Publish free or paid newsletters without a fixed platform subscription.
What is Substack?
Substack is a publishing platform for free and paid newsletters. Writers can build a subscriber audience and send their publication without paying a fixed monthly platform subscription. Charging for access adds a revenue-based platform fee.
Substack takes 10% of paid subscription revenue. Payment processing and other applicable charges are separate from that share. A free publication can therefore have very different operating costs from a publication with the same audience that sells subscriptions.
Official details: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037607131-How-much-does-Substack-cost ; https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037458032-How-do-I-set-up-paid-subscriptions-on-Substack
Pricing: Free publication hosting; Substack charges 10% of paid subscription revenue. Payment processing and other applicable fees are additional. Pricing checked October 26, 2026.
Features
- Newsletter publishing
- Free subscriptions
- Paid subscriptions
- Subscriber management
FAQs
Common questions about Substack
Does a free newsletter pay Substack a monthly fee?
What changes when subscriptions are paid?
Insights
Traffic and momentum for Substack
What are alternatives to Substack?
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Email marketing for SaaS. Sync Supabase and Stripe, then pay per email sent instead of per contact stored.
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