Alternatives to Substack
Publish a paid newsletter with the Substack social layer.
- What is Substack?
- Substack is a publishing platform for email newsletters, with built-in subscription billing and a social discovery layer.
- What does it do?
- Writers compose posts in a browser editor and send them by email while publishing them as web pages. It handles the subscriber list, paid subscriptions, comments, podcasts, and discovery through its app and recommendations.
- Who is it for?
- Individual writers and small publications that want to start charging for a newsletter without setting up any infrastructure. Less suited to teams that need to own their list and control the site.
- What are the alternatives to Substack?
- Ghost is the self-hostable publishing alternative, Beehiiv leans on growth and ad tooling, Buttondown is deliberately minimal, and Mataroa is a bare-bones blog-first option.
Pricing
10% of paid subscriptions
Free to publish; Substack keeps 10% of paid revenue
Freemium
About
Founded 2017
San Francisco, USA
Founders
The people behind Substack.
About Substack
Substack made newsletter publishing one-click and kept it that way, which is both its strength and the trap. The platform takes 10% of every paid subscription on top of Stripe's processing fees — sustainable for hobbyists, expensive past $50k ARR. The Notes feed has pulled Substack into competing with Twitter/X for writer attention, which has changed the founder positioning materially. Best read as a hosted publishing platform with built-in distribution; worst read as an smaller-friendly business.
✓Best for
- Writers starting cold who want network-effect discovery built in
- Free newsletters that may eventually go paid — the migration is one click
- Anyone who wants zero infrastructure and accepts the platform tax
Top alternatives
Smaller, founder-led tools that quietly compete with Substack.
Open-source publishing and newsletters.
Independent, non-profit alternative — own your domain, list, and content.
email newsletter tool.
Markdown-first newsletters, no algorithm, no platform lock-in.
Newsletter platform for growing operators.
Bigger now, but a more flexible, monetisation-focused alternative to Substack.
Bare blogging and newsletters.
Community-supported, ad-free, no tracking writing space.