Great podcasts have loyal communities: the people who show up for every episode drop, create a dedicated group chat with their friends, or scour the internet looking for takes. We’ve worked directly with hundreds of podcast creators to build tools that allow them to own and grow these communities on Substack—whether or not they’re using the platform as a primary hub for distribution. An email list of people who’ve opted in to hear from you is an asset that doesn’t disappear when a recommendation algorithm changes, a deal expires, or you want to try something new.

Episodes go directly to your subscribers’ inboxes and can be distributed to other podcast platforms via RSS, and you can record natively—including with remote guests—using Substack Recording Studio. Chat functions like a group chat for your listeners, a dedicated place for your audience to talk to each other and to you between episodes. Live video lets you engage, react, or connect in real time. Notes, Substack’s short-form feed, is where new listeners find you: post a clip, a quick thought, or a moment from a recent episode, and it surfaces to people who aren’t subscribed yet. The Substack network drives more than 50% of all subscriptions on the platform, meaning growth is built in when you post.

In partnership with the Signal Awards, we recently spoke with , a host of , and from about how they use Substack to host their shows, distribute episodes, and build community through Chat, Notes, and more.

“We’ll throw on the Substack live chat feature on a Saturday and interact with our people there,” Richard said about using Chat on game days. “It helps to know that we’re being supported by like-minded community.” Once started building its community, Biz said, it took on a life of its own: “The community is self-sustaining. People do meetups and stuff all the time that have nothing to do with us. That’s one of the beautiful things about making something like this—it takes on its own life without you.”

There are a lot of ways to think about building and growing your podcast community on Substack. Here are three models we see working well:

A lightweight companion and fan community

Use your Substack publication to send episodes directly to your listeners’ inboxes. To take it a step further, you can add a lightweight companion newsletter and a chat where your audience can find each other. Companion posts don’t have to be elaborate: a weekly recap, links to things mentioned on the pod, or a short note from a producer or the host can all work. In the simplest version, the chat can be set up as fan-to-fan, so you don’t have to moderate it.

This is a good starting point for podcasters who aren’t ready to launch a paid tier but want to start building an owned audience. It’s free to run, and it builds daily engagement quickly. The people who show up here are dedicated fans who are likely to convert to paying subscribers, should you choose to launch a paid tier—and now you can reach them directly whenever you need.

Case study: Giggly Squad

’s Substack is where their show lives between episodes. Hosts Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo use their newsletter for weekly roundups of what they’re wearing, watching, and obsessing over and their Chat as a dedicated space for the community to talk to each other.

Bonus paid content layered on top

Use Substack to add a paid tier to your podcast that includes bonus content, like behind-the-scenes extras, episode research, or cutting-room-floor material from your conversations with a guest. The additional material might be an extra 20 minutes or so of more personal and candid conversation, with the option to take listener questions.

A paid bonus model structurally changes the relationship with your listeners. Paying subscribers aren’t buying a product; they’re supporting your work. That’s a different dynamic than ad revenue, and it tends to create deeper loyalty.

Case study: Wiser Than Me and Bialik Breakdown

sends her subscribers exclusive background notes and research behind each episode, like a deep dive on actress Glenn Close that supplemented their episode together. It’s context that didn’t make it into the show itself, delivered directly to the people who want to go deeper.

uses her Substack to share a host of extras, like bonus clips, exclusive letters, and live content, for subscribers.

A full multimedia content hub

Use Substack as the comprehensive home base for distribution and community for your show. Send your episodes directly to subscriber inboxes, and distribute them automatically to YouTube, or to Spotify and Apple Podcasts through RSS. Offer bonus drops, extended cuts, AMAs, essays, lives, and collabs with other creators. It’s the whole world of your show, in one place, with community and network growth built in. For many creators, subscription revenue at this level becomes more lucrative than ads. But the more durable thing it creates is a self-sustaining community.

Case study: Pantsuit Politics and Diabolical Lies

publishes four or more premium episodes a week, distributing directly through Substack. They also send a newsletter, host regular live sessions, and keep an active chat for their community.

uses Substack as their full distribution channel, paywalling their deeply researched, hour-plus episodes that drop twice a month. Subscription revenue has enabled them to do fewer episodes and go deeper on each one, a model that works because their subscriber community is so engaged in the work and each other.

However you decide to set up your community and your show on Substack, the underlying logic is the same: your audience wants somewhere to be, and it’s to your benefit to be able to reach them directly. At the Signal Awards event, Biz and Richard shared some of what they’ve learned from building their shows and finding new audiences on Substack.

Podcast success is often built on intimacy—the sense that someone is talking to you specifically, that you’re in on something special. Regardless of how you set up your community, Substack is where that feeling finds a home, and where built-in engagement tools and network growth make sure more people find it.

For most of the past decade, has been offline: no Instagram, no scrolling, with a trusted collaborator managing her digital presence. Last year, she and that collaborator—strategist —decided to make an exception, and Lena got her Substack login. “It was like when I graduated from rehab,” Lena told us. “Very adult.”

Since then, Lena’s become increasingly active on , writing about everything from reading lists to her favorite Etsy finds to how she organizes her Notes app. Now she’s promoting her new memoir, Famesick, from bed, both at home and onstage, where she’s been hosting a kind of roving variety show from under the covers—and all over Substack.

In the days leading up to the memoir’s release, Lena made guest appearances on publications across the platform, an online book tour that let her collaborate with some of her favorite writers. Each piece was written to fit its home: a ’90s fashion nostalgia trip for , a Q&A on body image and rehab for , a meditation on moviegoing for . Writer of After School took note: “I can’t recall a single book launch that has utilized the Substack platform so handily.”

We talked with Lena and Dolly about “going where it’s warm,” why they promoted Famesick sideways rather than head-on, and what Dolly would do differently next time.

You’ve been in bed with everyone from the NYT to in the last few weeks. How’s the press tour going?

Lena: It’s been a ball! Last time I really did this level of public anything was the last season of Girls (and if you read Famesick you’ll see that I wasn’t really in the place to, uh, enjoy it). Since then I’ve been largely behind the scenes as a writer and director, which means you can rely on your cast to hold it down, press-wise. I have definitely pushed myself out of the little comfort zone I’ve found in recent years, but that’s because, as all the many authors of Substack know, when it comes to a book, there’s only you. So I realized I was going to have to find a way to do promotion and a tour that didn’t leave me physically and spiritually fracked.

It felt like you were everywhere in the days leading up to Famesick’s pub date. What was the strategy for your Substack tour?

Lena: Dolly is always such an incredible sounding board, but our strategy was kind of not a strategy, in that it wasn’t super calculated. It was the result of my happily accepting the chance to collaborate with the newsletters I actually read. “Organic” is an overused word, at least in Hollywood, but I do think that when you’re a fan for real and having a genuinely great time, people can feel it. All press is not good press (another lesson of Famesick), and if you’re stiff, anxious, and out of place, then what’s the point? Whereas I love writing. I have a myriad of interests and hobbies and there’s a newsletter that speaks to them all. I’m also chronically ill, and so getting to show up as my best self, the self who loves to write and go down little Wiki wormholes and eBay trapdoors, is a rare treat. Writing has always made me feel like part of the world even when I can’t be, and I feel very lucky to have made new pals and learned a lot.

Dolly: Lena and I first started talking in December 2024 about what it might look like for her to publish a Good Thing Going newsletter. We had been working together since 2020, and it always pained me to cut down her beautifully written Instagram captions to fit a character limit. She needed more real estate for her words. When we initially discussed a newsletter, there was some hesitation around committing to a locked cadence, but I tried to encourage her to throw out the “rules” of how to show up online. Lena is a writer. Substack made sense for her.

When it came time to promote Famesick, we had a large kickoff with the full team: publisher, agents, PR, management. While the PR teams focused on traditional media, I was thinking about Substack as an equally important layer of the ecosystem. Lena is the only person I know who is so offline yet deeply aware of what’s happening online. She’s an avid Substack reader, subscribes to dozens of publications, and is very engaged with her own community through DMs, Notes, and comments. So while there wasn’t a rigid plan, collaborating with publications she already read felt like a natural, grassroots way to introduce Famesick without it feeling too promotional. Some opportunities came through her DMs, some through my inbox, and others were friends and writers who felt like an organic fit.

What were you hoping to achieve here versus other arms of the tour?

Lena: I wish we had a more mustache-twirling evil genius plan, but I was just “going where it’s warm,” as my father always advises. It feels like Substack folks are way more “my people” than on any other app, or on the stage of a talk show or in the pages of a magazine.

Also, as a late-in-life data nerd, it’s been really interesting to see how committed certain audiences are. I love that a newsletter with more followers but a less engaged audience doesn’t have the same value as someone with a tiny but rabid fan base. As the girl whose show regularly clocked under a million viewers (a number that, in showbiz, might as well be 10), I connect to that vibe: small but noisy, mini but mighty. It’s so cool to me that so many people are making a living as writers who wouldn’t have found a way to do that even five years ago.

In January, you introduced Dolly and revealed that you haven’t posted on Instagram directly in years. You do have your own Substack password, right? Are you fully in the driver’s seat on and Notes?

Lena: I sure am! That was a big moment, because I literally hadn’t typed into a social media app in well over half a decade. But I was getting FOMO.

It’s a testament to how much fun I was having, and how safe the community feels, that this even seemed like an okay idea. I joined Substack purely for pleasure. I love reading, and I’m always looking for new avenues to take in unvarnished and inventive voices. I wanted a place to share book lists and niche vintage shopping fetishes and all the delicious bits of being alive that don’t have a home anywhere else creatively. Quickly, I started having fun, and fun isn’t a word I’ve equated with social media in many, many years.

You used a bunch of formats in just a few days: a column takeover, a live Chat AMA, Notes. Did you go in pitching format and topic, or did each one grow out of the publication you were working with?

Dolly: This happened pretty organically. The column takeovers were part of the collaborations we had planned, but the other formats unfolded in real time. The AMAs came from the idea that Lena would already be answering audience questions on her book tour, so we thought, why not source those questions directly from the brilliant minds on Substack? The responses were so strong that it led her to create her own advice column, Dunhamisms. Notes ended up being a major learning. She would text me every time she saw a spike in followers. We quickly realized that consistent posting on Notes was a key driver of engagement and discovery.

On , you promoted Famesick sideways: posts about coats, self-help, and if our moms actually have the capacity to change. How much of that was mapped out ahead of time as part of the official strategy?

Lena: Dolly and Penguin Random House know I’m pretty allergic to the “hey y’all, preorder my book!” sales style. I never judge anyone for giving it a go, but it’s the same way that I could never take a very serious nude. Some people have it in them and some don’t! I have to find a way to make it feel fun and engaging to me, which is also the only way to make it possibly pleasurable for anyone else. I love marginalia, writing about writing, talking not just about process but what makes up a writer’s life. Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings was the first blog that ever felt like it was my little home on the internet, because it captured how much frippery and fun there is to being an artist, and also the many ways to inspire and be inspired. I hoped to capture a little bit of that and perhaps preserve some of what goes into putting a memoir together, in a little bit of a Proustian cookie way.

How do you think the Substack press impacted preorder sales?

Lena: Someone I trust told me that, in book sales at least, every single Substack follower is the equivalent of many more Instagram or X followers because Substackers are way more likely to follow through and buy a book. While I don’t have the actual numbers, that feels anecdotally true to me. There’s an appreciation of the written word that suffuses this whole place. Most of your readers are also going to be writers themselves, who know just what writing a book takes.

Dolly, how are you measuring whether the Substack leg of the press tour actually moves the needle? Do you look at numbers after posts go up, ask publishers to share data, track preorder velocity or Lena’s subscriber growth?

Dolly: We actually could have done this better. Because everything we were doing was intentionally collaborative rather than overtly promotional, we focused primarily on subscriber growth. If I were doing this again or advising someone else on this, I’d recommend setting up unique tracking links to better measure conversion from Substack. That being said, I think there’s a bigger lesson here: as grows, so does the surface area for talking to our audience. We built that growth by having fun with it, and that in turn made the book promotion more effective.

Many of our readers are writers themselves—some writing books, some writing for the inbox every week. What does memoir ask of you that writing online doesn’t?

Lena: What I love about Substack is that it’s a writers’ community. Not since my LiveJournal days have I been so surrounded by like-minded folks. And a lot of us came of age when the confessional memoir and blogging were starting to braid together and people started to tailor their own narratives to the algorithm (a lot of “9 Ways Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding Was Like My Last Breakup!” energy). That was very much the world we were swimming in on Girls—Hannah dreamed of making money writing a breakup-themed listicle.

Writing at a particular cadence is amazing for the creative muscle. That’s what writing TV taught me: to be athletic and not precious, since you have to grind out an episode whether you feel it or not. At the same time, it requires that you metabolize life quickly and that you always have something to talk about. A lot of memoir [writing] is slowing down enough to understand where you’ve been, what was significant about it, and to dig into larger themes, since all my favorite memoirs are not, at the end of the day, only about their author. Figuring out how to tell stories again and again, to be able to rely on yourself to produce cogent ideas even when not in the mood, is an amazing skill and can really be the difference between a writing career and a hobby in this day and age. At the same time, I don’t think that memoir, at least in its truest form, can be produced with a stopwatch in hand.

What, if anything, would the Girls girls be writing about on Substack in 2026?

Lena: I am terribly afraid that Hannah would be doing a lot of “everything I wish I’d said to the man who called me cutie at the ATM this morning!” type of stuff, but maybe I’m doing her dirty and my girl is a better writer than that. Shosh’s NYC guide would be a little bit basic but at the same time, she doesn’t do anything in half measures. She would be the West Village Girl to follow.

Writing a memoir requires a kind of excavation, and then a press tour asks you to talk about what you found, over and over, with strangers. Has this revisiting taught you anything about your own life or career that you didn’t have perspective on when you were still writing it?

Lena: There is a distinct irony to doing a press tour to talk about the damage you did to yourself on press tours, but it also offers a chance to revisit old habits and come correct. Being able to show up and be open to these brilliant people but also clear in my own boundaries has actually been a wonderful correction, the rare chance for a re-do and to see lessons in action.

You spend however long writing the book, trying to speak with clarity and intention. Then you’re asked about the same experiences but in a context with no editor, no guardrails, and no control. On my last book tour, I didn’t realize that I don’t always have to offer something new. It’s okay to say, “I worked hard to say that with specificity and integrity, and I hope people will read it in context.” It’s also a cool chance to turn it away from my own story and toward some of the larger themes: chronic illness, how our culture ingests and spits out women’s stories, and, of course, being a person who loves to wear weird coats.

Dolly, what does “this worked” actually look like to you?

Dolly: I’ve always felt very protective of Lena’s online presence. The internet has been so cruel over the years, and every recommendation I’ve made has been about helping her be understood on her own terms. Seeing such a strong wave of positive sentiment has been the clearest signal to me. There’s genuine admiration for her voice, her thinking, and the book itself, and that’s incredibly meaningful, both professionally and personally. It all makes me very happy.

Who changed your life today? Who stretched your way of seeing the universe? Who challenged you to think deeper about the culture around you, or to question the state of the political world? Who introduced you to a new song, a brand-new way of cooking, or even a new rose to plant in your garden? If you’ve been on Substack for a while, my hope is you’ve found these people here.

Because that’s always been part of Substack’s mission: to make good on the internet’s promise as a place for the universal exchange of knowledge and ideas. We want to make it easier for you to stumble upon ideas that not only enrich your life but that challenge your thoughts and sharpen your thinking.

Today, we’re cracking open the world of ideas even further as we introduce new translation features, starting with the ability to translate Notes written in English into 15 languages, or into English from over 100 languages.

That means you can now read and engage with writers and creators anywhere from Trondheim to Tokyo. What’s more, in the coming weeks, we’ll also be adding translation to posts, meaning you can take a deeper dive into your favorite writers’ work, wherever they are across the globe.

For writers, this will open the world to your work. The post you publish in English will be able to find readers in Istanbul. The newsletter you write in Japanese can build an audience in Buenos Aires. A poet in Lisbon and a food writer in Marseille are no longer separated from each other—or from the readers who would love their work—by the language they happen to write their Notes in. The addressable readership for every writer will have grown meaningfully larger.

Because ideas should not be limited to geography or thwarted by language. Good, smart, interesting ideas should be allowed to flourish wherever there is a willing mind to engage.

I’ve had the chance to preview these features, and the writers I’ve discovered have already expanded my horizons. Just this weekend, I stumbled upon a discussion about the ethical responsibility of AI from an Italian writer I had hitherto not heard of. And I found intellectual kinship with a Dutch writer who somehow managed to articulate every thought and feeling I’ve had over the past few years about the blandification of culture. A young Japanese writer living in Barcelona taught me the word komorebi (it means “sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees,” and is apparently as much a philosophical dictum as it is a visual effect), whilst a chef in the south of France just made my life infinitely better by sharing an orange miso sauce that works like a dream with raw fish.

The point is, you don’t have to cross a border, get on a plane, or even speak another language now to connect with ideas that might change your life. Translations bring the world of ideas to your doorstep.

We’re still in the early days, and translation, especially at scale, is technically and culturally complex. And we have many more languages to go. But the translation of Notes is an exciting starting place, and your feedback can help us make it even better: when you see a translated Note, click the “translated” icon to tell us how we did.

The appetite for this kind of exchange is already clear in the numbers. Writers and creators everywhere are building real audiences and livelihoods on Substack. As of today, nearly 100,000 publishers are earning money on Substack globally, including almost 30,000 outside the U.S. In Europe, creators are now collectively earning more than $90 million annually.

And we’re continuing to invest in that community. We’re bringing on nine new partnerships hires to support writers and creators in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Nordics, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Japan, joining a dedicated U.K. team. Alongside these new hires, we are also expanding Substack Defender, our legal support program for publishers who face legal uncertainty or pressure because of their work—a core pillar of our commitment to a free press.

All of this is in service of what the internet, at its best, can do: make the world wider and closer at the same time. If you’ve been thinking about starting your own Substack and sharing your ideas with a global audience, come to one of our upcoming international masterclasses. We’d love to meet you.

This month, we’re shipping a range of updates that give you more control over your publishing workflow—from scheduling Notes in advance to new live video tools, post templates, and design details that make your publication feel unmistakably yours. Here’s what’s new.

Post templates

You can now create and save templates for longform posts, directly within the post editor. If your workflow includes recurring elements like calls to action, disclaimers, section structures, sponsorship placements, or code blocks, you can save them once and reuse them in new drafts instantly.

This removes repetitive setup work and helps you stay consistent without starting from scratch each time. Build your format once, and reuse it whenever you need it.

Learn more about using post templates in our Help Center.

Drop caps

Enable a drop cap—the large, stylized first letter that opens a piece of writing—for your Substack publication. You can turn this on in the Website Editor in your publication settings. From there, click “Posts,” toggle on “Drop caps,” and click “Save.” Visible on web, drop caps are a small detail that can give your writing a more considered, editorial feel.

Learn more about adding a drop cap to your post in our Help Center.

Live video: more control over how you stream and manage events

We’ve expanded Substack Live with new tools for publications running regular video programming:

• Choose where you stream: You can now decide which publication to go live from each time you stream, instead of being limited to your primary publication. This is available across iOS, Android, and web.

• From the new live video management dashboard page on desktop, you can now:

  • Schedule on behalf of a host. Contributors and admins can now schedule a livestream for another creator on your publication.

  • Edit scheduled streams. You can now update the title, timing, host, and notification settings for any scheduled stream after it’s been created. If a host needs to swap out or a time needs to shift, you can handle it directly from the dashboard without canceling and starting over.

  • Have quick access to stream keys. Contributors, admins, owners, and hosts can now view and copy stream keys directly.

Learn more about managing live video in our Help Center.

Schedule Notes

You can now schedule Notes to publish at a specific time, on web, iOS, and Android. Write in advance, set a publishing time, and your Note will go out automatically. All scheduled Notes appear in your Notes Drafts tab, where you can continue editing right up until they publish.

• On web, click the 📅 icon in the composer

• On iOS and Android, tap “…” and select “Schedule”

• Choose a publishing time in your local time zone

• Find and edit your scheduled Notes anytime in the Drafts tab

  

Learn more about drafting and publishing Notes in our Help Center.

Refine your feed with clearer controls

The “show less” control in your feed is now more visible and easier to use. When you see a Note you’re not interested in, tap the X to tell us why—whether it’s not relevant, feels like clickbait, or just isn’t what you’re looking for. Your feedback helps shape what you see going forward, so your feed stays focused on the work you care about.

Subscribe homepage block

The subscribe block—a customizable banner that prompts homepage visitors to subscribe—allows you to tailor your message to free, paid, and founding members. Now you can also customize its color and add a logo, giving you more ways to make it feel like yours.

Callout block

Add callout blocks to your posts: visually distinct, formatted containers that let a piece of text stand apart from the rest of your writing. Use them to highlight a key idea, surface a quote from another writer, flag a note to readers, or draw attention to something you want to make sure doesn’t get skipped. It’s a clean way to add visual rhythm or reference something you want your audience to see.

These updates are available now

We’re continuing to build tools that give you more control over how you publish and how you connect with your audience. As always, let us know what’s working and what you’d like to see next, in a Note, in a post, or by restacking.

Why move to Substack?

Whether you’re a solo writer, a video podcaster, or a full newsroom, Substack brings everything you need into one place, without requiring technical experience or stitching together separate tools. It’s free to start, and when you choose to turn on paid subscriptions, you keep 90% of what you earn. Because Substack only makes money when you do, our incentives are directly aligned with yours.

When you publish here, you’re also reaching beyond the subscribers you already have. The Substack network drives more than 50% of all subscriptions on the platform, from millions of active users discovering posts every day—so you can gain subscribers and income simply by publishing on Substack.

Substack is designed to meet you where you are:

• Writers and journalists: Build a direct relationship with readers who pay you for your work.

• Podcasters and video creators: Host natively, go live, and publish automatically to Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Offer premium episodes to paid subscribers.

• Media companies: Run a full newsroom with multiple writers, sections, and podcasts. Substack handles payments, distribution, and subscriber management.

• Experts and educators: Teach what you know and share your work on your own terms, with your audience paying you directly because they value it.

We’ve made it easy to bring your content, audience, and payment relationships with you to Substack. This guide walks you through everything you need to get set up on Substack, so you can take advantage of the network and tools to build a stronger connection with your community.

Step 1: Set up your publication

When you first set up your Substack, you’ll be prompted to choose a publication name, URL, and one-line description. You can always come back and update these elements later.

How do I create a publication on Substack?

Make sure to put your publication in private mode, an option you’ll find in your dashboard settings under Privacy. This will give you an opportunity to get everything set up before your audience sees it.

From your dashboard, you can also open the website editor to customize your publication’s look and feel.

• To enable customization, make sure that you’ve switched out of “Profile” mode and selected “Custom” under the theme menu.

• You’ll then be able to update your design, layout, and logo before you go live.

Two more elements to personalize before you go live:

• About page: This is where new readers learn who you are, what you write about, and why they should subscribe. Learn more

• Welcome email: When someone new signs up, they’ll get an automatic email from you. Use it to say thank you, point paid subscribers to their benefits, and give free readers a reason to upgrade. Learn more

Step 2: Import your list

You can import your email list during the setup process or come back to it later from your settings. You’ll need a CSV file, which you can export from your previous host.

How do I import my mailing list from another platform?

A few things to keep in mind:

• Before you bring your list over, make sure everyone on it has opted in to receiving emails from you on your previous platform.

• When you import, you’ll be asked to give your list some context. Label your upload with the name of your previous host so there’s a clear record of where the subscribers came from.

Skip the welcome email for now. Since you’ll be letting your audience know that you’re moving, a default welcome email will feel redundant. Instead, save that momentum for your first full post.

Some publishers choose to offer new subscribers a free 30-day trial as a gesture of goodwill when they migrate, especially if they’re coming from a platform where paid subscriptions couldn’t be transferred directly. You’ll be offered this option when you import your list.

Step 3: Import your content

Substack makes it easy to bring your work with you. Here’s how:

Paste your URL: Most of the time, you can paste your blog or newsletter URL directly, and Substack will pull over your 15 most recent posts. This works for Ghost, Mailchimp, Beehiiv, TinyLetter, and more.

Or upload a file instead: If you’re able to download a CSV, XML, or JSON file from your previous platform, you can upload that. Check whether your platform has an RSS feed or a JSON archive available for download. From your Substack settings, you’ll be able to upload it directly.

How do I import my posts from another platform?

Step 4: Set up your Stripe account

Stripe is the sole payment provider for Substack. If you used a Stripe account on your previous platform, you’ll be able to connect it to your Substack in just a few minutes.

• If you are coming from Ghost, Beehiiv, or a custom build where you owned your Stripe account, you can visit your settings and connect your Stripe account by signing in.

• If you are coming from a platform like Memberful, or one that uses Stripe but where the platform owns the payment account, there are a few additional steps. Contact support, and our team can help you bring your payment relationships over.

• If you’re coming from Patreon, you can find our comprehensive guide here. We’ve worked with a number of writers and creators to develop a strategy that will help you get the word out about your move.

How do I set up my Stripe account?

Step 5: Make the most of your announcement

Use your first Substack post to zoom out on your work and to bring people along on the journey. Sharing your story in an announcement post can motivate new and existing subscribers to support you and spread the word.

Great announcement posts:

• Make it clear that existing subscribers don’t need to change anything. “We wanted to let you know about this move, but the tl;dr is that you don’t need to do anything except enjoy an improved Exponential View.” — and when they switched from Ghost

• Let subscribers know why Substack is better for their experience.
  “Switching to Substack will allow for much better community features, annual memberships, and a lot of other stuff that we honestly should have been able to offer listeners all along. In terms of speed, smoothness, and ease of functionality, there’s no comparison between the two platforms, and we’re excited to take advantage of our new, much snazzier home.” — when he switched from Patreon

• Keep the post free and open. This should be a free post so as many people as possible can see it. Don’t forget to add buttons reminding your audience to subscribe.

Post a Note: Post a Note to let people know you’ve arrived. The Substack network drives more than 50% of all subscriptions across the platform and 30% of paid subscriptions, and the Notes feed is one of the easiest ways to tap into it.

Learn how to use Notes to grow your audience on Substack:

Demystifying the feed

When you post, you’re not just reaching your existing audience. You’re putting yourself in front of potential new subscribers who might not have found you yet.

Bring your social media audience with you: Put your Substack link in your bio across every platform. It pays to clear out other links: creators who remove competing links, including Linktree, see significantly more of their audience follow them over. When followers have multiple options, they often choose none. For more platform-specific best practices and a deeper look into bringing your social following to Substack, see our comprehensive guide:

How to bring your social media audience to Substack

Start a Substack

Today, we’re launching the Substack Recording Studio, a built-in studio that makes it easier than ever to pre-record and publish a show on Substack. Substack Studio, currently available on desktop only, lets you record a solo video or a conversation with up to two guests and publish it when you’re ready, with auto-generated clips and thumbnails included.

Until now, creating video on Substack meant going live, or stitching together a separate stack of tools: a recording platform, a way to create and distribute clips, and something to design a thumbnail. Substack Studio brings all of those tools into one place. And as with live video, anything you share is automatically distributed through the Substack network—in the mobile app, on the web, and on the big screen with Substack TV. Here’s what’s new:

Recording Studio

Record a conversation without going live and publish it when you’re ready. On desktop, simply click the Recording Studio button under “Create.”​​ You can invite up to two guests, who can join from desktop or the Substack mobile apps. After they accept your invite, they’ll automatically join the preview room, and you can start recording. Once you’re done, you’ll get the same auto-generated clips and thumbnails you’d get from a live video.

of recently used Substack Studio to sit down with ’s for a deep dive into the trends reshaping the snack industry—recording, publishing, and clipping the entire episode using just Substack tools.

Publication branding

Hosts can now add a publication logo or wordmark directly into any show they record on Substack, whether it’s live or in the Studio. You can adjust it to appear in the top left, top right, or bottom left of the frame, and can also upload a custom asset if you want to add something specific to a show. This is the first step toward giving every show on Substack its own distinct look and feel.

Publisher recently added her Red Letter logo to an episode with congressional reporter .

Screen sharing

Hosts and co-hosts can share their screen mid-conversation to walk through whatever they’re referencing: a chart, a dataset, a news article, or a piece of writing. The shared screen is captured in the final recording, and is available for both livestreams and those taped in the Studio on desktop. For now, screen sharing is visual only; sound from shared content isn’t captured yet, though that’s coming soon.

AI and exponential technologies expert recently used screen sharing to give viewers a demo on how he runs his AI agent system.

Editable thumbnails

In December, we introduced automated thumbnails that generate as soon as your live video ends. Now, across both live and recorded video, you can pick the frame and customize the thumbnail text to match.

How to Feel Alive publisher customized the thumbnail text for her conversation with author Dan Coyle using Substack’s new thumbnail editing tools.

Learn more about the Substack Recording Studio in the Help Center.

The Substack Recording Studio and these new tools are available now. It’s worth giving them a try: recent data shows that creators who have used audio or video on Substack in the past 90 days have grown their revenue 50% faster than those who haven’t. Substack Studio makes getting started a lot easier.

To go deeper on these tools, watch our virtual masterclass, where we walk through the Recording Studio, share best practices for building a show on Substack, and answer questions from creators live.

Watch now

Save Notes as drafts

You can now save Notes as drafts on web and iOS, with Android coming this week. If you start writing a Note and hit cancel, you’ll have the option to save it instead. When you return to the composer, you’ll find your saved Notes in a new Drafts tab.

This makes it easier to capture ideas as they come to you, refine them over time, and publish when you’re ready.

Learn more about drafting and publishing Notes in our Help Center.

Pin multiple posts to your homepage

You can now pin multiple posts to your homepage to control what visitors see first.

To pin a post:

• Tap the pencil icon on your homepage

• Search for the post you want to feature

• Select it to pin

Learn more about customizing your homepage in our Help Center.

Export your publisher stats as a CSV file

Publisher stats are now exportable as a CSV file, directly from your dashboard. Exports reflect whatever filters and views you’re currently using, so you can pull the exact data you need. That might mean analyzing audience growth or tracking traffic trends over time, all in a format you can work with offline.

To export, select the time range you’d like to analyze in your publication dashboard, then click “Download CSV” from the menu.

Center, right align, or justify your text

You can now center, right align, or justify text in your posts from the web editor toolbar, giving you more control over how your writing looks on the page.

Hide revenue and subscriber counts

If you’d prefer not to see revenue and subscriber counts on your dashboard, you can now hide them. This lets you keep those metrics out of view while you focus on your work.

You can toggle this setting on or off in your publication settings.

Learn more about Substack’s metrics in our Help Center.

Improved code formatting

Code blocks now support syntax highlighting. Language is detected automatically, so your snippets render with consistent formatting, spacing, and line numbers, across web, mobile, and email. Readers can copy the full snippet with a single click. This works everywhere your posts show up, including email.

What’s included:

• Syntax highlighting

• Automatically detects language on paste from VS Code

• Indentation shortcuts (tab / shift+tab)

• Drag, cut, and paste support

• Line numbers for reference

• One-click copy to clipboard

def fibonacci(n):
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    a, b = 0, 1
    for _ in range(2, n + 1):
        a, b = b, a + b
    return b

print([fibonacci(i) for i in range(10)])

Learn more about using code blocks in our Help Center.

Manage live videos in one place

We’ve added a new section to your creator dashboard for managing live videos. Scheduled streams, recordings, and drafts were previously spread across different areas. They’re now organized in one place within your dashboard.

In this new section, you can:

• View scheduled live videos

• Access recordings of past livestreams

• See unpublished recordings of live videos

• Edit or cancel scheduled streams directly from the dashboard

This gives you a clearer overview of your live video workflow and reduces the need to jump between different tools to manage upcoming or past broadcasts.

Learn more about managing live video in our Help Center.

These updates are available now

We’re continuing to invest in improving the core parts of Substack—the tools you use every day to publish, design, and understand your work. We hope these updates give you more flexibility in how you publish, manage, and discover work on Substack.

Thanks for building with us.

When we introduced Polymarket embeds in 2024, creators started weaving prediction market data into their analysis, from election forecasts to AI breakthroughs to economic policy. As more creators have integrated and responded to this data in their work, we’ve been building tools to support how they reference and discuss it on Substack.

Today, in partnership with Polymarket, we’re introducing native tools that make it easier to share, discuss, and debate prediction market data directly on Substack. Polymarket has also joined our sponsorships pilot, supporting a cohort of creators who integrate these tools into their work.

What are prediction markets, and why do they matter?

Prediction markets are an emerging technology that aggregates real-time estimates of what will happen in the future. While the stock market lets people trade shares of companies, and the price reflects an estimate of how much a business is worth, Polymarket lets people trade shares of future events, like elections, economic trends, and scientific breakthroughs. The price reflects a market estimate of how likely an outcome is to happen.

So while the stock market can tell you how much traders think Nvidia is worth, Polymarket can tell you whether traders think the Fed will raise interest rates, that Ukraine will join NATO this year, or that One Battle After Another will win Best Picture at the Oscars. As with the stock market, these prices offer powerful insights into how participants are assessing the likelihood of different outcomes—everyone is free to disagree about how much Nvidia is actually worth, or what movie will win, but everyone still sees the same ticker of what it’s trading at, up to the second.

What’s new

When we first introduced Polymarket embeds, creators had to paste external links into posts. Even with that extra step, one in five of Substack’s top 250 highest-revenue publications started using them. Today, we’re making it easier with three new features, now available on iOS, Android, and web:

Notes embeds

Polymarket data can now be embedded directly in Notes, not just posts. This means you can quickly reference a prediction market that automatically refreshes with the latest odds, while sharing commentary, responding to news, or sparking a discussion—whether you’re writing a full article or a quick note.

Writer and podcaster referenced market expectations in a note about different timelines for Keir Starmer’s potential exit as U.K. prime minister, while tech analyst used a Polymarket embed in Notes to comment on how Anthropic’s research progress moved prediction market sentiment around AI model performance.

Search within Substack

You can now search for Polymarket data directly from the post editor or Notes composer. No need to open a new tab, find the right market, and copy a link back. Just search, select, and insert an embed directly alongside your analysis.

Dynamic visualizations

Polymarket embeds now adapt their visual format to match the type of question you’re referencing—a yes-or-no question looks different from one with multiple possible outcomes. Substack automatically selects the right format to ensure that the data is clear and easy to read.

For example, when embedded data on the Democratic favorite for 2028—with the caveat that it’s still “way too early to say”—it automatically displayed as a multi-candidate ranking. When embedded a question about whether the U.S. will confirm before 2027 that aliens exist, it displayed as a simple percentage.

These tools are available to start using today. You’ll find instructions in our Help Center, and if you publish something using the tools, tag —we’d love to see what you’re working on.

Publication design settings

We’ve made a number of updates to the theme editor that make it easier than ever to shape the experience subscribers have when they land on your publication’s homepage.

Here’s what’s new:

• Custom header and footer: Resize your wordmark and adjust its placement.

• Faster homepage editing: Click any section in the homepage preview to adjust its settings directly. You can also drag and drop sidebar modules to reorder them.

• Welcome page colors: Set a background color for your welcome page independent of your main homepage.

• Undo after saving: Made a change you didn’t mean to? Undo appears right after you save.

You’ll find these settings in the same place as before: Settings → Website → Theme.

Learn more about customizing your publication in our Help Center.

, the author of DrawTogether, used these updates to create a homepage that’s both beautiful and easy to navigate.

Drop Site News uses the custom layouts to add social links and highlight work from their contributors.

For more ideas, take a look at Sub Club’s distinctive logo placement and The Preamble’s expert use of the footer.

Recipe embeds (beta)

Recipe embeds are now available in beta on Substack, offering a clean, structured way to publish recipes inside a post.

If you’ve ever shared a recipe as plain text, you know it’s not ideal: ingredients and steps can get buried, readers have to scroll back and forth while cooking, and recipes aren’t always surfaced well by search engines. Recipe embeds solve these issues by giving recipes a dedicated format that’s easy to follow, save for later, and built for discovery.

To add a recipe embed to an upcoming post, open the post editor and choose More → Recipe.

Recipe embeds can include:

• An image

• Title and description

• Prep and cook time

• Ingredients and directions

• Optional descriptive tags for meal categories, cuisines, etc.

And recipe embeds automatically generate the proper metadata so search engines can index and surface your recipe, helping new readers discover your Substack.

, the author of To Vegetables, With Love, put the new format to use in her latest recipe, for napa cabbage and crumbled tempeh rice noodles.

To Vegetables, With Love

Napa cabbage and crumbled tempeh rice noodles

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. ‘ Find archived recipes on my recipe index…

Read more

3 months ago · 56 likes · 10 comments

Learn more about using recipe embeds in our Help Center.

Live video scheduling on Android and desktop

You can now schedule livestreams on Android and desktop, giving you more time to promote your event and build momentum ahead of going live. Each scheduled stream generates an RSVP link that subscribers can add to their calendar and share across Substack and social channels. Email and in-app reminders help bring your audience back when it’s time to tune in.

Learn more about scheduling a livestream in our Help Center.

Try them out today

We’re focused on building tools that help publishers own their space on the internet and connect meaningfully with their communities. Whether you’re refreshing your publication or experimenting with new formats like recipes and live video, we hope you’ll try out these updates and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

TL;DR: Custom themes are finally coming to the apps! Starting today on iOS, you’ll see this when you tap on Substacks you subscribe to from a new row atop the feed that makes it easy to keep up with your favorites. Soon, themed views will be everywhere in the apps, and this is just the beginning of a major effort to make Substacks richer and more customizable.

For years, anyone writing or creating online has faced a choice:

1. Build your own website or app, reflecting your taste and featuring your aesthetics and branding, and apply your rules for commenters and community members, but watch it fail to get much attention or traffic, especially over time, without costly marketing efforts on other platforms.1

2. Share your work directly on those other platforms to meet audiences where they are, but compromise on style and branding, cede some or all ownership of the relationships you build, and accept the rules of the platform owners, which can change dramatically and upend your livelihood overnight.

It’s a little like owning your own small shop versus operating in a mall. Your unique store might be laid out and managed exactly as you—and your customers—want, but if you cannot attract enough people, if too many customers prefer the convenience and centrality of a mall, you’ll struggle to remain afloat. The mall’s scale advantage often wins with audiences, even when they admit that your unique vision on its own is superior, even when it’s common to hear people lament: “I hate the mall.”

Online, audiences flock to massive social media or content platforms, ignoring even the most beautiful and well-run individual sites and apps. Writers, journalists, artists, musicians, chefs, critics, and creators of all kinds need to reach people at scale in order to earn sustainable livings, and so they wind up going where the audiences are, abandoning any hope of control or customization. And once they’ve built an audience on a platform, they’re locked in: they cannot take their audience with them if they leave.

Substack has long worked to offer a different model: one where the benefits of scale accrue to creators, not just to platform owners, while as much of the value of independence is preserved as is possible. You might say that our vision is that of a thriving commercial district within a city: the benefits of density and connection without the homogenizing pressures of a mall. Much of our work over the past few years has been to make Substack a place large numbers of people like to visit, while never changing that it’s a place any creative can choose to leave without loss. Here, you own your relationships. You also get growth through scale and network effects, through our ranked home feed, our recommendations system, and features like live video and chat, which together help people discover you and your work, often signing up to become paid subscribers.2

Now, we’re taking a small first step on a big effort to make this balance even better.

Starting today on iOS, you’ll see a row of Substacks you’re subscribed to right at the top of the app, with priority given to those with new posts. Tapping one brings subscribers into that Substack’s world, with its custom colors, typefaces, logos, and the newest post right at the top. Below that top post is a feed of notes and posts from that Substack, so subscribers can easily dive deeper into its world. It’s more like visiting a unique place, less like “consuming content” in a generic platform view.

But this is just a first step. Soon, we’ll be introducing features that will dramatically enrich what Substacks can be.

In the future, a Substack feed will be able to include not only its creator’s own work but also that of their community of subscribers, and even of other Substacks they recommend. All of this will be fully optional and controllable; some creators will want to curate a space with many contributors, while others will be happy to keep their Substack’s feed focused solely on their own work or that of a small set. For those who include others in their feeds, we’ll make it extremely easy to set moderation rules and apply them to their communities.

Whether your Substack is a solo effort, a salon, or a whole scene will be entirely up to you. For Substacks where the community is a significant part of the value, we think this can be a game changer. Your ability to customize how your space appears within the Substack app, combined with optional community feeds and the flexible moderation tools that support and guide them, will make Substack uniquely balanced in a way that works for creators and subscribers alike.

Together, these features will let writers, journalists, artists, musicians, and everyone else build their own inimitable and authentic spaces, with unique moderation dynamics and whatever level of community involvement they want. Subscribers can get an even closer look at how a creator thinks, what they’re interested in, and the community they’ve built on Substack. And everyone will still benefit from the Substack network; indeed, curated Substack spaces should lead to more cross-pollination and subscriber growth than ever, as audiences will see more from around the network and indeed around the Internet in every space.

With these features, your space can be distinct and personal —with your vision, your branding, your rules—while still living inside a platform where people are already spending their time. At Substack, creators can carve out their own corners of the internet without sacrificing the network effects that make platforms powerful.

The old choice was between independence and scale. Now you can have both.

We’ve turned off comments for this post. As always, feel free to share your perspective in a Note, in a post, or by restacking.

Today we’re launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV. Substack is the home for the best longform—work creators put real care into and subscribers choose to spend time with. Now these thought-provoking videos and livestreams have a natural home on the TV, where subscribers can settle in for the extended viewing that great video deserves.

That might mean watching reflect on her showbiz journey, read from his book, or interview leading figures in news and culture. , the author of and a frequent on-air contributor, put it simply: “Video doesn’t have to live in any one place. It needs to be wherever someone chooses to consume it. The Substack TV app does just that for me and my work.”

What you can do with the TV app today

Creators who already publish video don’t need to do anything new—your videos will automatically be available for subscribers who are signed in to the TV app.

This initial version of the TV app is focused on reliable, high-quality viewing, and we’ll be adding more features over time. We’re starting with the essentials and will keep improving it based on how people actually use it.

At launch, subscribers can:

• Watch video posts and livestreams from the creators and publications they’re subscribed to

• Browse a “For You” row that highlights videos from their subscriptions, plus recommended videos

• Open a dedicated page for each subscription to explore more videos from a specific publication

Both free and paid subscribers can sign in to the TV app and begin using it today, with viewing access matched to their current subscription level. While paid content previews for free subscribers aren’t supported yet, we plan to add them in a future update.

“I’m excited to report the Substack revolution will be televised,” said veteran journalist and former CNN anchor , who uses Substack’s live video feature to host a daily news show. “This is a game-changing moment for the rise of independent media. Substack has proven that legacy media consumers are not only searching for fresh alternatives; they are finding them.”

How to watch Substack videos on your TV

1. Search for “Substack” in your TV’s app store and download the app (Apple App Store for Apple TV, or the Apps section for Google and Android TV devices).

2. Open the app on your TV.

3. A QR code will appear on the screen. Scan it with your phone or enter the URL manually to log in.

4. That’s it—you’re signed in and ready to start watching videos from the creators you subscribe to.

To check which system your TV is running on, go to System or Specifications in your TV’s settings.

Learn more about setting up the TV app in our Help Center

What’s coming next

Because this is an early version, some familiar Substack features aren’t available yet. We’ll expand what the TV app can do over time, including:

• Audio posts and read-alouds

• Search and improved discovery

• Previews of paid content for free subscribers

• In-app upgrades to paid subscriptions

• Sections for different shows from one publication

Don’t forget to let your subscribers know you’re on Substack TV, and let us know what would make the experience even better.

Leave a comment

Since live video rolled out on Substack in January, we’ve been building toward a simple idea: creators show up with something to say, and the platform handles the rest. What starts as a live conversation becomes durable media—recordings and clips—that can travel, be discovered, and earn, long after the stream ends.

Over the past year, writers and creators have used live video to report on news as it unfolded, host recurring shows, perform songs live, and talk directly with their communities. Along the way, we’ve worked on improvements to make live video easier to use, more flexible, and better aligned with how publishers actually work.

Below is a look at what’s new, along with a survey of how live video has evolved over the past year and the creative ways people are using it.

How live video has evolved

As creators experimented with live video in different ways, we paid close attention to what worked, what didn’t, and what they asked for next. That feedback has guided how live video has evolved on Substack over the past year.

Today, we’re taking the latest step forward by introducing auto-generated thumbnails for live video recordings. These create a polished cover image that viewers see before they press play—across your publication, in email, and on platforms like YouTube. Below is an example from a live conversation between , , and .

Learn more about auto thumbnails in the Help Center

This builds on a series of improvements we’ve shipped throughout the year, all shaped directly by creator feedback:

• Scheduling: Plan live videos in advance with an auto-generated calendar link for audiences and easy-to-share promotional assets.

• Audio-only mode: Go live without video, for those who prefer not to be on camera.

• Music mode: Perform live with higher-quality audio, designed specifically for musicians and musical performances.

• Desktop streaming: Go live directly from your computer, giving people more flexibility and control over their setup.

• Enhanced clips: Automatically turn live moments into dynamic, shareable clips that extend the life of a conversation beyond the stream.

• Auto-publishing clips: Automatically share clips from your live video to YouTube and LinkedIn, making it easy for conversations to reach new audiences.

Looking ahead, we’ll continue building more ways for publishers to create compelling video and supporting materials, without needing extra tools or technical expertise. We’ll have more to share in the new year, and we’re excited to keep building alongside you.

A year of live video on Substack

In 2025, writers, analysts, artists, chefs, and musicians used live video to share insights, respond to events in real time, and connect with audiences in ways that felt immediate and personal.

At the start of the year, live video became a way to make sense of economic uncertainty. Newcomer’s joined Sequoia Capital partner to discuss how rapid advances in AI models are reshaping private tech startups, why more companies are choosing to stay private longer, and the rise of venture capital megafunds.

Live video also created space for creativity and craft. Food creators and used Substack live to talk about taste, offering viewers a unique look at how different creative disciplines approach food storytelling.

For musicians, live video became a way to bring fans closer than ever. and longtime collaborator Lenny Kaye went live from her home for an intimate performance and conversation.

of and of shared their own perspectives on media and internet culture.

In another standout discussion, i-D’s editor in chief went live with his team to host a magazine pitch meeting, giving audiences a rare look inside the editorial process.

And tomorrow, Thursday, December 18 at 1:30 p.m. PT/4:30p.m. ET, comedians and will go live on Substack to humorously unpack what they’re leaving behind in 2025.

If you’ve been thinking about going live, now’s a great time. Go live from desktop or mobile to reflect on the year, share what you’ve learned, and what you’re thinking about as we head into the new year. Tag , and we may feature it in the Substack feed.

Substack is building video infrastructure so that creators don’t need to be editors or videographers. Your job is to create—the rest should feel effortless. You bring your perspective, and Substack turns it into durable media that can travel across the internet.

Today, we’re taking another step toward that vision with desktop live video and enhanced clips. These updates give you more flexibility in how you go live and produce sharper, more engaging highlights automatically.

Whether you’re interviewing a peer, telling a personal story, or responding to breaking news, Substack now makes it easier to capture the moments that matter and share them far beyond your publication.

Here’s what’s new.

Desktop live video

If you’ve gone live from the Substack app before, desktop streaming will feel familiar. You can start a live video the same way you start any post—just click “Create,” and you’ll now see a live video option. Add a title, choose who you’re broadcasting to, and enter a preview room where you can check your setup and talk with any co-hosts before going live.

You can go live on desktop even if your co-hosts are on mobile. Scheduling livestreams on desktop is coming soon.

Learn more about desktop streaming in our Help Center.

Clips are a growth engine

Clips are becoming a meaningful part of how creators share their work and reach new subscribers. As more creators experiment with them, we’re seeing clear signs of momentum.

Here’s what the data shows:

• Nearly 50% of all livestream hosts now share or download a clip the same day they go live, taking advantage of clips as a strategic promotional tool.

• Since clips rolled out earlier this year, they have directly generated nearly 500,000 free subscriptions across the Substack ecosystem.

• Substack-generated clips on external platforms now receive more than 500,000 views every day, thanks to auto-publishing integrations with YouTube and LinkedIn.

Learn more about auto-uploading to YouTube and LinkedIn in the Help Center.

We’ve made improvements to clips to make them even more engaging and easier to share.

• Dynamic editing highlights the active speaker, trims dead air, and adds subtle zooms to make conversations feel sharper.

• Clean title cards give every clip a polished opening that captures attention across platforms.

• Instant availability means ready-to-share clips appear the moment your livestream ends.

• One-tap sharing and downloads make it simple to post clips to Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, or any other network where you connect with your audience.

How creators are using clips to grow

Creators on Substack use clips to capture the moments that resonate with their audience, whether it’s an unscripted insight, an unexpected emotion, or a funny exchange. Substack’s tools make it easy to turn those moments into something you can share anywhere, without needing an expensive setup or technical skills.

Below are a few examples that show the range of what clips can make possible.

• and had a thoughtful conversation about the small, practical actions anyone can take to combat loneliness.

• and mused about the unique, and often comically stressful, experience of grocery shopping in Paris.

• shared an emotional reflection about a difficult relationship with her brother. Her honesty connected deeply with viewers and spread quickly across the network.

• sat down with to talk about AI’s impact on dating.

Many of these clips drove new subscriptions. But more importantly, they show how a compelling moment can introduce your work to people who might never have found you otherwise.

Try it out

Go live today, from desktop or mobile, and share your best moments across your networks. Tag @SubstackTeam, and your clip could be featured this month on our Notes account.

In the past three months, the Substack app has driven nearly half a million paid subscriptions and more than 32 million free subscriptions to writers and creators. Most of these connections come from the feed, which anchors the app and has become the heartbeat of discovery on Substack. There’s a lot of curiosity about why Substack built the feed and how exactly it’s designed. Members of the Substack team recently spoke to a group of publishers in New York for a look behind the scenes. Here’s what we shared.

Why a feed?

Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie opened the night by answering the question directly. Writers and creators, he said, have always had to go somewhere online to promote their work and reach new audiences. The problem is that other platforms aren’t built for the success of these creators.

“Social networks have gone in a pretty weird direction. They’re playing a different kind of game, which is based on keeping you stuck in an endless scroll because that’s what their business needs. They need you to never leave the app. They need you to not go seek out a longform post or a deeper experience with a writer you trust. We do nothing to stop you from leaving Substack except show that we are providing enough value that you want to stay. We only make money when you make money, and you have the ability to leave anytime you want. We’re building this social network of discovery and discussion features to give writers and creators more power, and to give consumers the ability to vote for the culture that they want to thrive by voting with their dollars instead of just being turned into sort of mindless bots who scroll a feed.”

The feed’s algorithm is designed with the same principle that guides everything at Substack: helping audiences connect with work they genuinely love while giving publishers the means to build lasting, independent businesses.

Read more from Hamish about the feed: Substack is a social media app

Finding your audience through Notes

Notes, like any gathering place on the internet, attracts all kinds of characters: the memelords, the cat posters, the photo-gallery-loving members of the Tumblr diaspora. There’s no single recipe for success.

A field guide to Notes posters

But there is one practical throughline: the feed is designed to help you reach beyond your existing audience and point new people to your work.

At the event in New York, members of the team acknowledged that most creatives want to focus on their work, not marketing it. But using Notes to share your value proposition—who you are, what you do, and why someone might care—can help the right audience find you.

often posts notes that very explicitly share who she is and why she is on Substack. This note drove 32,535 new subscribers and a $4,546 revenue increase.

posted a set of illustrations with a crisp explanation of what her newsletter delivers. From this note alone, she picked up nearly 4,000 new subscribers.

Food creator posted a short cooking video that organically communicated her value proposition: subscribers get access to her recipes. This specific note brought in 437 new subscribers and $480 in revenue.

Fashion writer has seen roughly 30% of her total subscribers come directly from her notes. We took a closer look at what is driving this growth from the feed.

For Viv, it’s clear that steady, consistent posting has grown her audience even more than occasional virality. She often posts notes teasing ideas, asking for input, and pointing back to longform posts when they publish.

Viv has a strong brand and visual identity associated with her Substack, but many, if not most, of her most successful notes are low-key, casual, and observational.

Just as important, she’s not afraid to highlight others engaging with or celebrating her work. She also does the same for others.

We’ve found that signal-boosting other publishers and joining the wider conversation are both linked to noticeable growth. Restacking and replying to people you genuinely admire—and sharing when they do the same for you—isn’t just good community behavior, it’s one of the most effective ways to grow.

And if you already have audiences elsewhere, sharing your notes off-platform can build on that momentum. Publishers like , who shares notes to LinkedIn, and , who turns notes into carousel posts on Instagram, use other networks to spark curiosity that brings new subscribers to Substack.

Our top recommendations

Here are our key takeaways to help publishers grow from Notes:

• Reach beyond your existing audience. Each note is a chance to introduce your work to someone discovering you for the first time.

• Publish consistently. Showing up on a regular basis keeps your work visible and helps new audiences recognize your voice over time.

• Be clear about your value. Make it easy for people to understand who you are and what they’ll get by subscribing.

• Engage. Reply, restack, and endorse. Notes work best as a conversation.

• Cross-post with intention. Share your notes to other platforms to bring people back to Substack.

Demystifying the feed: Q&A with Substack’s head of machine learning

The home feed is designed to connect Substack users with work they’ll love while helping publishers build their businesses. But what does that actually mean in ones and zeroes? We spoke with Mike Cohen, Substack’s head of machine learning, who has been involved since day one in shaping how the feed works. In a Q&A, Mike explained how the algorithm is built, what it’s optimized for, and how it continues to evolve as more publishers use Substack.

In very simple terms, how is our feed designed?

We take a look at who you are as an individual opening the Substack app, where you are in the world, what language you speak, what things you’re subscribed to, who you follow, and what interests you’ve specified, among other things. We try to turn that into a numerical representation so that we can compare it to things that you might want to load in your feed.

How is that different from other platforms?

[Other social feeds] are largely based around time spent. You scroll the feed, and the more time you spend, the more ads you see. Their objective is to decide what ads you’ll click and show them at the right time so you do. Then they hope you pay for whatever you clicked on.

For us, it’s basically the opposite. We don’t care if you are someone who only wants to do longform. If you’re interested in reading, that’s fantastic. If you like short-form text, that’s great too. We’ll keep showing you things you want to see and engage with, and if not, we’ll try something else. If you love video, we’ll show you more of that. Ultimately, there’s no prior belief about what’s good. It’s about what’s best for you, as long as you’re finding things you engage with and eventually subscribe and pay for.

How do you balance helping creators grow without optimizing for virality?

It ultimately boils down to what the objective function of our feed is. The goal is to get people to discover, subscribe, and ideally pay. That’s how we built the feed and how we continue to iterate to make sure that we’re driving subscriptions up.

Tonight we saw some really good examples of writers extracting quotes from other things they’ve enjoyed or restacking. Those actions are great because they all happen on the Substack platform, which means we can understand the full life cycle of behavior and help intersect audiences. What we start with is an understanding of a user, who they follow and subscribe to. If we see overlaps between audiences of different publications, that becomes a virtuous cycle that feeds back into what other people who are similar might enjoy.

Are there any misconceptions about algorithmic feeds that you’d like to clear up?

The word “algorithm” went south at some point, and I get it. It’s a bit of a bummer, because not all algorithms are intentionally bad. The idea behind it is good. We want to pair you with stuff that you like, and that doesn’t seem too bad. What can be bad is what you’re optimizing for. We’re optimizing for sign-ups and subscriptions. If you think that’s bad, then yes, that algorithm is bad. But if you don’t think that’s bad, then it can be good.

You’ve talked about making sure that the feed surfaces things people will find interesting. How do you ensure that people aren’t getting boxed in and only seeing a very specific kind of work?

That’s a challenge we always have to be working on and checking. Every time we make a change or run an experiment, it’s a risk. We always have metrics we’re trying to improve and guardrail metrics to make sure we’re not regressing on things we care about. Breadth of content is something we check to make sure we’re not pigeonholing people forever.

We’ve made changes in the last couple of months to the core retrieval step of the algorithm to make sure that where you are in your reading or feed journey isn’t stagnant. If you’re on a poetry streak, we’ll keep giving you that, but not forever. We want to understand where you are in your flow. We’re trying to make the feed more dynamic and more alive.

Where do you see the feed going in the next year or two?

We’re always trying new things, improving the core algorithms, and running experiments to understand behavior changes when we tweak something. We’ve improved the core retrieval, what content surfaces for you, and we’ll keep iterating to make sure what you’re seeing is the most relevant thing at all times. Basically, we’ll keep hammering until it’s perfect, [though that’s] not possible!

Interview edited for length and clarity.

One last note: Post to the feed! You never know who you might find.

Around the world, we’re seeing an increase in laws aimed at reducing harm from online speech by requiring platforms to block, label, or collect identification before people can view certain content.

Substack cautions against regulatory measures like these, including the U.K.’s Online Safety Act. Though they are often well-intentioned, these laws are not necessarily effective at achieving their stated aims, and they come with real costs to free expression. They introduce friction, forcing an identification step before people can read on the internet. They compel platforms to put a thumb on the scale of what people can see, which can create distortion and self-censorship among those trying to express themselves. They also place significant power in the hands of regulators and political leaders who help determine what speech is allowed, even for adults, setting a precedent for future restrictions.

Despite this position, we respect the right of countries to set their own laws, and we comply with local regulations where required. Our goal is to make the experience as seamless as possible while preserving the maximum amount of freedom of expression within the boundaries of the law.

With that context, the U.K. is now requiring online platforms to label certain types of content and ask people in the country to verify their age before viewing it, with Australia expected to introduce similar requirements in mid-December. Only specific categories fall under these rules, and we’ve shared more details on our support page.

What this means for you and subscribers in the UK and Australia:

• Your connection with your subscribers won’t change, and the way you publish content for your audience remains the same. Your email list, publishing process, and relationship with your subscribers are not affected.

• If content is labeled under one of the categories covered by the law, anyone viewing it on the web or in the Substack app may see a notice requiring them to complete age verification before viewing it.

• Paid subscribers are already verified. Anyone with a credit card on file does not need to take extra steps.

• Many subscribers may already be verified through other platforms. Because age verification is now required across online services in these countries, some people will have completed the process and will not need to do it again on Substack.

Here is how we’re handling this:

• We aim to keep the experience on Substack as smooth as possible while preserving as much expressive freedom as the law allows.

• When a law requires us to restrict content or request documentation to access certain material, we will do so only in the countries that require it, and we will make the process and the reasoning as transparent as possible.

• We will continue refining our labeling system, and we welcome your feedback. More information on content labeling is available on our support page.

We’ll continue to share updates as these rules evolve. Thank you for everything you do to help make Substack the home for great culture.

Addendum: As of December 10, 2025, the Online Safety Act has required Substack to introduce age verification for users in Australia. View more information on Substack’s Australia-specific content policy here.

These days, culture happens in real time. Casual fans and the most devoted stans alike log on for album drops, playoff wins, chaotic award shows, and episode recaps. But on Substack, these moments also have the potential to go deeper. Using community features, Substack publishers can turn these flashpoints into further conversations and meaningful connection with their audiences.

Here’s our advice on how to engage with these collective moments as they happen.

Open your Chat

Chat is where you and your audience can gather in the moment, like a group text for cultural obsessives. Opening your Chat gives your audience a place to react together, swap theories, and feel part of your community.

One of the most effective uses of Chat is hosting real-time conversations around live events. When comedian dropped his special, he turned his Chat into a watch party. For the length of the special, subscribers riffed, reacted, and shared photos of their snack setups.

runs one of the internet’s most engaged Chats, a subscribers-only destination where every new episode of Survivor offers a live forum of theories, hot takes, and reactions.

Plan ahead for big moments. If you’re hosting a live conversation or watch party in Chat, let your audience know in advance—post on Notes, email your subscribers, or tease on socials so they know when and where to show up. If you don’t already paywall your whole chat, we recommend limiting these high-demand threads to paying subscribers to increase a sense of community and potential for conversion.

Read our full guide to Chat formats and best practices

Post on Notes

If Chat is your group chat, Notes is the town square. On the Notes feed, your observations and theories have the potential to travel far beyond your existing audience.

See how creators , , , , and use Notes to capture culture in motion.

Debrief on Live

Every big moment deserves a debrief. Live gives you the space to process and keep the conversation going. Think of it as the afterparty, where you and your audience can go deeper.

went live with days after Audrey’s debut album release. In their conversation, Audrey detailed her songwriting process and discussed the immediate reactions to the music.

Feed Me

Talking to Audrey Hobert about songwriting and pop stardom.

Listen now

8 months ago · 161 likes · 2 comments · Emily Sundberg and Audrey Hobert

The next time the culture gives us a collective moment, don’t just scroll past. Open your Chat, drop a Note, or go Live. You can capture the fun of the moment and create an expansive place for your community to gather, reflect, and connect.

Last week we partnered with of Shop Rat to kick off New York Fashion Week with a series of panel discussions, featuring writers and retailers, on the state of shopping in 2025. One panel seemed particularly valuable to the wider audience of writers and creators on Substack: “What Makes a Shopping Newsletter?”

Here, we’ve collected a few of the most salient clips and quotes from the panel of experts: of Magasin, of Consider Yourself Cultured, and of the invite-only newsletter Opulent Tips and the Washington Post’s new fashion-week Substack. It’s a glance at one of the fastest-growing categories on Substack, including reflections that are likely to resonate with creators in any category.

When you guys started your respective newsletters, what references were you looking at, if any?

Rachel: I was informed by two old-school magazine experiences that I’d had, one of which was working at Vanity Fair when Graydon [Carter] was there, and the gift guide was put together by this woman named Punch Hutton. The level of discernment that Punch had about, like, “We can’t just put any children’s Bentley in the Neiman Marcus catalog gift guide. It has to be the best children’s Bentley.” I was always really struck by that kind of discernment about these really strange and eccentric things.

And the other was working at GQ with Will Welch. Will would always say when we were looking at products, “Would you actually use this? Would you really wear this?” And that was really shocking to me, because having worked at several fashion magazines, that wasn’t really a question you asked. It was [more] sort of “What’s the advertiser need?”

Laura: I came to similar conclusions by seeing what not to do. I was at InStyle. I learned a million things from them, but it was at the peak of women’s mass media trying to reach as many people with affiliate content, and it really diluted the message, I think. So while it was an amazing learning experience, when I decided to go out on my own, I said I really need to dig a lot deeper and figure out what I want to say and what’s actually relevant, and what conversation really is going on with shoppers.

Jalil:  I used to work at Saks. There were certain aspects of my job where I didn’t really feel fulfilled in a creative sense. So I saw Substack as a way to get my thoughts about fashion and whatnot out there. And of course, Rachel’s newsletter is fantastic, and that was definitely an inspiration. Also, the writing of André Leon Talley.

What makes a good shopping story?

Rachel:  What at least your three newsletters [Laura, Jalil, and Emilia] and some of the others you mentioned have, is that they’re able to treat mood and ambience and these things that seem sort of ephemeral as news or information that’s actionable.

I remember the first time I opened your newsletter, Laura, I was like, this is like reading a newspaper. I mean, it’s organized, reported, and it’s so thorough. What propels something beyond a roundup of links is having that feeling of authority and storytelling.

Jalil:  Usually on Wednesdays [my posts] are kind of like a roundup situation, which is I think a common feature with a lot of Substacks. But the stories that I am most passionate about, the ones that really get me excited, are my lookbook stories, which really tap into the emotion and tap into the feelings that are abstract.

When I was at Saks, something that really frustrated me was, why are we not teaching our customers how to style their things in so many different ways?

People were buying a lot of stuff, but they were also returning it. So my thought was, okay, you want to curtail people returning their items, you should show them like 10 different ways of how to wear a flip-flop. So that’s what I think I really morphed my newsletter to in the end. I want to tap into the feelings that I’m feeling at the moment, what’s happening on the runway, but also, “These are 15 ways that you can wear a flip-flop and not feel lost.”

Laura: Whenever I see a shopping story and think, “I wish I wrote that,” it’s because the writer found something happening in the ether and has been able to articulate it just in time. You know? It’s just seeing it in that moment and calling it out. I’m always so mad whenever someone else gets it.

I think it’s about tapping into something that maybe everyone’s feeling or sensing or wondering. And it can be down to a super-specific product, or nebulous, or a brand, but it’s fun to see those things that unite us all in the subconscious.

Emilia:  Totally. And I think something that I really love about Substack, too, is that I’m not seeing the stories that are like “everyone on TikTok is wearing x, y, and z.” I was so sick of writing those stories, because I felt like I didn’t believe what I was saying and I didn’t see these trends in real life.

How have shopping newsletters shaped consumer habits in the past five years?

Laura: One thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of [fashion newsletters] are so deeply linked to the affiliate world and the ShopMy of it all. And obviously that’s a huge part of how I make my living, so I am always going to stand by that, because I still think you can make great content and have [affiliate links] be part of it. But I think that the fashion newsletter boom, for those with less journalistic integrity maybe, created a lot of brands. And so it’s kind of been a kingmaker, for better or worse. It’s just something to call out, I think.

Emilia: Yeah. I mean, this is not a bad thing—I wore them the other day—but like the “newsletter pants.”

Jalil: Certain brands have really benefited from the exposure on Substack.

Emilia:  Smaller brands too, which is really cool to see. And something that I’ve enjoyed, too, is getting to know these people behind these brands a bit more. Something that I’ve learned is that bigger publications can cover these bigger brands, and we can cover the small [brands]—like, there’s enough for everybody to go around. It’s not one or the other.

How do you decide what goes in a newsletter?

Jalil: For my send-out that is more link-focused, I have a running note of things I want to talk about. And then when it comes to my send-outs that are more lookbooks, I pre-style everything. So everything that I shoot will make it into the newsletter. And I have a rack of clothes dedicated to styling that, so if you’re on the rack, then you’ll be in the newsletter.

Laura:  I publish multiple times a week, so there’s room for lots of stuff. When I do a news send, I wait until right before I’m actually going to publish it, basically, to write everything, so that it feels timely. And I go through my infinite list of things that are happening, have launched, or sales that are going on, and just see what feels right. So the decision-making doesn’t take any time at all.

Rachel: It has to be something that I would buy and that I just don’t have the money to buy at the moment. And then sometimes I think, “Who’s someone who doesn’t really like me?” and if they were opening this, would they be like, “Ugh. I hate to admit it, but she kind of knows her stuff.”

How has Substack changed Fashion Week?

Rachel:  I like that now there are more people from backgrounds that aren’t necessarily legacy media coming to Fashion Week, and that there are events like this that become a part of Fashion Week.

 A year ago, I wrote a piece where I talked to maybe all three of you about how this was just beginning, and that was only a year ago. So think of what’s going to happen next. I think it’s exciting.

Emilia:  It’s amazing. I reread that article this morning, and I couldn’t believe that that was just last year. The article was like, “Substackers are at Fashion Week, they’re front-row!” Also, like, “Where do we put them?” Which I thought was a really funny question. It’s like, “Are they influencers? Are they writers?”

Do you think the Substack fashion bubble will pop, or is there space for more writers?

Jalil: There are so many updates happening to Substack itself. Like, you can have a podcast, there’s Notes, there’s a little bit of everything on there. I think the different points that are coming on the platform, maybe using it in different ways, will give rise to fresh ideas, [new] takes.

Rachel:  If you look at 10 or 12 years ago, there were all of these fashion bloggers, including a woman on this stage who might be me. There was this kind of [feeling] like, “Oh my god, is legacy media going to be able to compete with these bloggers?” And basically what happened is legacy media just took a bunch of lessons from those people, and then the survivors became influencers. And there hasn’t been fashion blogging in the way that there was for a long time.

And now I think what we’re seeing happen with Substack—and I would also extend this to commentary on Instagram and TikTok—is that you have this new generation of voices again who are making legacy media look a little bit behind the ball.

What’s interesting is that from a purely pragmatic perspective, it’s much more complicated to make money from selling things for another company versus from selling them on your own Substack. If you’re rounding up links for InStyle or for Harper’s Bazaar, you’re not getting that affiliate revenue the magazine is. So I think that’s something that is going to maintain the independence of a lot of these voices.

Emilia: Totally. I always say: if you’re thinking about it, do it. If you’re interested, then it’s still going, and you should do it.

Interviews were edited for length and clarity.

Today we’re launching two updates designed to help you understand your audience better and reach more people: a new growth chart that shows you exactly where your subscribers are coming from, and new social sharing assets that make it easier than ever to promote your work across platforms.

A clearer view of growth

The new growth chart now lives in a dedicated Growth Sources tab in your dashboard, giving you the clearest view yet of how your audience is finding and subscribing to your publication. Instead of a static snapshot, you’ll see a timeline that shows when growth happens and what’s driving it.

What you’ll see:

• Timeline of growth: Track spikes in revenue, subscribers, and traffic over time. Markers along the bottom let you correlate audience activity to the posts you publish.

• Granular source breakdowns: See which specific platforms are responsible for your growth. This includes both Substack sources like Notes and Recommendations and links from other Substacks (Trackbacks), as well as external platforms like Instagram and Google search.

Behind-the-scenes improvements: We’ve made your stats more accurate and consistent across your dashboard, emails, and CRM. You may notice some numbers being distributed differently across sources, but your revenue and subscriber counts are completely unchanged. You’re now seeing a more accurate picture of where your growth comes from.

As part of our continued efforts to improve your dashboard, we’ve updated the Home tab to highlight essential metrics like revenue, subscriber count, and inbound traffic. All your other stats are still available in the Stats tab.

Learn more: A guide to Substack metrics

New tools to accelerate growth

We're also making it easier to reach new subscribers. Now after you publish, you’ll receive ready-to-share social assets for Instagram Stories, Facebook, and more.

, author of , has been using the new sharing assets to let his followers on other platforms know when he publishes on Substack:

“As a newer creator, having a seamless way to share my Substack updates to my other communities is a game changer!”

Try them today

Open your dashboard to explore the new growth chart, and promote your next post with the new social sharing assets. We can’t wait to see what you do with them.

The Substack app drives more than 30% of all paid subscriptions, making it a major source of discovery and discussion. Until now, however, it hasn’t always been possible to upgrade to a paid subscription directly in the app.

That’s changing. Apple now allows Substack to include external links for paid subscriptions in the iOS app in the U.S., while also requiring that all publications offer in-app purchase (IAP) as an option.

For users in the U.S., this is what the subscribe screen in the app now looks like:

More than 30,000 Substack publications already have IAP enabled, and early tests suggest that the additional options help bring in more paid subscribers.

has seen a jump in paid sign-ups since her IAP launched:

“With the Substack iOS app, subscribing to now happens in just a few taps—without leaving the app. Whether readers pay via the web link or Apple’s in-app purchase, it’s been a huge boost for growth by making it easier than ever for devoted readers to become paid subscribers in seconds.”

About Apple’s fees

Subscriptions from outside the app and via the app’s external link flow are billed as before. For IAP subscriptions, Apple collects a percentage of the payment. To protect your earnings, Substack automatically sets your iOS app price higher so you take home approximately the same amount as a web-based subscription. By default this adjustment is on, but you can turn it off in your settings if you prefer. We’ve also built migration tools so you can export those subscriber relationships, if needed.

What’s next

In-app purchase is now fully enabled for all paid publications in the Substack iOS app, and the improved subscribe flows are already live in the app. No action is required unless you want to adjust prices via your publication settings.

For more details, check out the FAQ. And if you have any questions or feedback, leave a comment below or contact Support.

Thank you for publishing on Substack and for being a valuable contributor to a new economic engine for culture.

The Substack app drives more than 30% of all paid subscriptions, making it a major source of discovery and discussion. Until now, however, it hasn’t always been possible to upgrade to a paid subscription directly in the app.

That’s changing. Apple now allows Substack to include external links for paid subscriptions in the iOS app in the U.S., while also requiring that all publications offer in-app purchase (IAP) as an option.

Subscriptions purchased via Apple’s IAP have different fees, payout timing, and billing controls compared with web-based subscriptions. This FAQ explains those differences and the tools Substack has built to help you protect your revenue, maintain your subscriber relationships, and stay in control.

Basics

What is IAP?

In-app purchase (IAP) is Apple’s required payment system for buying digital content inside iOS apps. Apple has long required that any app selling paid content must offer IAP, which includes a 15% to 30% commission: 30% during the first year of a subscription, dropping to 15% starting in the second year of continuous billing.

Will this affect all my payments or just app subscriptions?

Only new subscriptions purchased in the iOS app via Apple’s IAP are affected.

• Web-based checkout in the app (shown to U.S. subscribers) is unaffected and works like all other web subscriptions.

• Subscriptions purchased on desktop, mobile web, or via email links are also unaffected.

Can I opt out of IAP altogether?

No. To comply with Apple’s App Store rules, IAP will be enabled for all paid publications in the iOS app.

Why do U.S. subscribers see both web checkout and IAP, but international subscribers only see IAP?

Due to a recent U.S. court ruling (Epic Games v. Apple), apps in the U.S. can display a link to an external web-based payment option alongside IAP. Apple does not allow this outside the U.S., so international subscribers only see IAP.

Apple does have an alternative payment program in the EU/U.K., but it comes with additional fees and complex requirements. We’re evaluating whether it would meaningfully benefit publishers, and will update you if we decide to support it in the future.

For users in the U.S., this is what the subscribe screen in the app now looks like:

Is in-app purchase (IAP) available everywhere?

In-app purchases (IAP) in the Substack iOS app are currently available for publications whose Stripe accounts are based in the following countries:

• United States

• United Kingdom

• Canada

• Most of the European Union

We’re working to expand this to all Stripe-supported regions by mid-2026, so more publications can accept paid subscriptions directly in the iOS app.

In the meantime, subscribers everywhere can still pay via web or mobile checkout—these payment flows are unchanged.

What about Android users?

This change only affects the iOS app. Android users cannot currently purchase subscriptions in the app.

Pricing and controls

How will my prices be set for Apple’s IAP option?

To protect your earnings, Substack will automatically set your price in the iOS app higher for subscriptions purchased through Apple’s in-app purchase (IAP) system. This increase offsets Apple’s fee, so you receive approximately the same payout you would for a web-based subscription.

What happens to my IAP price if I change my web subscription price?

If you have automatic price adjustment turned on, your Apple in-app purchase (IAP) price will automatically recalculate whenever you change your web subscription price. This ensures that the IAP price continues to offset Apple’s fee so you receive approximately the same net earnings from both payment flows.

How do I turn off the automatic price adjustment?

This feature is optional. You can disable it anytime in your billing settings under in-app pricing options.

What happens if I turn off the automatic price adjustment for Apple’s IAP?

If you disable automatic price adjustment in your settings, your Apple IAP price will approximately match your web price going forward, so you will earn less after Apple’s fees.

New IAP subscribers will see this updated price. Existing IAP subscribers will keep the price they originally paid through Apple unless they cancel and resubscribe.

Can I offer discounts or promotions through IAP?

No. Apple does not support discount codes, founding subscriptions, or custom promotions for IAP. These features remain available via web-based subscriptions.

Payouts and fees

How long does it take to get paid for IAP subscriptions?

Apple pays Substack monthly, typically up to 45 days after the end of the month. This means that for all IAP subscriptions purchased in January, you can expect to see earnings in your Stripe account by mid-March. Substack will always deposit your earnings as soon as we receive them from Apple.

Web-based subscriptions (including U.S. web checkout in the app) are paid out on our normal schedule.

Does Substack keep a larger share of IAP payments?

No. Substack will continue to take a 10% fee based on your original web price.

Our share does not increase with the adjusted pricing to account for Apple’s fees, and we’re not benefiting from Apple’s cut.

How are refunds handled for subscriptions purchased in the iOS app?

It depends on the payment method:

• In-app purchase (IAP): Refunds are handled by Apple. Subscribers can request a refund directly through the App Store.

• Web checkout (U.S. web payment link in the app): Refunds are processed through Stripe and can be managed from your Substack dashboard.

What currencies does Apple support for IAP?

Apple supports in-app purchases in all currencies available in the App Store for the subscriber’s country. Pricing is automatically converted from your set IAP price using Apple’s currency conversion rates. You cannot set different IAP prices by currency; adjustments must be made to your base price, which Apple then converts for all supported markets.

Data and subscriber relationships

Will I still get the email addresses of IAP subscribers?

Yes. You’ll receive the subscriber’s email address regardless of whether they paid via the web-based flow or IAP.

Will I have full billing info for IAP subscribers?

No. Apple handles IAP billing, so details like payment method aren’t shared. For web-based subscriptions (including U.S. web checkout in the app), you retain full billing info.

What happens if I leave Substack?

For IAP subscribers, Apple does not transfer billing relationships between platforms. You will still have access to their email addresses, so you can reach out and invite them to re-subscribe elsewhere.

We’ve also built a process to make this outreach easier for creators who decide to move their business off Substack. Our support team can work with you directly to guide you through your options.

Web-based subscriptions (including those from U.S. web checkout in the app) transfer normally with full billing information.

Why this change is happening

Why is Substack adding IAP now?

Apple requires it for any app selling digital content. We previously offered IAP as an opt-in feature, but Apple is now enforcing full compliance, so we must make IAP available for all paid publications.

How is this different from other platforms?

The underlying Apple rules are the same, but our timing works to your advantage. Thanks to a recent court ruling, U.S. subscribers will still see web-based checkout as the default. Many other platforms were required to implement IAP before this option existed, giving their users no alternative to Apple’s in-app payment flow.

Will this hurt my growth?

No, we expect it to help by making it faster and easier for subscribers to pay without leaving the app. In-app payments remove extra steps, potentially leading to more conversions, especially from casual readers or those on mobile.

If you have any questions or feedback, leave a comment below or contact Support.

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