Each section will appear in a tab at the top of your publication’s homepage. Additionally, your subscribers can opt into or out of receiving emails for each section, on their account page.

If you’re looking for a tool to organize your posts without creating separate mailing lists, learn more about Tags.

• Support article on using Sections: How can I create multiple newsletters or podcasts under one publication?

• Examples of how writers are using sections

• Mastering post organization with tags

With the tags feature, you can add a label to any post and create a page for a specific tag. This page can be added to your publication's navigation bar and/or shared with your readers.

How to create a tag

You can create a tag in your publication's Settings page or in your draft post's settings.

Publication's Settings: In the Website section, scroll to Tags and select "+ New tag". After saving your new tag, you'll be able to easily select it from a list of choices when you're adding a tag to a new draft post.

Draft Settings: On a draft post, select either the Settings icon (Post settings) or when finished writing, select Continue (Publish settings). In the "Add tags" section, enter a keyword and select enter. A tag will automatically be generated.

How to manage tags

Tags can be managed on your publication's Settings page in the Website section. 

• To edit the name of a tag or slug URL, select "Edit".

• To delete a tag, select "Delete"

• To display a tag page on your publication, select "Add to navigation bar".

• To share a tag page with readers, select the underlined URL and you'll be directed to a new page that has a URL like this: https://subdomain.substack.com/t/tagname

Note: If you delete a tag, it will automatically be removed from every post that you've added that tag to. Additionally, if you've added that tag page to your navigation bar, that will be removed also.

How to display tagged content

In the Tags section on your publication's Settings page, click on the three dot menu next to a tag and select "Add to navigation bar". You can manage the navigation bar in the Navigation section. Click on the three dots menu next to the page link to edit the tag title/URL or remove it from the navigation bar.

How do I display tagged posts on my publication's homepage?

On the Themes editor, select "Groups (sections or tags)" in the Posts drop-down menu.

Select which tag(s) you'd like to surface on your homepage. Below the fold, the specific tag(s) will appear alongside recent posts.

The biggest hack on growing your list from zero on Substack, is to leverage the platform as much as possible. The Substack network is now responsible for a substantial share of new free and paid signups writers get. But you might not be leveraging all its features. Here’s a rundown of some tools Substack provides to help you grow your free and paid audience, and the best practices we recommend for using them.

Get inspired by how other writers did it:

• Starting from scratch: advice on building a career and finding an audience on Substack

• Dive into Writer Stories from On Substack

Get to know other Substack writers

Find other Substacks that cover the same themes and topics as your publication, and subscribe to them. Provide thoughtful replies in the comments of their posts. When you comment on Substack, your username and the name of your publication show up beside your comment, and people can subscribe from there in one click.

Want to find some other Substacks in your topic area? Browse our Leaderboards, or use the search at the top-right of the Explore page to search for some relevant terms. 

Read tips from Substack’s Writer Development experts:

• Strategy stuff we’re saying right now

Turn on Recommendations

For the Substacks you enjoy most, you can add them as Recommendations so they appear in the sidebar of your own Substack, and appear as suggestions after people sign up for your Substack. This cross-promotion feature provides a way for writers to promote and discover each other on their own terms.

Recommendations helps you network with the other writers as you grow on the platform. When other publishers get new subscribers from being recommended by you, they get notified, and may opt to subscribe to your publication or recommend you back.

More on recommendations and how writers are using them:

• Introducing recommendations: simple cross-promotion for writers

• Your favorite writer’s favorite writers: Our new recommendations feature

• How can I recommend other publications on Substack?

Download the Substack app, and join the conversation on Notes

You can download the Substack app from the Apple or Android app store, depending on your device. The app has a short-form posting feature called Notes. You’ll automatically see Notes from people whose Substacks you're subscribed to, people they recommend, and people they "restack" (share).

You can follow additional people and reply to their Notes. From there, they can opt to follow you back, and subscribe to your publication. Many starting-out writers get a lot of their first batch of subscribers from this type of fun networking on Notes. 

More on using Notes to grow your audience:

• A guide to growth and collaboration on Substack Notes

Use Direct Messages

You can send direct messages to other writers and readers on Substack. This highly-requested feature allows you to start private, one-to-one conversations with anyone in the Substack network. 

Direct messages live in the Chat tab on the Substack website and app, and appear alongside chats from your subscribed publications. You can start a DM from any writer or reader’s profile page, from the Chat tab, or by hitting “Share” on a post or a note. When you receive a DM, you’ll be notified in the app and by email. 

By default, you’ll only receive DMs from users you’re connected to. Other messages will go to a Requests folder for you to accept or reject. DMs make it easier to build relationships with other writers on Substack.

More on Direct Messages:

• Introducing direct messaging on Substack

• More on how Direct Messages work

Highlight and collaborate with other writers

Substack offers many ways to collaborate and interact with other writers. You can reach out to another writer to offer to write a guest post on their Substack, or invite them to write a guest post on yours. You can cross-post another writer’s post, sharing it with your audience along with your commentary.

You can embed other writers’ posts, or embed notes and chat threads, in your own posts. And you can mention other writers by tagging them in a post. Using the collaboration, sharing, and tagging features of Substack lets you leverage the broader Substack ecosystem, so new readers can discover your work on the platform.

More on collaboration on Substack:

• How Substack writers can collaborate to grow

• How can I add a guest author to a post?

• Introducing mentions and cross-posts

Dive into Substack Grow

For more tactics on how to grow your audience and help new readers discover you, check out Substack Grow. It's an online curriculum covering developing a strategy for your Substack, growing your readership, turning on a paywall, and more. Explore more on Substack Grow 

Tips and tricks on marketing and promotion tactics to grow your audience, from Substack Grow:

• Growing your free list

• Growing a paid readership

Customer support details such as a phone number, email address, and address may appear on subscriber receipts/invoices and card statements.

• You can hide the public support phone number on Stripe, but you can set up a Google Voice number for extra privacy. 

• You can also change your support email address to your Substack alias after completing Stripe onboarding.

• An address is mandatory, but you can set up a virtual mailbox for extra privacy.

To ensure your phone number stays private, go to Public details in your Stripe Settings. You can click here while logged in to Stripe: https://dashboard.stripe.com/settings/public

Click on the toggle next to "Support phone number." If you see a purple toggle, this indicates that the phone number in this section will be visible on receipts and invoices. A gray toggle indicates that the phone number will be hidden.

In the Public details section, you can also change the support email. We recommend using your Substack alias if you entered your personal email address during Stripe onboarding.

Your Substack alias is the email address from your Substack posts are sent from, in the format [subdomain]@substack.com.

Whatever their reasons, the reality is that many readers want to offer their support with a paid subscription, even if the writer doesn’t necessarily want to accept the money.

Turning on paid subscriptions and donating your proceeds to charity is a great way to have the best of both worlds — let your readers show their support for both you and a good cause.

You’re currently not able to donate your proceeds directly to a charity through Stripe, so writers manage the process of donating and handling tax documentation on their own. The examples below should provide helpful models for how and where writers frame this to their readers and the impact it can make.

Jon Haidt, After Babel

NYU Stern School of Business professor Jon Haidt outlines three major non-profits he supports on his About page and promises to show receipts for how he’s divided the money amongst each organization at the end of the year. This model has allowed him to keep his content free, but donate multiple thousands of dollars to these charities.

Margaret Atwood, In the Writing Burrow

The legendary author of The Handmaid’s Tale made an announcement post outlining her “to go paid or not to go paid” thought process before posing her solution: she would donate the proceeds to a small charity for a few months at a time. She followed up with a post shortly after announcing that she raised over $10K for The Peele Island Bird Observatory in less than a week.

José Andrés, Longer Tables

World famous chef José Andrés launched Longer Tables with the goal of sharing his favorite recipes and building a community of food lovers. In his first post, he announced that he would donate 100% of subscription revenue to his personal foundation, World Central Kitchen. Since 2023, he’s been allocating $10 from each subscription to WCK and donated over $20k last year.

Peter Singer, Bold Reasoning with Peter Singer

Known as the “world’s most influential living philosopher," Peter Singer has moved the global needle on extreme poverty, animal rights, bioethics, and more. Singer recently launched a Substack after retiring from his long-held role at Princeton and announced his intention to donate all Substack subscriptions to his charity, The Life You Can Save:

These writers are some of the biggest names on Substack, and they’re substantially moving the needle for their chosen nonprofits. Donating some or all of your revenue to a charity of your choice is a fantastic way to rally your readers behind a cause near and dear to you, which ultimately leads to a greater sense of community between writers and readers. Let readers support both you, and a great cause.

If you have more questions on how to turn on paid subscriptions, check out our step-by-step guide on how to set up payments.

To learn more about setting up Special Offers, check out our in-depth Support article: How do I offer a discount to my publication?

Ready to learn more?

For further strategy and marketing advice, check out our Going Paid Checklist.

To read inspirational interviews from writers who’ve achieved success on Substack, head to Writer Stories.

Haven’t started a Substack yet? Click the button below to take the first step on your independent publishing journey:

Start a Substack

Pledges allows your subscribers to pledge to become a paid subscriber if and when you turn on paid subscriptions.

If you started your Substack recently, pledges are turned on by default. If you started a while back, you may have to turn them on manually. Head to your publication's Settings page and scroll to the Payments section.

To turn on Pledges, click on the toggle next to Allow readers to pledge subscriptions.

You can control the pricing for monthly, yearly, and founding subscriptions. You can set them to whatever you want. The default pricing for pledges is $8/month and $80/year. The lower limit for pledge amounts is $5/month and $30/year, because those are the lower limits for Substack subscription prices. There is no upper limit.

What readers will see

Once you have pledges turned on, whenever new readers sign up for your publication via email, after they provide their email address they’re taken to a screen where they’re invited to make a pledge. If they'd like to continue without pledging, they can select "No pledge".

Subscribers must enter their payment information to complete their pledge, but there will be no immediate charge. If you turn on paid subscriptions, their pledges will turn into recurring paid subscriptions. (If you never turn on paid, they’re never charged.)

Subscribers who make pledges are invited to write a message about why they'd like to support your publication, which you can read.

How to view your pledges

When a subscriber pledges to pay for a subscription, you'll be notified by email.

To see a full list of your Pledges: from your Dashboard, in the navigation bar along the top, click on Stats, and then Pledges. Here, you'll see the number of pledges, potential annualized revenue from pledges, and any notes subscribers have sent.

How to promote Pledges

Pledges work on auto-pilot. Free subscribers who view your posts on the web while logged into their Substack account will see prompts to “Pledge your support” instead of "Subscribed" buttons. 

If you have Pledges turned on, a “Subscribe” button that you drop into a post turns into a “Pledge your support” button in an email to a reader who is signed up for your free list. Use the Preview feature in the editor to check out how it will look.

How to accept pledges

If your readers have given you pledges, you’ll see them on your dashboard under Pledged Annualized Revenue:

To accept pledges, simply click on Pledged Annualized Revenue, which brings you to your Stats page. From there, click on Pledges. Then click the button that says Accept Payments. Have your banking information handy.

Doing this will bring you through the flow to connect your publication to Stripe and set your payment tiers. You’ll be invited to input your banking information, then brought back to Substack to set your payment plans. (More information about payment plans: How do paid subscriptions on Substack work?)

When you set up payments and connect to Stripe, your pledges will automatically begin converting to paid subscriptions. It can take up to a few hours for the new paid subscriptions to appear on your Subscribers dashboard.

Readers who've pledged will automatically get an email notifying them that their pledge converted to a recurring paid subscription.

If you're enabling payments and setting a subscription plan price higher than the pledge plan amounts, we'll display the number of mismatched pledges and the pledge amount (example below).

If you toggle on the option Accept pledges at any price, your pledges will automatically convert to paid subscriptions at the price point pledged. Note that they’ll renew in future at the original price they pay.

If you toggle off the option Accept pledges at any price, the pledges will not convert; instead, the people who’ve given you a pledge will get an email inviting them to pay the higher price that you’ve set for paid subscriptions.

The benefit of using these buttons is that they transform dynamically based on the status of the reader who’s viewing them, without you having to actively do anything.

Readers who are not subscribed and view your posts on the web while logged into Substack will see the Subscribe button and a typeable field pre-filled with the email address attached to their Substack account, making it super-easy to sign up for your publication.

Readers who are not subscribed and view your posts on the web while not logged into Substack will see it as a typable field where they can put in their email address:

The Subscribe button will dynamically turn into an Upgrade to paid button if the reader looking at it already has a free subscription to your publication. Substack automatically recognizes that the reader is free-subscribed and shows the button as Upgrade to paid rather than as Subscribe, whether the reader is looking at it in email or on the web. 

Below is an example from Substack writer Anne Helen Petersen. Because I’m a subscriber to her publication, when I view her posts on Substack while logged in, the Subscribe button appears as Upgrade to Paid:

(You won’t see an Upgrade to paid button while looking at your own Subtack, because as the owner of the publication, you can't have a paid subscription. You're automatically considered by the Substack system as "lifetime paid" by default.)

If paid subscribers view the button, for them it appears as Subscribed with a checkmark:

On Substack, you can use the Subscribe now and Subscribe with caption buttons with confidence, knowing that they won’t be confusing for readers. The buttons are dynamic, and what a reader sees will depend on their status. So, they’ll see the right message based on whether they’re not yet signed up, a free subscriber, or a paying supporter of your work.

Christina not only works with some of the top writers on Substack, she also boasts a storied career of working closely with creative folks, helping them cultivate audiences and achieve commercial success.

She and I often chat and trade notes about strategy and tactics. I wanted to take some of those learnings out of our one-on-one conversations and capture them on video so that I could share them with you. Look out for a cameo appearance from George the cat! A few highlights:

On strategy:

Christina: You don't need to be locked in stone with your ideas. But you do need some kind of clear plan so that you can set expectations for your readers and subscribers and tell them: “here's what I'm going to be doing here, here's when you should expect it,” and stick to that schedule and be consistent.

Oftentimes when people just start and they're randomly writing and they don't have any real clear content strategy and plan, it can really not set them up to be successful.

On going paid:

Christina: I am pretty bullish on telling writers to go paid immediately. I love that we have the pledges option available now. That's a newer thing for us.

For my writers who are very reluctant and hesitant to go paid because they feel like there's going to be a bigger obligation to their readers, I like that we have this pledges option. And that's something you can turn on or off. And I tell people if you're not going to launch with paid turned on, launch with pledges turned on for sure.

On finding your voice:

Linda: It really resonates when you talk about being conversational, because sometimes the finance and business cohort of writers, because of the way they’ve been trained in the corporate world, they feel like they have to keep the reader at a remove: “I am an institution and I am broadcasting to you!”

But you and I know what works on Substack is very often to remind people: “I'm a real person—there's no corporate or advertising money behind this, it's just you and me.”

Christina: And I also think it's reminding them what's behind the paywall when they upgrade, but also just talking about what a difference it makes to yourself—being personal and saying “by paying, you're also enabling me to create this content, this is what I do for a living,” or however it fits into your life.

We sometimes call it the NPR approach, right? Like a pledge drive—where you're reminding people what they're doing for you when they upgrade.

On top tactics to boost growth:

Christina: I always start by saying recommendations, because that is a tool that we have, I think it came out almost a year ago now, that is just an incredible tool for growth for writers.

So, launch with recommendations turned on and recommend as many people as you can and you'll see that reciprocity.

Linda: For sure, I recommend all of those same things with using the actual features of Substack and just being being a human being and reaching out to people. Notes [short-form posting on the Substack app] does make it easier because you can socialize and discover new people who might have that audience overlap with you.

If you have a Substack, we hope you got a few nuggets from our conversation that you can try with your own publication. And if you don’t have a Substack yet, why not jump in and become part of the Substack writing community?

Getting started is easy

You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

For further guidance, here are step-by-step instruction on initial setup, including how to import any existing email list you may have, and how to make your first post: 
How to start a Substack in three easy steps

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

For example, Sarah Fay used a page to organize the chapters of a book she is publishing on Substack.

How to create a page

Go to your Settings page and scroll down to Pages, which is in the Website section.

Click where it says New page. You’ll be presented with an editing window. You can draft a page in the exact same way as you draft a post, including formatting and adding images.

Once you’re satisfied with your draft and ready to publish, click Continue in the top right corner, select whether the page should be accessible to everyone or only paid subscribers, and click Publish now.

The page is now published, but it isn’t visible to anybody, until you add it to your navigation bar.

Adding the page to your navigation bar

Go back to the Pages section of your Settings page. You will see the page you just created in your list of Pages. Click on the three dots beside the name of the post, and then select Add to navigation bar.

Your page will now appear in the navigation bar of your publication.

Notes

Notes is a space where writers can publish short-form posts and share ideas with each other and their readers. Through Notes, writers and readers can recommend posts, links, images, and quotes, leave comments, and more. If you have paid turned on, you can specify whether a note should be viewable by everybody, or only your paying audience.

Because notes don’t go out as an email, posting notes allows writers to post short-form content in between posts, and get in front of new audiences in the process. 

Posting a note is easy. In the Substack app, or on the web at substack.com while logged in, visit the Notes tab and click the “+” button or start writing at “What’s on your mind?”

Writers’ notes show up in the Notes tab in the app and on the web, and also on their Substack profile.

For more on Notes, check out our FAQ: Notes questions answered

How to embed a note in a Substack post

You can easily share any note in a Substack post as an embed. On desktop or in the app, within the Notes tab, click on the note, then copy and paste the link from your browser address bar into your Substack post. An embed preview will appear.

Example of an embedded note:

Chat

Notes is public and a way to interact with the greater Substack network and get your work and ideas in front of more readers. Chat, by contrast, is a tool to talk privately with your subscribers.

If you have paid turned on, you can specify whether a chat thread should be viewable by everybody, or only your paying audience.

When you post on Chat for the first time, it goes out as an email so your readers can be alerted that you’re using Chat. From then on, it’s up to you whether each individual chat thread gets sent as an email, via a toggle that appears every time you post a chat thread.

For more on Chat, check out our FAQ: How to get started in Chat

How to embed a chat in a Substack post

Once you’ve posted a chat thread, in addition to optionally sharing it as an email when you post it, you can also easily share any chat within in a Substack post as an embed.

On desktop: within the Chat tab, click on the three dot menu that appears when you hover your cursor over the chat, and select Copy Link. In the app: press on the the chat bubble. Then select Share thread, then Copy Link.

Paste that link into your Substack post. An embed preview will appear. Example of an embedded chat:

New to Substack? Getting started is easy

You can get started on Substack for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired subdomain. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

For further guidance, check out these step-by-step instructions: 
How to start a Substack in three easy steps

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

LinkedIn can be a useful surface for grabbing the attention of businesspeople and professionals. After all, for many LinkedIn users, it’s the only social media they look at. However, you never really own the relationship. As with all social media, on LinkedIn the platform stands between you and your followers, and algorithms determine whether they see your content—or miss it.

That’s why writers and creators of professional, business, and investing content are taking back control of how they reach their audience, by building on Substack. With Substack, you always own and control your list of email subscribers, and they see everything you publish—not just what an algo shows them. You also have the option to turn on paid subscriptions, and make money from your most dedicated readers.

How to bring your followers with you

To help you get started with building on Substack, here are a few best practices for inviting invite your LinkedIn followers to subscribe to your Substack.

Add a link to your Substack on your LinkedIn profile. Stating you have a newsletter and adding an emoji in your bio makes it extra clear for your followers. How to do it: While viewing your LinkedIn profile, click the pen icon to edit your profile; then under Contact Info, click Add Website, and add a link to your Substack.

For example, here’s how Michael Spencer, writer of the Substack AI Supremacy, added a link to his Substack on his LinkedIn profile:

Post your Substack posts on LinkedIn, along with a short blurb of introductory text to let readers know what they’re about and entice them to click through to read the whole thing. Melody Song, writer of the Substack Headlines, posts a link to her Substack posts with a few lines of introductory text. The social preview image automatically populates in the post.

Another example of posting a Substack post to LinkedIn, from Marc Rubinstein, writer of the Substack Net Interest:

Post a behind-the-scenes image highlighting a milestone for your Substack. Michael Kevin Spencer of AI Supremacy made a LinkedIn post of an image of his subscriber growth chart. He then replied to his own post with a link to his Substack so readers could check it out.

If you have a LinkedIn newsletter, post the summary version of your post on LinkedIn, and the full version on Substack. Rachel Botsman, author of the Substack Rethink with Rachel, starts her LinkedIn newsletter articles with a call-to-action for readers to head to her Substack for more:

At Substack, we don't think social media algorithms should decide who sees your work. Instead, we believe writers should be empowered to control the relationship with their readers. By shepherding your LinkedIn followers to join you on Substack, you’ll be able to build a deeper relationship with them, via community features like comments and Chat. Plus, you’ll have the option of building a stream of income by turning on subscriptions.

Getting started is easy

Haven’t launched your Substack yet? You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

To learn everything you need to know about crafting a great welcome email, read our complete guide: How to welcome your new readers

Below are a few more examples of terrific welcome emails from some of my favourite Substack writers, to provide inspiration as you draft your own.

Ethan Strauss, House of Strauss:

Melody Song, Headlines:

Joseph Politano, Apricitas:

Nick deWilde, The Jungle Gym:

Alexandra Allen, Wednesday Wonders:

Jeremy Caplan, Wonder Tools:

Getting started is easy

Haven’t launched your Substack yet? You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

That said, social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn are designed to keep users penned in. As a result, just tweeting or posting the link to your post might get it “deboosted” by the platform’s algo.

Luckily, there are a few simple tactics that are proven to help your posts be seen by more of your followers. Read on to learn them.

Promoting your Substack in your Twitter bio and pinned tweet

Highlighting your Substack on your Twitter profile makes it easy for your followers to click and subscribe. For example, Edwin Dorsey of The Bear Cave puts a link in both the “bio” and “website” fields of his Twitter profile, and uses his banner photo to feature “The Bear Cave Newsletter”:

Making your pinned tweet a link to your Substack is another tactic to draw attention to your publication. Here’s how Alpha Picks uses a pinned tweet with a Media Asset to make sure their Twitter followers know they have a Substack publication:

Creating eye-catching posts using Media Assets

When you make a post on Substack, you're automatically emailed "Media Assets", which are downloadable images that highlight text from your post with eye-catching colours.

When you want to publicize your Substack post on Twitter or LinkedIn, rather than tweeting or posting a link your Substack post, instead post a tweet or post in your own words, and add one of your Media Assets to it as the image. Do not include the link to your Substack.

Then, reply to your own tweet or post, with a link to your Substack post. This "mini thread" will be surfaced better than just tweeting or posting the link.

Here’s an example from writer Brian Lund of The Lund Loop, who used this tactic on Twitter:

Getting started is easy

Haven’t launched your Substack yet? You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

Substack’s Private mode lets you put your publication behind a permission wall. As the writer, you choose to approve or decline each subscription request.

To turn on Private mode: from your publication page, click on Dashboard in the top right-hand corner, then click Settings in the top navigation bar. Scroll down to “Private mode”:

Click on the toggle to the right and your publication will immediately become private.

Here’s what my Substack welcome page (what readers see the first time they load my Substack domain) looks like normally:

And, here’s what it looks like when set to Private mode. Readers cannot proceed to read any posts, unless they have been added to the subscriber list by me. All they can see is the cover page image, title, and one-line description.

As shown above, when your publication page is set to Private mode, your welcome page will include a box where people who would like to read it can enter their email address.

When a reader puts their email in this box to request access to your Substack, you'll receive an email notification letting you know.

To view and manage your requests: from your publication page, click on Dashboard in the top right-hand corner, then click Subscribers in the top navigation bar. You’ll see your subscriber requests, with buttons letting you either Approve or Delete:

If you click Approve on a request, the reader will be automatically subscribed and sent a Welcome email, and will then be able to access your Substack and read your posts. If you click Delete, the request will be deleted and they will not get access.

Getting started is easy

Haven’t launched your Substack yet? You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

So you’ve selected your subdomain and set up your Substack. Congratulations! If you want, you can go ahead and send out your first post right now.

But if you’d like to spruce things up a bit more before you unveil it to the world, there are a few extra steps you can take that will give your publication some professional polish to really make it shine.

And if you want to earn money from your writing, the instructions below will help you turn on paid subscriptions, and invite your most dedicated readers to support your work, from your very first post.

1) Customize your About page

Your About page should be a description of the publication and include details on what people will get for free, plus what additionally they'll get if they pay for it. From your Substack homepage, just click on “About” in the top navigation bar, then “Edit”:

A few examples of awesome About pages to serve as inspiration:

• Steady by Dan Rather: About page

• Popular Information by Judd Legum: About page

• The Audacity by Roxane Gay: About page

• Thinking About by Timothy Snyder: About page

• Persuasion by Yascha Mounk: About page

• Ironsides Macro by Barry Knapp: About page

2) Upload a logo and cover page image

To create a distinctive visual brand for your Substack, we recommend uploading a logo and cover page image. Instructions on how to do this:
Creating a visual identity for your Substack

3) Turn on paid subscriptions

If you want your Substack to generate subscription income for you, our data shows it’s optimal to have paid subscriptions turned on when you launch. This gets the message across to your readers that this is a serious project for you, not just a hobby.

A strategy that’s worked extremely well for many writers is to have paid subscriptions turned on when they launch, but to publish everything for free for the first while, so readers can get familiar with what you plan to do on your Substack.

(After you turn on paid, with each post you publish, you’ll have the option whether you want it to go to “Everybody”, or only “Paid”.)

For example, when he launched his Substack, political journalist Paul Wells wrote:

For now, and for an initial period whose length I’m still figuring out, everything I post here will be available for free, so you can get a sense of what I’m up to. Even after I go behind a subscription paywall, some of the content here will always be free.

But I will be encouraging everyone who is able to become a paid subscriber. This is not my hobby. It’s my new job. The more of you who contribute to its success, the more ambitious I can be. I want to post audio and video content and host live events, online and in person. I want to travel to where news is happening. I’d like to do as much here as I could working somewhere else. Ideally more. You can contribute directly to making that possible.

How to turn on paid subscriptions: from your publication homepage, click on the Dashboard button in the top right-hand corner, then click Settings in the top navigation bar.

Scroll down to the Payments section of the page, and click the blue “Connect with Stripe” button. Have your banking information handy when you do this.

This process only takes about five minutes. When you finish entering your banking information, you’ll be kicked back to the Substack homepage, and invited to type in what you want to charge for your Annual, Monthly, and (optional) Founding plans.

4) Import your email list

If you have an existing email list, here's how to import it using our easy self-serve process: How to import your mailing list

5) Draft your launch post

Your launch post is simply your first-ever post on your new Substack. If you upload an existing list to Substack, it’s the first email you ever send out to your list from Substack, and it will also post on your publication page. If you don’t have any email list, it will still post on your publication page.

To draft your first post, click the Dashboard button, then and click New Post to draft it. It’ll automatically save under “Drafts”. Not sure where to go? This video walks you through drafting your first post: How to make a post on Substack

Your launch post is a space to let readers know what you plan to do with your publication, why it’s important to you, and what they’ll get for supporting it. A few examples of terrific launch posts, to inspire you:

• Game File by Stephen Totilo launch post: Here we go…

• After Babel by Jonathan Haidt launch post: Welcome to the After Babel Substack

• Hung Up by Hunter Harris launch post: Some personal news: Okay, hi!

• Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke launch post: Welcome to the Thinking in Bets Substack

• Steady by Dan Rather launch post: A New Chapter...

• A Year of Mental Health by Chris Guillebeau: INTRODUCING: A Year of Mental Health

• Too Deep Zone by Mike Tanier: Welcome to the Too Deep Zone

• Zeteo by Mehdi Hasan launch post: A New Media Company is Here - and Ready to Make Some Noise

6) Launch your Substack by publishing your launch post

Once you’ve completed the above elements, you’re ready to launch! Simply go to your launch post, and hit the “Publish” button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Make sure you send your launch post to “Everybody”:

Right after you post it, you’ll see sharing features inviting you to share it to social media, and forward it by email to friends, family, and contacts. Sharing your post gets the growth flywheel turning and will let you start to build your email list, so your writing can reach an ever-expanding audience.

Congratulations on your Substack launch, and on taking the exciting first step in your independent publishing journey!

Getting started is easy

Haven’t launched your Substack yet? You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

So what exactly is Substack? It's a platform that makes it infinitely easier than it’s ever been before to publish online, and be paid directly by your readers.

We make it easy to build an extremely valuable asset: an email list that lets you can reach readers directly in their inbox, reducing your dependence on any social media platform.

Substack is free forever if the content you publish is free, but you have the option to turn on paid subscriptions, and invite your most dedicated fans to support your work. After you turn on paid, you always decide what gets published free for everybody, and what is viewable only by your subscribers.

With Substack you can send out emails to your free and paid users from the same platform, so your free list can become a funnel for your paid.

Substack is specifically designed to maximize ease of use—most people can get up and running sending out posts in 20 minutes.

When you publish on Substack, you always own and control your content, email list, and payment relationships, and these are portable off the platform at any time.

Substack’s most powerful feature is growth

Today, the Substack network is driving more than 40 percent of all subscriptions across the platform, and 12 percent of paid subscriptions. Discovery features like recommendations, cross-posting, leaderboards, and reader profiles help new readers discover and enjoy your work. 

When our founders launched Substack in 2017, their goal was to “make it simple to start a publication that makes money from subscriptions.” Fast forward to 2023, and thousands of writers are publishing on Substack. Some are making side hustle incomes; others, seven figures annually.

Why choose Substack?

On Substack, writers enjoy:

• Audience growth. Marketing isn’t all on your shoulders here. More than 40% of all new free subscriptions and 12% of paid subscriptions to Substacks come from within our network.

• A better financial model. The ad model demands that writers attract 40,000 page views every day to earn just $1,000 a month. With the Substack model, a steady base of 1,000 subscribers paying $5 each month earns you $60,000 per year. Try our calculator to estimate what you could earn.

• Zero tech knowledge required. We take care of everything except the hard part (the writing itself). Podcasts, videos, community tools and an app are all integrated seamlessly into the Substack publishing experience, giving your subscribers the best experience on the internet.

•  Ownership. You will always own your mailing list, subscriber payment information, and intellectual property. If you decide to leave, you’ll take what you’ve built with you

• A direct relationship with readers. Algorithms shouldn’t decide who sees your work. On Substack, writers control the relationship with their readers. Comments, threads, and chat encourage a sense of community amongst supporters.

Substack is free to use until you turn on paid subscriptions for your publication. One you turn on paid, Substack's platform fee is 10%, and Stripe, our payment processor, has a fee of 2.9%. The rest goes directly to your bank account.

Case studies of writers building successfully on Substack

• How Michael Fritzell quit his finance job to write full-time on Substack
  A Substack publication providing research on stocks in the Asia-Pacific region provides a full-time income.

• How Category Pirates invented a new form of publishing
  An interview with the #4 paid Substack in Business on their meaningful growth moments.

• How BowTiedBull created an ecosystem where anonymous writers rise together The #2 paid Substack in Crypto attracted an audience of tech and finance professionals while writing anonymously.

• How Justin Gage wrote for his past self and built an audience of 30,000
  A Substack that explains software engineering topics like APIs and containers in simple, easy-to-understand language has attracted over 2,000 paying subscribers.

• Noah Smith’s “try before you buy” approach
  Growth insights from an economics columnist and former Bloomberg writer who is now full-time on Substack.

• How Jørgen Veisdal found a payment model that works for evergreen writing
  A publication and podcast on the history of mathematics on how he uses his free list to grow his paid subscriber base.

Many writers, creators, and podcasters who've built up big followings on social media platforms are now adopting Substack. They love the control and ownership it provides—and how it lets them stop relying on an intermediary to reach readers and listeners.

Top writers on Substack are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while growing their audiences faster than ever before, and cultivating dedicated communities they fully control.

Getting started is easy

You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:

Click here to start a Substack

For further guidance, here are step-by-step instruction on initial setup, including how to import any existing email list you may have, and how to make your first post: 
How to start a Substack in three easy steps

Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

Always wanted to launch a podcast, but overwhelmed by the technical details? Substack makes it extremely easy to create and launch a podcast.

Don’t have a logo, or know how to edit audio? No problem! If you have a computer with a mic and can talk, you can podcast!

Step 1: Set up a Substack

Click this button to go directly to the signup form, which guides you setting it up. This takes about 5 minutes:

Start a Substack

If you want a little more guidance on the initial setup of your Substack, check out this article: How to start a Substack in three easy steps

Step 2: Set up a podcast within your Substack

In your newly-set-up Substack, click the Dashboard button at top-right, then click in the top navigation bar menu where it says Podcast.

Click “Get Started”, then select “Start a new podcast” and click “Next”.

STEP 3: Give your podcast a title and description

Under “Podcast title”, give your podcast whatever name you want—if you haven’t picked a name yet, just but “[your name]’s Podcast” as a placeholder, and you can change it later.

Under “Podcast description”, write a short description of what it’s about. Select the categories your podcast will best fit into from the drop-down menus. These category selections will be used by the podcast directories to sort and recommend your show.

You can upload podcasts artwork if you have an image you’d like to use; if not, just leave the default artwork for now. Click “Done”.

Step 4: Create your first episode

Your podcast is set up! Now, click on “New episode” to create your first episode.

Click the grey box that says "Click to add audio". You now have two options: you can upload audio you’ve recorded from a file on your computer by selecting “Upload”, or record audio directly into your Substack by selecting “Record”

If you want to keep things extremely simple and record audio directly, just attach a mic to your computer if you have one, or use your computer’s built-in mic if you don’t, then click “Record”.

Introduce your podcast and yourself!

Step 5: Give your first episode a title and publish it

When you’re done recording, click “Done”. Give the episode a title.

Click the “Continue” button at the top right, then in the next screen click “Send to everyone now”.

If you don’t have any subscribers, it'll email it to you only, and post it publicly on your publication page at [yourdomain].substack.com.

You’ve launched your podcast!

Use the share buttons (arrow icon) at the bottom of your post to share your podcast to social media, and email it to friends, family, and professional contacts.

Now that you’re launched, the next step is to distribute your podcast to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other directories, so new listeners can find you. Easy instructions: How to distribute your podcast to podcast directories

More helpful resources on using Substack for podcasting:

• How to move an existing podcast to Substack

• Answers to frequently asked questions about podcasting on Substack

• Examples of how writers & creators are using audio on Substack

• A guide to going paid with your podcast on Substack

• A primer on podcast production

Haven’t started a Substack yet? Click the button below to take the first step on your independent publishing journey:

Start a Substack

When you load a Substack page in your desktop browser, if you’re not logged in, you’ll see a “Sign in” link at the top right of the screen:

Clicking on that “Sign in” link takes you to this sign in page:

To sign in, enter your email address on that page where it says “Your Email”, then click on the box below that says “Email sign in link.”

A link will be sent via email to the address you signed up with. Clicking on that link will take you directly back to Substack, and you’ll be logged in.

(If you don’t have a Substack account set up yet, click where it says “Sign up” and you’ll be guided through a few quick steps to set it up.)

If you have problems logging in, please contact Substack Support using this form: Substack Support Contact Form

Haven’t started a Substack yet? Click the button below to take the first step on your independent publishing journey:

Start a Substack