meaningful. We score Substack 8.2/10.
Yes, if
You want to start a newsletter, podcast or video publication for free and grow through Substack's network before charging.
No, if
You already have substantial paid revenue, need an API or advanced automations, or want full control over sending domains and billing.
Substack Is Part Of These Stack Packs
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the bestselling author of The End of Marketing, a LinkedIn Top Voice, and founder of The Best Network. He brings 15+ years in marketing to practical reviews of AI, SaaS, email marketing, creator, and ecommerce software.
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