Substack pros and cons – what you need to know before you go all in

I recently got a great question from my newsletter subscriber Jill – should she move her business newsletter to Substack or should she stick with Kit* for her email marketing?

Lest you think I’m a Luddite, I think Substack can be a simple, easy-to use tool to share your content. I’ve seen it work well for folks in the political, science, health and wellness, personal development, author and recovery spaces – especially if they’ve got a pre-built audience or have high visibility friends who share their work.

I’m also the kind of person who uses different tools for different purposes (and I rarely trust tools that say they can “do it all” because they rarely do everything great).

Substack can be a great tool for visibility and driving awareness – as long as you’re informed of the pros and cons.

Substack Pros and Cons Quicklinks

• What I like about Substack
• Should you use Substack for your business email marketing?
• Here’s what makes me hesitant about going all in on Substack
• Additional considerations if you’re using Substack
• Best practices when using Substack
• Substack TD:LR

Please note that I am an affiliate for resources noted with an asterisk. As an affiliate, I may earn a referral fee if you purchase these products based on my recommendations. I only recommend those services that I actually use in my own business.

Here’s what I like about Substack

• It’s a simple way for folks who write to share their work (and to potentially get paid).​
• Your content gets delivered directly into your subscriber’s inboxes – or they can view (and comment on) your content on the substack site.
• It’s easy and free to use (unless you’re charging for subscriptions). It’s low-fi with very minimal tech. You don’t even need a website. If you just want to get your journal or blog out there – and have been frustrated by all the tech that goes into running a website (and getting paid for your writing)) – this may be a great option for you.
• It’s easy for other Substack authors and readers to promote and share your writing.​
• Your writing can get indexed by the search engines (but you’ll want to make sure you’re leveraging Substack’s built-in SEO features).
• You can include audio and video files in your content and even get paid subscribers for your podcast (For traditional podcasts I recommend using a service like Libsyn for granular control – especially if you want to run dynamic ads or get advanced metrics.)
• Substack has an easy-to-use app that makes it easy to read content on the go.​
• There’s an energy right now reminiscent of the early 2010s blogosphere – people are more likely to comment on a Substack thread or notes than an insta post these days. With the low reach people are seeing on social media, it’s only natural to search for a place where folks can connect more deeply with your work.

Should you use Substack for your business email marketing?

This is a question I see a lot of small online entrepreneurs dealing with – should they move their email marketing list to Substack and away from their current conventional email marketing service (Mailchimp, Kit, Flodesk, Campaign Monitor, Active Campaign, Beehiiv or other service).

My short answer? No – Substack is not intended as an email marketing service. Substack even calls this out on their site stating: Substack is intended for editorial content, not conventional email marketing.”

Additional reasons why using Substack as your only email marketing tool may be limiting for your business:

• There’s no way to connect Substack to other services. Substack doesn’t have a public API and it’s not open source – meaning there’s no way for other apps / services to connect to it (so no option of using a tool like Zapier to auto-connect Substack to your other tools).
  Why would you need or want this feature? Say you want to add people to your email list via a DM automation flow on Instagram using the Manychat tool. You won’t be able to do this with Substack since it doesn’t “talk” to other software services. Maybe you wanted to add subscribers automatically to a course offering. You’ll have to manually do it (or find another workaround). This may not be an issue if you’re talking about a few people, but it becomes a huge pain if you’ve got hundreds or thousands of subscribers / students. This fact alone means most of my techy friends won’t use it to replace their current email marketing business tool.​
• There’s minimal signup and segmentation options. Want to create unique signup forms and lead magnets for different posts and landing pages? These are common lead gen tools for online businesses – and you can’t do it on Substack.​
• There’s minimal automation options. You can send a welcome sequence and that’s about it. Want to send a unique automated sequence to a special segment or tagged part of your audience? Want to create a link trigger that easily allows readers to opt-in (or out) of an offer or get on a waitlist? Nope, can’t do it. Not a big deal if you’re writing full length essays intended for the same audience all the time – but at some point, you may want these capabilities.​
• The only way to monetize is through paid subscriptions. Want to sell downloads, courses or other digital products? You’ll have to host and deliver your products on another platform – which means maintaining a separate list for buyers (not to mention the ability to send receipts, do password resets, and provide logins to access your products).

Here’s what makes me hesitant about going all in on Substack

• Substack’s terms of use states they can remove content at any time and without notice – and they can delete your account. This means you’d also lose access to your list. 
• Substack takes a hefty 10% plus an additional Stripe fees of 2.9% plus .30 per transaction for paid subscriptions.  By contrast, if you use the email marketing service Kit* to create a premium paid newsletter, you’ll only pay 3.5% plus .30 per transaction (this includes the Stripe fees). Plus on Substack you can’t sell one-off products, pay what-you-want or simple events like you can with Kit’s Commerce features.

Additional considerations if you’re using Substack:

• Per their content guidelines, Substack does not “permit publications whose primary purpose is to advertise external products or services, drive traffic to third party sites, distribute offers and promotions, enhance search engine optimization, or similar activities. Brands and commercial organizations publishing on Substack may be subject to additional verification.”

  While Substack does allow sponsored ads and sponsored content, you should be super mindful of their terms of use. And you’re doing any kind of affiliate marketing, this probably isn’t the place for you. 

  I’d also be wary of heavily promoting your own products and services as it could be a potential violation of their terms – that said: I’ve seen many folks do it with no issues – yet.
  

• If you want to includes someone else’s content (like artwork, photos or music), you MUST get explicit permission from the owner otherwise you could be in violation of Substack’s terms of use (that’s a good way to get booted off the system!)
• Finally, to improve your Substack SEO, read this guide written by the Substack team.

Best practices when using Substack

• Export your data on a regular basis. I recommend exporting your data (this includes your content and subscriber list) no matter what publishing platform you’re using – you never know when something might happen. To export your subscribers, go to Settings > Import/Export and click export your data. That way you can always import your list and content into another service should you lose your account.
• Get connected with others who will share your work. I’ve always found the best way to build up an audience it to engage with others. Comment and share other’s work. Get connected to other writers. Do guest posting for folks who have similar, relevant audiences. I’ve seen the biggest growth happen for folks when other big “names” feature or share other Substack authors.
• Focus on outreach and audience growth to maintain revenue goals. Some people can making a viable living from subscriptions. However, it’s important to note that a realistic number of paying subscribers is 2-5% of your audience (as always, it’s a numbers game). So if you have 100 readers, you can likely expect 2-5 to become paying readers. And there’s no guarantee that they’ll keep paying forever – just like with any membership, attrition and churn is totally normal. Keep this in mind when pricing out your subscription levels and consider emphasizing quarterly or annual subscriptions.

Substack TL:DR

For the TL:DR – Substack should be viewed primarily as a publishing tool, not an email marketing tool.

Before you sign up, consider:

1. Can Substack do everything I need it to?
2. How will Substack support my business endeavors?
3. Am I aware of Substack’s terms of service and content guidelines around marketing and promotions?
4. What happens if I lose my Substack account?
5. What else do I need my email list to do (and what does it need to connect to?)

While Substack is an easy-to-use tool for writing, discovery and connection, it does not replace a traditional email marketing system for most businesses. Limitations and restrictions may prevent you from accomplishing your specific business goals. If you want to use it for your business, consider keeping two email lists – one on Substack where you can communicate with your content subscribers and one on another platform where you have more flexibility and control to communicate with buyers, students and clients.

If you need a more robust email marketing solution that’s easy to use and reasonably priced, the Kit* Creator Plan is my preferred recommendation. Kit even has a free plan for up to 10,000 subscribers.

Read more about why I use and recommend Kit in this extensive blog post detailing Kit’s features.

Heads up – I’m a long-time happy user and affiliate for Kit*. As an affiliate, I will earn a referral fee if you purchase it through my link. This has no extra cost for you. I only recommend those services that I actually use in my own business.