SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER

Substack is an incredible tool, where you can host your newsletter, and send emails, all for free.

Substack, has unique features, which makes it a better alternative than most of its competitors. That’s why I use it as one of my main newsletter providers.

Substack is way more than just a place to share your newsletters, it’s a place to grow your audience and build lasting relationships.

Now, let’s go into its characteristics, to understand why I consider Substack a great email platform.

Substack characteristics:

Substack is remarkable for how easy it is to grow your audience on this platform. Some of the key features are:

Notes

Notes is a unique feature no other platform has. This feature allows writers to connect with their audience easily.

It’s like Twitter but for newsletter owners and readers. You can share short posts as well as your articles.

Of course, you can reply to other people, like their posts, and even follow them. But if you truly love their content, you can subscribe to them. That way, you allow them to send you emails, straight to your inbox.

As you can tell, this is not a dead platform, actually there are over 20 million monthly users. As seen in the image above, just a simple post can reach thousands of people. Which can become an incredible boost for your newsletter growth.

Browse

This way you can find any article you are interested in. If you are interested in crypto, you can just search for that topic.

Or even if you want to go more specific, just search for: “Crypto analysis June 2024”. And you’ll find many articles related to that search.

If you write about relevant topics, chances are you’ll get a lot of new subscribers, thanks to this feature.

This is also an incredible tool if you are searching for new newsletters to read that are related to your interests.

Chat

Unlike other social media platforms, inside Substack, you can send DMs to people and chat with them.

This feature is amazing if you want to build lasting relationships with your readers.

Inbox

As mentioned at the beginning, you can follow people. Actually, most people will follow you first before deciding to subscribe.

But, what is following for? When you follow someone, you’ll receive notifications for everything they post, including notes and articles.

Furthermore, when you follow someone, substack will send you weekly updates with recommended posts and viral notes from the people you follow.

This makes your inbox one of the most important features, helping you tighten relationships with your readers. Even helping you convert your followers into active newsletters subscribers.

Recommendations

Most newsletter providers have this feature, but inside Substack is way more effective. I’ve managed to gain a lot of new subscribers, just from a few newsletters who recommended mine.

On Substack, recommending someone is a much easier process compared to any other platform. Additionally, people are more keen to recommend other newsletters they like.

If you want to build recommendations, I encourage you to go into Substack Reddit and ask for people to recommend you. That way, I’ve built a nice recommendation list.

Subscriptions

Unlike other platforms, running ads on Substack is hard. Here, the main revenue source is subscriptions.

There are thousands of writers making a living thanks to these subscriptions. Substack encourages readers to pay for your content. Thus, it has the highest premium conversion rate in the industry.

If you want to run a premium newsletter, Substack is your place to go.

Substack pricing:

It’s FREE.

No matter how big your list is, you won’t pay a penny.

How does Substack make any money then?

As mentioned, paid subscriptions are a big deal on Substack. They make money for every new premium subscriber. For every new subscriber, Substack will retain 10% of the premium plan price.

If your subscription is $5, you’ll only relieve $4.5 for every new premium subscriber. It sucks, but taking into account that everything else is free, it’s definitely a great alternative if you don’t want to spend much money.

Substack conclusion.

All that being said, it’s safe to say that Substack is a service worth checking out. You can’t lose money, so I would give it a try.

Even if I end up choosing a different newsletter provider, I suggest you still share your articles and post here. That way, you’ll be able to be discovered by way more people. As well as try to build recommendations.

All that being said, I would recommend you check my comparison between Substack and Beehiiv, before taking a final decision.