Find a program that suits you and stick with it.
Consider posting a free post on Thursdays and a paid post on Tuesdays. The best way to do this is to publish regularly and reliably. You want to turn your readers from commoners to fans. But Substack readers like to pay, so making money on the platform is not unusual. There’s really only one way to monetize Substack: selling subscriptions to your content.
Source: bottom stack How to Monetize Bottom Stack The company uses Stripe, which charges an additional 2.9% in fees and charges a transaction fee of 30 cents per subscriber. Substack monetizes through the subscription model, as they hold 10% of the subscription fees. The chart below shows average founding member payouts. Subscriptions to a paid SubStack average around $5 a month (though some go as high as $50).įans can also subscribe as Founding Members, allowing users to pay extra as a show of support. Typically, a user’s page has a mix of free and premium content. Whether or not they put their work behind a paywall is up to the creators. Similarly, the vast majority of Substack posts are free to read. It costs nothing to have an account and you can stream text and audio without paying for storage. Ali achieved this growth through hard work, determination and a willingness to engage in his own niche outside of the platform, marketing through Quora, Discord, WhatsApp and Slack.Īs a publisher, Substack is completely free.
He gained more than 20,000 subscribers in just three years using a series of experiments. Substack did its own case study after Ali Abouelatta and his blog, First 1000. You can offer to guest post on other people’s Sub-Stacks, interview other creators on your own, ask relevant social media accounts to share your post, and even pay for a sponsorship. Build PartnershipsĮven so, it doesn’t have to feel like marketing. It’s also a great way to show off your writing skills to other potential subscribers in the community. Comment on related posts and users can link back to your own Child Stack. Split your content into a Twitter thread, take a screenshot for Instagram or integrate directly with Facebook.Įven though you stopped reading the comment sections years ago, Substack actually excels at discussion. Perhaps the most obvious thing on the list, but worth repeating: post your newsletters on social media. This also helps with search engine rankings so people can reach your Substack organically. Post your Child Stack on your homepage, social media sites, company email signatures or anywhere else that will allow URLs. Fill your posts with headers, footers, and buttons that encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter, comment on your posts, and share your content. Yes, call-to-action copywriting is still your best friend. In that sense, you will need to put your marketing skills aside and promote your business the old-fashioned way. The sub-stack is again more of a tool than a social network. You will have no trouble writing, formatting and publishing your first post. As you will see, the interface is incredibly simple. Create a postĪfter signing up, you will be taken to the Dashboard where you can create an account. Consider also signing up with a second personal email address – then you can see your newsletter exactly as it appears to subscribers. It may seem small, but you have to start somewhere. Here you can manually add friends and family to your subscriber list as a way to build a subscriber base. If you’re coming to Substack from another service like Mailchimp, TinyLetter or Patreon, you can upload a CSV file and import your contacts.
This is a good idea for two reasons – it will get you started on a similar content path to the one you have on Twitter and alert your partners that you’ve joined Substack. If you have connected your Twitter and followed people with Sub-Stacks, you can easily follow them here.