What you could never do is directly connect Substack to outside tools. There was no official API or developer tooling, so publishers were stuck with messy workarounds to integrate their publication with other platforms. In practice, each of these fixes comes with a catch:

• To analyze your own data, you needed to export a CSV and rebuild your charts every time you wanted an update, because whatever analysis tool you set up could not refresh on its own.

• To integrate new subscribers with an email automation tool like Kit, you still need to create a Zap that watches your Gmail for Substack’s subscription notifications and adds each new address to Kit, with no way to sync back to Substack when someone unsubscribes through a Kit email.

• To manage Notes, you needed to rely on unofficial tools that ran inside your own logged-in browser session, so they only fired while your browser stayed open, and were likely against Substack’s terms of use.

• To embed content from another website (Substack only natively supports a few), you still have to upload a screenshot, which can go against other platforms' terms and give readers who use a screen reader, or who want to interact with the content, a worse experience.

Two things changed that recently.

1. Substack released an MCP server, the first official way to connect your publication’s data to an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT.

2. Substack integrated with Typefully, the first outside social media management tool it has officially supported. (Maybe Buffer will be next!)

I’m surprised neither of these updates has received much attention. For a company that had never opened its platform to outside tools before, doing so twice within a couple of months is a big shift in strategy.

What Is a Walled Garden in Technology?

A walled garden is a closed platform where the company restricts which outside tools can connect to it. The phrase started in cable television, where John Malone of Tele-Communications Inc. is generally credited with it, describing a system where the operator, not the customer, decides which channels reach you.1 In the internet era, the term was first used to describe AOL, which curated the set of services and content its subscribers could access.

Apple runs the best-known walled garden today with the App Store, where it decides which apps are allowed to run on your phone. (Android is more open, since it lets users install apps from outside its store). The opposite approach is a platform that invites outside tools in. WordPress runs on a huge ecosystem of third-party plugins, and Shopify has an entire app store and API that other developers build on.

Walled gardens exist for a reason. They protect the company’s business, and the control makes the experience smoother and safer for users, since everything inside is vetted to work together. The App Store’s tight control is a big part of why iPhones are so hard to infect with malware, and you cannot easily break your Substack the way a WordPress site can break after a plugin update.

You own your subscribers and can leave and take them with you anytime you want, but until now nothing on the outside could connect in.

Let’s take a closer look at what has changed.

Substack’s MCP Server

Substack’s MCP server lets an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT read your publication data, but only Bestseller (paid) publications can use it.

What Is an MCP Server?

An MCP server is a connector that lets an AI assistant read data from an outside service in real time. MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, an open standard for linking AI tools to sources of data. When a company builds an MCP server, it gives assistants like Claude and ChatGPT a defined, permission-based way to see specific information and interact with it.

Substack built an MCP server for publications, and once you connect it, your assistant can read your data while you chat, without exporting anything or leaving the conversation.

Really Good Business Ideas runs one too. Premium subscribers can connect it to Claude and access tools and datasets like 200 proven hook templates, a database of what other Substacks offer their paid subscribers, a reader persona builder, and a content style guide creator.

How Substack’s MCP Server Works

Substack’s MCP server lets you give an AI assistant read-only access to your publication data. Once connected, your agent can pull your dashboard metrics, subscriber counts, revenue, retention, traffic sources, and post performance, and it can read your publication settings. It cannot publish a post, send a Note, or change your account, and it has no access to your profile or Notes activity.

The benefit of that access is analysis. Substack’s built-in analytics are limited to a fixed set of dashboard views, and any CSV you export is a static snapshot that goes stale quickly. That makes it difficult to assess your performance in depth or refine your strategy with confidence. With the server connected, your assistant works from live data you can question in plain language, so investigating a growth slowdown becomes a natural part of how you already work rather than a daunting major project. I'll share more about how I use the MCP server in an upcoming post.

MCP server access is limited to admins of paid publications with a Bestseller badge, using an AI client that supports MCP connectors like Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor. Plenty of software products limit their MCP servers to higher-tier plans, so it is no surprise Substack restricts this one to Bestsellers, given the cost of serving data this way. It’s also probably a strong play, since Bestsellers are more likely to run their publications like businesses and expect a higher level of service. Tools that help them operate more effectively give them a reason to stay.

Substack’s Typefully Integration

Typefully is a social media management tool creators can use to schedule and publish content across platforms from one place. Substack announced Typefully’s integration in August,2 making it the first outside tool of its kind Substack has officially supported. With it connected, you can schedule your Substack Notes ahead of time and cross-post them to X, Threads, LinkedIn, Mastodon, and Bluesky.

In one way, Typefully is the bigger crack in the wall of the two. The MCP server only reads your data, while Typefully acts on your account by scheduling and posting your Notes. Officially letting an outside tool do that is a bigger step for Substack than letting one read your numbers. Personally, I think publishers should be free to choose the tools that work best for them, so I hope we'll see more tools like Buffer get access soon. Plenty of publishers have also built their own Substack-specific tools out of the workarounds available today, so hopefully those get officially supported too.

Will Substack’s Walled Garden Keep Cracking Open?

Substack likely opened the MCP server to Bestsellers because they drive most of its revenue, and their success is essential to Substack’s own. The Typefully integration supports the growth of Substack Notes, which has become a notable social platform in its own right. Both support Substack’s growth and hint at what might come next.

I expect Substack will keep opening up to tools that drive platform growth and help creators become more invested in the platform. An MCP server that can write, not just read, is the obvious next step, since it helps publishers scale and some competitors, like Ghost, already support it.

Conversely, Substack will likely keep its walls up around anything that helps a competitor or encourages readers and revenue to move off the platform. For example, I don’t think we’ll see a Kit integration anytime soon. Substack has spent the past year building deeper segmentation and email automation features that can start to replace Kit, so it’s clear it has decided to solve this limitation internally rather than through external partnerships.

So far, Substack has opened up on tightly controlled terms. The MCP server is limited to read-only access to your own data, and only through an AI tool. Typefully is the only outside social media management partner that can connect to Substack Notes. We still don’t have an open API that anyone can build on, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon, even as more official integrations arrive. A truly open API would be a much bigger change, since it would let publishers connect any tool they wanted, including a competitor like Kit.

Substack is increasingly building solutions for larger publishers that treat their publications like a business, because they bring in the most revenue and are also the ones most likely to outgrow it and move off the platform. But publishers of all sizes can benefit from most of these features. In fact, these features can make it much easier for a smaller publication to grow into a larger one. Those who start taking advantage of these tools now will benefit most as the platform continues to open up.

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A complete Notion workspace for running and growing your Substack like a pro.

• Publish more consistently with a streamlined content pipeline that eliminates chaos and guesswork.

• Grow faster by turning your ideas, posts, and outreach into a clear, trackable growth system.

• Increase your revenue with built-in tools for managing sponsors, products, and your paid subscriber strategy.

Right now, it’s free for Premium subscribers.

Starting a business on Substack is one of the most approachable ways to build something meaningful on the internet today. You don’t need a fancy funnel, paid ads, or a huge following to start earning real income from your ideas.

But it still helps to have a shortcut.

Substack Shortcut exists to make building a business on Substack simpler, faster, and more profitable.

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Whether you’re just getting started or you’re ready to scale, Substack Shortcut is packed with clear strategies, tested frameworks, and behind-the-scenes insights from someone who’s done it.

I’m Casandra Campbell. I’ve spent years turning ideas into income online and even helped scale Shopify to record growth. During my tenure as Managing Editor of the Shopify Blog, my data-driven approach helped increase email subscribers by 417% and customers acquired through the Shopify Blog by 278%.

Now I’m sharing everything I know about building a sustainable business on Substack.

Playbooks, guides, templates, research and analysis, and one-on-one support to help you start and grow a business on Substack.

Really Good Business Ideas is here to cut through the noise and share straightforward, research-backed, actionable advice you can’t find anywhere else.

Inside the Substack Shortcut section, you’ll find:

• Actionable strategies to grow your audience and revenue on Substack.

• Real examples and breakdowns from successful Substack creators.

• Deep dives into features like Recommendations, Notes, and custom domains.

• Templates, checklists, and monetization playbooks for Substack.

• Bonus content on staying consistent, avoiding burnout, and building a long-term writing habit.

• Unique insights from original Substack research and analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

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Table of Contents

Here’s every Substack Shortcut article, organized so you can find what you need quickly.

🎁 Premium Subscribers: Scroll to the end to access bonuses like Substack datasets packed with insights, and Substack resources to help you be more effective and grow faster!

📝 General

• My introduction post on why I started Really Good Business and what to expect as a subscriber. Includes a voiceover :)

• Details on all the Really Good Business Ideas Premium perks and how to access them.

• Manage your subscription and control what emails you receive here.

🧭 Substack Strategy: Building Your Brand on Substack

Welcome to your primer for winning on Substack. Everything you need to shape your brand, sharpen your strategy, and build a sustainable publication that actually stands out.

• Why Substack publications are a great opportunity and why 2025 is the perfect time to start one.

• How to determine the best publishing schedule for your publication.

• How to write a Substack author bio that attracts followers and subscribers.

• How to write the perfect Substack short description for your publication with examples to inspire you.

• Why your about page is an important conversion tool and how to write a great one quickly.

• How to write Substack welcome emails that drive retention and engagement.

• Top Substack tips for new publishers from Substack bestsellers.

• A list of specific new Substack publication opportunities.

• A detailed comparison of Substack vs Medium and my recommendation for which to use.

• A behind-the-scenes look at my brand vault and why I recommend them.

• How and why brands are using Substack.

• How brands are using thought leadership as a Substack backdoor.

💻 Using Substack: Substack Setup and Beyond

Need help figuring out the nuts and bolts of Substack? This section is packed with tutorials and tips to help you get more out of the platform without feeling overwhelmed.

• A complete guide to customizing your Substack profile.

• All the Substack visuals you can customize with recommended specs and supported file types.

• How to create a Substack publication wordmark.

• How and why to use a custom domain with Substack.

• How to set up Google Analytics with your Substack.

• A Substack posts stats explainer.

• A Substack publication stats explainer.

• Every Substack metric explained.

• How to use Substack categories and tags to organize your publication.

• All about Substack sections and when to create a new section rather than a new publication.

• How to filter your subscribers based on which sections they subscribe to.

• How to email a segment of your subscribers and why you should.

• Specific Substack segments you should email and how to find them.

• Why “cleaning” your Substack email list might do more harm than good.

• Tactics and strategies for brainstorming content ideas your audience will love.

• How to save time and keep your content consistent with post templates.

• How to add a table of contents to your posts and why it’s a good idea.

• 12 Substack rich content features you can use to make your publication look professional.

• How to use Substack buttons for high-impact calls to action.

• How to add tables to your Substack posts (without screenshots).

• 10 ways to use Substack’s audience-specific content blocks to personalize your publication.

• How to use Substack’s secret first name variable to greet readers by name.

• My four-layer system for backing up my Substack.

🚀 Substack Growth: Traffic, Follows, and Subscribers

Ready to grow your Substack without burning out? I’m sharing everything I know about growing a Substack. No fluff, just smart, sustainable growth.

• How you can double your Substack’s distribution by republishing on Medium.

• Six ways you can increase traffic using already published evergreen content.

• How to use your network to launch your Substack with a bang.

• A deep dive on Substack Notes.

• How the Substack Notes algorithm works.

• 10 Substack projects that will set you up for a great year ahead.

• How to use Substack’s headline a/b testing effectively, especially if you have a smaller or mid-sized publication.

• All the different ways you can collaborate on Substack and an assessment of how effective each one is.

• The exact GEO content strategy I use to get my publication recommended by LLMS, like ChatGPT.

• How the Substack leaderboards work and why they matter less than you think.

• How to use lead magnets to grow your free subscribers on Substack.

💰 Substack Monetization: Publication-Driven Revenue

Let’s talk money. If you’re wondering how much to charge, or what makes people actually upgrade to paid, or how to monetize your publication without paid subscriptions, this section is for you.

• How Substack’s pricing works and how you should think about pricing your own publication.

• How to monetize with Substack’s paid subscriber perks feature.

• The 11 different types of Substack paid subscriber perks (with examples of each).

• Everything you need to know to start monetizing your publication with affiliate marketing.

• How to monetize your Substack with course sales.

• My US-based financial tech stack that works seamlessly with Substack.

📈 Substack Research & Analysis

I used to do this work for execs; now I do it for creators. In this section, you’ll find deep dives, data-backed insights, and original research to help you make smarter moves on Substack and beyond

• A compilation of Substatic statistics and trends, including revenue, users, benchmarks, and more.

• An analysis of the average paid subscriber conversion rate on Substack.

• An analysis of 45 Substack publications likely earning more than $1M in ARR.

• An analysis of which Substack categories have the highest revenue potential and how much the top ten publications in each make.

• An analysis of the 34 publications with more than 500K subscribers.

• An analysis of the 11 types of paid subscriber perks and how often each one is used.

• Why a platform-wide Substack subscription fee is unlikely.

• What the new paid subscriptions badges mean for Substack’s future.

🧰 Substack Tools & Resources

For my fellow gear nerds and optimizer types: This is a living list of the Substack tools I actually use, recommend, or just think are worth knowing about.

• A big list of the best tools and resources for Substack publishers.

• All the directories you can list your newsletter in for discovery, backlinks, and to find partners and sponsors.

• The step-by-step process to create logos in Canva quickly and easily.

• How to use Ahrefs for keyword research.

• How I use Google Search Console with my Substack publication.

• A guide to optimizing your content with Search Console.

• A list of publications that pull back the curtain and share expert Substack advice.

• A big list of websites that offer free stock photography.

• A detailed comparison of which AI image generation tools create the most realistic images.

• A cheat sheet with 135 proven hooks that work for any content.

• A guide to unlocking better insights using Google Analytics with Substack.

• How to make sophisticated photo edits in seconds using natural language prompts with Nano Banana.

🎁 Premium Resources

Really Good Business Ideas Premium members can access these resources after the paywall at the bottom of this post.

The Substack Creator OS

A complete Notion workspace for running and growing your Substack like a pro.

• Publish more consistently with a streamlined content pipeline that eliminates chaos and guesswork.

• Grow faster by turning your ideas, posts, and outreach into a clear, trackable growth system.

• Increase your revenue with built-in tools for managing sponsors, products, and your paid subscriber strategy.

Right now, it’s free for Premium subscribers.

Substack Datasets

• 8K+ paid Substack publications with category information and subscriber and revenue estimates.

• 75+ reports of paid subscriber conversions, with total subscribers and paid subscribers details.

• Revenue estimates and publication data for the top 10 publications in every substack category.

• Details about the 34 most popular Substack publications, each with more than 500K subscribers.

• A database of 100+ subscription offers across categories, including price, benefits, and screenshots.

• A database of 100+ strong Substack author bios across categories.

• A database of 100+ strong Substack publication short descriptions across categories.

• A database of 500+ real examples of paid perks, organized by Substack category, paid tier, and perk type.

Substack Toolkit: Templates, Frameworks, and More

• A model for estimating Substack revenue based on different inputs.

• A checklist of everything you need to do before launching your Substack.

• A set of testimonial request templates that you can modify as needed.

• 135 hook templates that can be used in any content.

• A prompt swipe file to uncover fresh content ideas by exploring new angles, uncovering insights, so you can get unstuck without letting AI take over your voice.

• A 30-day action plan to build your audience using the Friend-of-a-Friend Framework.

• A swipe file of 100+ ready-to-use phrases to increase conversions using default opt-in psychology.

• Proven headline patterns you can test on your own audience, with examples of how to test them.

• A step-by-step worksheet to help you define your newsletter niche and positioning so you can stand out and accelerate your growth.

🎰 And That’s Not All!

I’m just getting started. Be sure to subscribe to receive access to all new Subsack playbooks, guides, analyses, and research-backed ideas as soon as they are released.

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PS. If you found this guide helpful, please tap the ❤️ below. It helps me out a lot! And if you know someone who could use help getting started on Substack, please share this article with them. It will help them out a lot :)

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Yup, that’s right. Many people don’t realize that you can draft and send an email to any segment of your subscribers at any time using Substack.

Emailing individual segments is crucial for building a relationship with your audience because it enables you to tailor your communications. Instead of only emailing one thing to everyone, you can contact different parts of your list for different reasons.

Tailored email will also help you maximize publication growth. Email marketing is the most important digital channel for any business because it’s the only channel where you’re not at the whim of an algorithm. It’s even more important for a newsletter business!

Substack recently made segments much more powerful, too. You used to have to rebuild your filters from scratch every time you wanted to email the same group, but now you can save a segment once and reuse it whenever you want.

How to Build a New Segment In Substack

Segments live in their own tab on the Audience page of your publication dashboard. A segment is a saved set of filters, built from criteria like paid status, activity level, signup date, or subscriber tags.

From the Segments tab, you can start with one of Substack’s templates, such as longtime free subscribers, or click “Start from scratch” to build your own.

Substack offers more than 45 different filters, and filters can be combined to build even more specific segments. Remember to scroll down to see all the options!

Each filter has its own settings. For the Subscription type filter, you can choose a modifier and a plan type.

Here are the filter settings to see only your subscribers currently in a free trial.

Once your filters are set, click Save segment and name it. Congratulations, you’ve created your first segment!

Saved segments update themselves automatically. For example, if you build a segment of paid subscribers, anyone who upgrades next week joins the segment without you needing to do anything, and anyone who cancels drops out.

You can also change a segment later. Click on a segment to open it, adjust the filters, rename it, and click Save segment to lock in your changes.

There are so many ways to segment your audience. For example, if your publication has multiple sections, you could filter your subscribers by section and again by activity to save a segment of your most engaged subscribers around a specific topic.

How to Email a Segment in Substack

Once you’ve saved your segment, it’s time to email them. Open the segment from the Segments tab, and click the checkbox next to Subscriber at the top of the list.

This will only select all the subscribers on the first page, so if your segment has more than 50 subscribers, click the Select all X link that pops up to capture the entire segment.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to draft your email. Click the email button on the right to open up the editor.

You’ll likely notice that it looks similar to the post editor but has fewer settings. One setting you can still use is tags. While your emails will not be displayed on your publication, tags can still help organize emails so you can find them later. Tags will be especially useful for reusing email content in the future.

Once you’ve written and sent your email, you’ll see it (and its stats) in the Published tab of your posts dashboard.

How to Send a Post to a Segment on Substack

Saved segments also work with regular posts, so you can publish an article and email it to only part of your list. When you’re ready to publish, click Continue and expand the Advanced settings at the bottom of the page, check Only send to a specific audience segment, and choose your segment from the dropdown.

A post sent to a segment is still published publicly on your website and in the Substack app. Only the email and push notification are limited to the segment you choose, so segment sending makes a post targeted, not private.

What Is the Difference Between Segments and Sections on Substack?

Segments and sections both narrow down who receives an email, but the control sits in different hands. A segment is a filtered slice of your audience that you define based on subscriber data like paid status, activity, or signup date. A Substack section is a content stream within your publication that readers can opt in or out of themselves.

A section is the right tool when you regularly publish a specific type of content that only some readers want, like a podcast or a weekly link roundup, because it lets each reader manage their own inbox. A segment is the right tool when you want to send a targeted message based on what you know about your subscribers, like a win-back email to readers who stopped opening or an upgrade pitch to your most engaged free subscribers.

Congratulations! You’ve expanded your skills from being just a newsletter publisher to an email marketer, too.

Next, check out four Substack segments you should email, along with how to find them.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

Become a Premium subscriber to access the full Substack archive and Premium Perks like my direct support.

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Did you know you can email any part of your Substack list without publishing a post?

Yet hardly any publishers are doing this!

Email marketing is the most powerful digital marketing tool available. It’s the only digital channel where you can “own your audience” and have more control over your ability to reach them. That’s why every marketer recommends building an email list, and so many of us join Substack to do just that.

So stop limiting yourself to only emailing out generic newsletter posts to your entire list.

Here are four segments you should be emailing if you want to maximize your publication’s growth. Even better, Substack now lets you save any of these as a reusable segment, so you only have to build the filters once.

Segment 1: Section Subscribers

If you use Substack Sections to structure your publication, you have a built-in way to segment subscribers by specific interests. Segmenting your subscribers by section lets you send highly relevant content only to people who have opted in to that specific category.

For example, you may want to send a promotional offer that’s only relevant to one section, or you may want to survey subscribers of a specific section to deepen your understanding of that audience.

How to Find Your Section Subscribers Segments

Read more about the different section segments you can build and how to do so in the guide below.

Segment 2: Substack Bestsellers

A Substack bestseller is an author with at least 100 paid subscribers who has opted to display their bestseller badge on their profile. The badges are colored differently depending on the author's number of paid subscribers.

Bestsellers are a useful segment to look at because any of your subscribers with bestseller badges are also Publishers! It’s always useful to learn more about the types of people who subscribe to your publication, and checking out your subscribers' publications is a great way to do so.

Unless you have a huge list, you can probably check out all your bestseller subscribers’ publications in an hour or so. But it’s not just about seeing what you can learn. It’s also to look for growth opportunities. As you go through them, make note of the following:

• Who has a publication in a niche similar to yours?

  • Who would be a good fit to swap Recommendations?

  • Who would be a good fit to guest post with?

• Who is an example of a success story for your topic?

  • Who could you interview or write about?

  • Whose post could you link to and share?

• What else can you learn about the type of people interested in your writing?

  • What trends stand out from your followers’ publications?

  • Do they have anything in common with your topic?

If you find an opportunity to collaborate with someone in this segment, send them an email (or better yet, DM them on Substack since you know they’re active).

But remember, bestsellers usually run big publications and are likely very busy, so don’t waste their time. Only reach out if there’s a strong fit, and you can assure them they’ll get value from the collaboration, too.

How to Find Your Substack Bestsellers Segment

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• They let you publish different kinds of content without trying to grow multiple publications at the same time.

• They give readers control over what shows up in their inbox.

• They let paid subscribers pay only once, even as you expand what you publish, rather than asking your most loyal readers to subscribe (and pay) again.

Less obviously, sections also segment your audience in the background.

Every time a reader opts into (or out of) a section, they’re telling you what they want and what they don’t. You’re not tagging or filtering people manually, but over time, those choices organize your subscriber base by interest on their own.

The question is how to actually see that segmentation and what to do with it.

In this guide, I’ll show how to filter your subscribers by section inside Substack, what those filters reveal, and when it makes sense to email a specific section outside of publishing a new post.

Why Filtering Your Subscribers By Substack Section Is Useful

Filtering your subscribers by section lets you:

• See how interest actually breaks down across your publication.

• Identify overlap (and separation) between different topics.

• Understand which sections attract your most engaged or committed readers.

• Understand which sections your paid subscribers are most interested in.

• Email all or a subset of subscribers of a specific section.

This is especially useful once your publication grows beyond a single, tightly focused topic. The more you expand, the more important relevance becomes, and filtering by section lets you act on that relevance right here on Substack.

How to Filter Your Substack Subscribers By Section (Step by Step)

To filter your Substack subscribers by section, start visiting your Subscribers page from the sidebar of your publication’s dashboard.

In the top right of your Subscribers page, you’ll see a “Filter” button. Click on it to expand the filter menu.

Using the “Type” dropdown on the left, scroll down and select “Section". Now you can use the remaining two dropdowns to choose which sections to filter your subscribers by.

The second dropdown lets you choose how you want to filter your section subscribers.

• Includes any of: Shows subscribers who are subscribed to at least one of the selected sections.

• Includes all of: Shows subscribers who are subscribed to every selected section.

• Includes none of: Shows subscribers who are not subscribed to any of the selected sections

The third dropdown lets you choose which sections to apply the filters to. You may select one or as many of your sections as you want.

After you’ve made your selections, click “Save changes” on the right side to update your subscriber list. The number of subscribers that meet your criteria will populate in the top left and your list will update to only show the subscribers that meet the criteria.

Here are some quick views to explore:

• By selecting each section one at a time, using the “Includes any of” or “Includes all of” filters, you can see how many people are subscribed to each individual section.

• By selecting all your sections and using the “Includes all of” filter, you can see how people are subscribed to all your sections.

When I look at how many readers are subscribed to all my sections, I can see that 97% are. Although sections are often a better choice than creating different multiple publications, if you see that the number of people who subscribe to all your sections is low, that might be a sign that your content is too diverse and multiple publications may actually make more sense for you.

You can also combine filters to get more specific. Here are three examples to get you started.

1. Compare Overlap Between Sections

To see subscribers who are only subscribed to a single section, use two filters together:

• First, using the “Section” filter type, select “Includes all of” and select the section you want to analyze.

• Then, add a second filter using the Section type and select “Includes none of” and select all your remaining sections.

After you save your changes, your subscriber list will be updated to show only subscribers who are opted into that one section and are not opted into any others. In other words, you’re looking at readers who have clearly said: this is the only content I want from you.

You can repeat this for each section to understand how big their unique, nonoverlapping audiences are.

2. Compare Paid Subscribers Between Sections

To see how many paid subscribers are subscribed to each individual section, use two filters together:

• First, using the “Section” filter type, select “Includes all of” and then select the specific section you’re analyzing first.

• Next, select the “Can see paid content” for your filter type, and then select “Is” and “True” from the remaining dropdowns.

After you save your changes, your subscriber list will update to show you how many paid subscribers are subscribed to that section, which you can compare to your total number of paid subscribers.

You can then repeat this for each section to compare and see if your paid subscribers are disproportionately interested in a specific section.

3. Compare Activity Levels Between Sections

To see which sections have the most highly engaged subscribers, use two filters together:

• First, using the “Sections” type, select “Includes all of” and the section you want to analyze.

• Next, choose the “Activity” filter type, select “Is,” and select five stars to target your most engaged subscribers.

After you save your changes, your subscriber list will update to show you only your most engaged subscribers for that section.

You can repeat this for each section and compare to see if one section has more highly engaged subscribers than the others.

The Sky’s the Limit (Almost)

There are many more options for filtering your section subscribers depending on your research goals, so don’t be afraid to play around. For example, if you have different sections targeted to different regions, you might want to filter your subscribers by region for analysis. Knowing that most of your Canadian news section subscribers live in the US might inform your content strategy, for example.

How to Email Subscribers in a Specific Section

The simplest way to email all the subscribers of a specific section is to publish a post to that section just as you normally would. You can also narrow any post’s email at publish time by expanding the Advanced settings and choosing a saved audience segment.

But what if you don’t want your email to appear on your publication as a post? For example, if you were sending a reminder email about a special offer. Or what if you only want to email a subset of a section’s subscribers? For example, to run an audience survey on your most engaged subscribers of a specific section.

Substack has a feature many writers overlook: you email a segment of Substack subscribers without publishing a post!

Emailing a specific segment of subscribers, including those from a specific section, starts by filtering your subscribers for only those you want to email.

For example, if I wanted to run an audience survey to get input on what topics the most engaged subscribers to my Substack Shortcut are interested in, I would filter my subscribers in this way:

• Sections filter type + Includes all of + The Substack Shortcut (my section for Substack content).

• Activity filter type + Is + five stars.

• Save changes.

Note: You can also save a filter combination like that one as a segment. From the Segments tab on your Subscribers page, build the same filters and click Save segment, and you can reuse the segment every time you want to reach that group. Saved segments also update automatically as subscribers’ activity and section choices change.

Now, in order to email this audience, I need to click three things:

1. Select the Subscribers checkbox at the top of your filtered list on the left side. Note that this will only select the subscribers on your first page of results.

2. Next, above your filter, you should see a message showing how many subscribers were selected (this will be your first page of subscribers only). If you have more than one page of matching results (more than 50 subscribers), you will see an option next to that message to select all the subscribers that match your filters.

   

   Once you have selected all your matching subscribers, the message will update to confirm it.

   

3. Finally, once all your matching subscribers are selected, click the Send email button in the top-right corner. You will then be taken to the email editor to draft and send (or schedule) your email.

   

   The email editor looks remarkably similar to the post editor. If you save a draft to come back to later, you’ll find it in your Posts’ Drafts folder along with an Email tag.

A Final Note on Using Section Filters Thoughtfully

Filtering subscribers by section isn’t about sending more emails. It’s about sending fewer, better ones.

Sections already ask readers to raise their hands for what they want. Filtering by section simply lets you see (and respect) those choices. Used well, it helps you understand where interests overlap, where they don’t, and where engagement and paid support are actually concentrated.

It’s a simple tool, but it supports thoughtful growth by helping you better understand and meet your readers’ needs.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

P.S. If you’re thinking more intentionally about your publication’s structure, the Substack Creator OS is where I keep all of this organized in one place. The content calendar makes it easy to plan by section, and connects your publishing schedule directly to growth tactics (like keyword research and promotion) and monetization strategies (like products and sponsorships).

Right now, the Substack Creator OS is free for Really Good Business Ideas Premium subscribers, so sign up today to get your copy.

Upgrade now and get instant access to the Substack Creator OS.

Subscribe now

You have a new idea, a different format, or a side thread you want to explore. And suddenly you’re wondering whether it belongs under your existing publication, or whether you need to start something entirely new.

In many cases, there’s a better option: Substack sections.

Sections exist for exactly this moment. They let you publish distinct streams of content without splitting your audience, fragmenting your brand, or forcing readers into another subscription decision they didn’t ask for.

This guide explains how sections actually work on Substack, how they differ from publications, and when using a section makes sense, so you can expand what you publish without overcomplicating your setup.

What Is a Substack Section?

A Substack section is a distinct content stream within a publication that readers can subscribe to independently. It allows them to receive only specific types of posts while remaining part of the same publication and paid subscription, rather than a separate newsletter with its own paywall.

Sections work best when you have clearly different streams of content that:

• Serve different reader needs.

• Have different formats or cadences.

• Or could make sense as standalone newsletters.

This is what makes sections so powerful: you can expand what you publish and experiment with new ideas without fragmenting your audience or asking loyal readers to subscribe (and pay) again.

However, sections should not be used for:

• Creating a stream for every topic you write about.

• Micromanaging organization.

• Fixing uncertainty about your publication’s focus.

A helpful rule: If a reader might reasonably want only this type of content, it may deserve its own section. If not, it probably doesn’t. Most Substacks work best with no more than a handful of sections. More than that is almost always a signal that tags would do the job better.

How I Use Sections with Really Good Business Ideas

I use sections for broad topics I write about frequently. That way, if I have readers who are not interested in that topic, they can easily opt out and still get the rest of my content.

Really Good Business Ideas currently has three sections.

• The Substack Shortcut, where all my Substack business content lives.

  • Why a section? Substack is one of many business topics I write about, but after noticing strong demand for my Substack articles, I started covering it more often and in more depth. I know many of my subscribers are not particularly interested in Substack, so I created a section that lets readers opt out while still receiving the rest of my business content.

• Building With AI, where content about using AI for business lives.

  • Why a section? I spend a lot of time exploring how AI can be used to help businesses succeed. Not because I’m an AI fanatic, but because it’s my job to stay on top of trends and technology. As generative AI became more useful in business, I started writing it more often. I know AI can be a polarizing topic, so I created a section that lets readers decide whether to receive these articles or not.

• Businesses to Start, where my researched business idea breakdowns live.

  • Why a section? I love to analyze and share research-based business ideas, but not every subscriber is actively looking for their next venture at any given moment. A section gives readers control over how many new opportunity breakdowns land in their inbox while they keep receiving the rest of my content.

• Really Good Business Ideas, my main section, is for everything else, including general growth and entrepreneurship content.

Sections vs Publications: How to Choose

When you’re deciding between creating a section or starting a new publication, you’re usually stuck at the same crossroads: you have a new idea, but you don’t know whether it belongs under what you’ve already built or needs to stand on its own.

This decision isn’t about how different the content feels to you. It’s about how much separation it creates for the reader: in their inbox, in their subscription list, and at checkout.

When to Create a Publication Section

• The content fits under the same overall brand or point of view.

• You want readers to pay once, not multiple times.

• Many subscribers may want this content, but not all of them.

• You’re experimenting with a new format or idea.

• You want the flexibility to grow or wind it down without major disruption.

Sections let you expand sideways without breaking trust or fragmenting your audience.

When to Create a New Publication

• The audience is meaningfully different.

• The value proposition is distinct enough to stand on its own.

• You’d feel comfortable charging for it separately and feel confident you’ll be able to maintain a decent publishing frequency.

• You want completely independent branding, positioning, and growth.

A helpful gut check: If someone happily pays for your main publication, would it feel reasonable to charge them again for this?

If yes, it may deserve its own publication. If no, it probably belongs as a section.

Click here to open the table in a new tab.

Most creators reach for a new newsletter too early.

Sections give you room to test, refine, and learn without committing to a second product. You can always spin a successful section out into its own publication later, but it’s much harder to merge things back together.

How to Manage Substack Publication Sections

Once you understand when sections make sense, the mechanics are straightforward. Substack makes it very easy to create, edit, and manage sections. Below is a step-by-step walkthrough of how to manage sections, along with the key settings that matter most.

How to Create or Edit Sections

In your Substack dashboard, click Settings, then Sections. You’ll find it listed under Content.

Click Add to create a new section, or modify an existing section by clicking Edit.

For each section you can:

• Upload a logo.

• Name the section.

• Write a description.

• Customize your email sender name.

• Choose if you want your section to appear as a menu item on your homepage.

• Choose your default subscription settings:

  • Copy your current email list to this section (yes or no).

  • Add new subscribers by default (yes or no).

How to Publish to a Section

Each post can be assigned to a section on the post’s settings page. A post can only belong to one section, and that choice determines who receives it. Note that you can always change the section assignment later, which means you can add already published posts to a new section after creating it.

Saved subscriber segments give you a second way to control who receives a post. When you publish, you can expand the Advanced settings and check Only send to a specific audience segment to limit the post’s email to a saved segment. The post is still published publicly in its section on your website and in the app, but the email and push notification are only sent to the saved segment.

How to Customize a Section’s Layout

From your Substack dashboard, click Settings, Website, and Edit theme.

Once there, click on Sections on the left, and choose any section from the dropdown on the right to customize its layout.

Right now, I have two different layouts in use for my sections. The Substack Shortcut, which has been around longer and has more content, uses the grid layout with a featured article where I have pinned a table of contents post that helps readers navigate the section archive.

Building With AI and Businesses to Start don’t have as much content or a table of contents post, so they use the list layout.

How to Segment Your Subscribers By Section

Once you’ve been using sections for a while, they start to automatically segment your audience by interest. You can filter your subscribers by section to better understand your audience’s interests and do more targeted email marketing.

Learn more about how to filter and email your subscribers by section in the guide below.

Sections also pair well with Substack’s saved segments. Section is one of the filter types you can build a segment with, so you can combine it with other filters and save the result, like readers of a specific section who have opened an email in the last 30 days. Saved segments update automatically as subscribers join or leave a section.

Segments and sections sound similar, but they solve different problems, and the two work well together. I break down the difference, along with how to email a segment directly in this article.

Sections are a way to expand what you publish without splitting your audience or your subscription.

Before starting a new newsletter, ask whether the content truly needs a separate brand, inbox, and payment, or whether a section would give readers the choice they need with far less friction.

Start simple and add sections only when they improve clarity for the reader. You can always turn a successful section into its own publication later, but it’s much harder to merge two separate things back together.

Good structure should make your Substack easier to understand, easier to manage, and easier to grow.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

P.S. If you’re thinking more intentionally about your publication’s structure, the Substack Creator OS is where I keep all of this organized in one place. The content calendar makes it easy to plan by section, and connects your publishing schedule directly to growth tactics (like keyword research and promotion) and monetization strategies (like products and sponsorships).

Right now, the Substack Creator OS is free for annual Really Good Business Ideas Premium subscribers, so sign up today to get your copy.

✨ New: The Substack Creator OS is here!

A complete Notion workspace for running and growing your Substack like a pro.

• Publish more consistently with a streamlined content pipeline that eliminates chaos and guesswork.

• Grow faster by turning your ideas, posts, and outreach into a clear, trackable growth system.

• Increase your revenue with built-in tools for managing sponsors, products, and your paid subscriber strategy.

Right now, it’s free for annual Premium subscribers.

Have you ever wondered how many paid subscribers other publications are converting?

Substack claims that 5–10% of total subscribers is normal.1

I find this hard to believe.

So far, I have only seen two reports of a 10% paid subscriber conversion rate; both were from small publications.23

I suspect there are publications with very high paid conversion rates, but they are likely outliers with unique circumstances.

Why? Substack keeps making it easier for publications to grow free subscribers with new growth features and net

work effects. But the easier they come, the lower their intent.

What is Reader Intent?

Intent describes how motivated or engaged a reader is. If I am highly interested in what you create and it’s timely for me, I will have a very high intent. I will be very engaged, likely reading all your articles, commenting, and telling others about it. And I will be motivated to upgrade my subscription to get behind the paywall.

But if I’m only somewhat interested in your content, or it’s not timely for me, I’ll have a lower intent. I might only occasionally read articles, I might not like or comment very often, and I may not see enough value in paying for gated content.

Substack’s growth features are more likely to grow your low-intent readers than high-intent readers.

Let’s look at three features that drive network effects on Substack to understand this.

1. Substack Accounts

Once a reader has subscribed to a publication and created their account on Substack, it’s much easier for them to subscribe to new publications. If they’re logged into their account, their email address will already populate the form and all they have to do is click “Subscribe.”

But someone who only subscribed to your Substack because they already have an account has lower intent than someone who took the time to find you and write out their email address.

2. Recommendations

Many authors on Substack use the Recommendations feature to share other publications they love or as part of a collaboration between them. When readers subscribe to a publication on Substack, they will see a list of recommended publications that they can also subscribe to with one click.

But someone who only subscribed because they clicked yes to the recommendations that surfaced after subscribing to another newsletter has lower intent than someone who searched Google and found that your publication provided the answer they were looking for.

3. Notes

Substack has its own social media network called Notes. When a user sees a Note they like, instead of following the person who wrote it, they can easily click “Subscribe” directly in the feed without even looking at that person’s publication(s).

Someone who subscribes from the Notes feed has less intent than someone who reads something you posted on Reddit, navigates to your Reddit profile, clicks the link to your publication, and then subscribes.

All these growth features on Substack can help publications grow by removing friction from subscribing, but they also lower average reader intent over time.

These growth features are still useful; we wouldn’t acquire many of our subscribers without them. While they are less likely to become paid subscribers, some will, just at a lower rate than high-intent readers.

These features don’t decrease the motivation of high-intent subscribers; they just add more lower-intent subscribers to the pool. So, your average paid subscriber conversion rate will go down, but your total paid subscribers keep growing.

What Is The Typical Paid Subscriber Conversion Rate?

For the past while, every time I have found a report that shares a publication’s total and paid subscribers, I have added it to a spreadsheet.

Here’s an example from who is always very generous about sharing a behind-the-scenes look at her publication.

Using Notes, articles, Reddit posts, and more, I’ve found hundreds of reports covering the past five years from publications with less than 100 total subscribers to publications with tens of thousands of total subscribers.

This data shows that the median paid subscriber conversion rate is 3%.

My findings also match those of a writer at Journalists Pay Themselves, who said the journalists they spoke to claimed to have paid subscriber conversion rates between 2–5%.4

In my data, only 20% of publications have a conversion rate higher than 5%, which makes Substack’s claim of a 5–10% average very unlikely.

Can You Help Grow This Dataset?

The more reports we have, the more reliable this data becomes. It also allows for more detailed analysis, such as by category or publication size.

If you’re willing to share your total subscribers and paid subscribers, I’d love to include them. We can keep your publication anonymous if you prefer. In exchange, I’ll share the dataset with anyone who submits their data (even if you’re not a Really Good Business Ideas Premium subscriber).

To add your data to the set, simply send me a direct message with a screenshot from your dashboard and let me know if you want to keep your publication anonymous.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

Paid Subscriber Conversion Dataset

As always, the dataset I created is available to Premium subscribers who want to use it for their own analysis. I’ll continue to update it with new submissions as they come in. Anonymous submissions will obviously not include the publication name.

Read more

📌 The first name variable is an unofficial feature, so it could disappear at any time. If you’re logged into Substack and you see your name after the word “Hey” below, then it’s still working.

Hey

You might be wondering why your name is showing up in my post.

It turns out Substack has a secret name variable! If you type % % first_name % % (without spaces) into the body of a post, each of your readers sees their own first name in its place.

I haven’t found this documented by Substack anywhere. They have never announced it, and there’s nothing about it in the help center, so it’s likely an accident. I’ve been testing the variable on Really Good Business Ideas, and today I’m sharing everything I know about it in this post.

What Is Substack’s First Name Variable?

The first name variable is a text placeholder that displays each reader’s first name inside the body of a Substack post, both on Substack and in the email version, using the name Substack has on file for that reader. Substack has never documented the feature, so it’s likely an accident, and it could stop working at any time without notice.

How to Add a Personalized Greeting to a Substack Post

Type the variable directly into the body of the post, exactly as written but without any spaces: % % first_name % %. I’ve only added spaces here to prevent it from rendering!

When Substack has no name to show, the variable renders as a blank space. For example, a logged-out visitor reading on the web sees nothing where the first name variable sits.

This means you might want to avoid using punctuation right after the variable so it doesn’t look like a typo to logged-out visitors. (Remember I’ve added the spaces to prevent it from rendering).

• “Hey % % first_name % %” degrades to “Hey”

• “Hey % % first_name % %,” degrades to “Hey ,”

Where Does the First Name Variable Work?

The first name variable only works in the body of a Substack post. Readers see their name (or a blank space) whether they’re viewing the post on the website, in the app, or in an email.

Everywhere else on Substack shows the raw variable text instead:

• Post titles and subtitles.

• Email subject lines.

• Notes.

• Chat.

Test emails of unpublished posts also won’t render the first name variable. A test send isn’t attached to a real subscriber, so Substack has no name to fill in. If you ever want to confirm the variable is still working before you send it, you can always come back and look for your name at the top of this post!

Accidental or not, this variable is one small piece of a much bigger personalization toolkit that Substack has been building out. I’ll cover the whole collection of personalization features in the coming weeks. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

In reality, categories and tags sit somewhere in the middle. They don’t determine whether your writing resonates or whether your publication succeeds. But they do shape how your work is described, grouped, and understood by readers and by Substack itself.

This article is a straightforward explanation of what categories and tags actually are, how to use them without overengineering, and where people tend to misunderstand their role.

Table of Contents

• What Are Substack Categories

• What Are Substack Tags

• Categories Vs Tags At a Glance

• How to Use Categories and Tags Effectively

• Common Misconceptions About Categories and Tags

What Are Substack Categories

A Substack category is a broad label that describes your publication as a whole.

When you choose a category, you’re answering a simple question: What is this publication primarily about?

• Categories apply at the publication level, not the post level.

• They are intentionally broad.

• They are usually set once and rarely changed.

Substack has 33 categories as of September 2026. The list grows every so often, with Games being the most recent addition. You can choose two categories for your publication, but the second one is typically ignored.

Categories aren’t meant to capture every nuance of what you do. They’re meant to place your publication in the right general neighborhood.

Categories are not very visible on the platform, and readers rarely interact with them directly, but they influence how Substack organizes publications behind the scenes.

• On Leaderboards, where publications are grouped by their first category (unless Substack determines there is a more appropriate category).1

• In browsing and discovery contexts, where Substack may organize or curate publications by category.

Beyond that, categories function as internal classification metadata. They help Substack understand what kind of publication you run and how it relates to others on the platform, even when that information isn’t visibly displayed.

In other words, categories help determine where your publication belongs, not how individual posts are presented. They’re meant to be stable and descriptive, not something that changes frequently or responds to each new piece you publish.

What Are Substack Tags?

Substack tags are post-level labels used to describe, group, and organize individual pieces within a publication, without affecting subscriptions or delivery.

Think of Substack tags as the connective tissue of your publication. Tags are lightweight, flexible, and incredibly useful, especially as your archive grows.

Tags are ideal for:

• Grouping posts by topic or theme.

• Connecting related ideas across sections.

• Helping readers explore your thinking over time.

One underrated detail about tags is that each tag creates its own page.

Every time you apply a tag, Substack automatically generates an archive of all posts with that label. Over time, these tag pages become incredibly useful building blocks, especially once your archive grows beyond a few dozen posts. For example, here’s my Growth tag page.

That means tags aren’t just for organization. They’re also for navigation and internal linking, which is crucial for SEO and GEO! Every tag page effectively links related posts together without any manual effort.

• Direct readers to a tag page as a curated resource hub.

• Group related essays, tutorials, or case studies together.

• Tie paid articles into a single page without creating a separate section.

• Create an informal “series” without committing to a permanent structural change.

Instead of creating a new section for something like monetization, you might tag every relevant post with monetization and link to that tag whenever you reference related work. This intentionally connects your related content together without forcing readers into another subscription decision. For example, posts from all three of my sections are included in my Growth tag page.

This is where tags really shine: they let you build paths through your content. You’re giving readers ways to go deeper, revisit ideas, and explore everything you’ve written on a topic, whether those posts are free, paid, brand new, or years old.

Used well, tags turn your archive into an asset instead of a backlog.

Categories Vs Tags At a Glance

A simple way to think about the distinction:

• Category = what your publication is broadly about.

• Tags = what a specific post is about.

Categories are broad and stable. Tags are specific and flexible.

How to Use Categories and Tags Effectively (Without Overthinking It)

Once you understand what they’re for, categories and tags become simple to use effectively. Let’s walk through the best ways to manage them in Substack.

Choosing a Publication Category

• Pick the category that best reflects your core focus, not every topic you might touch on.

• If your work spans multiple areas, choose the one that most clearly anchors your publication.

• If you’re having trouble deciding, look at the other publications in each category's leaderboard and choose the category with the most publications you would want to collaborate with.

• Avoid switching categories frequently; it’s more likely to signal spam to Substack than help anything.

• Remember that categories are not a big growth lever. Don’t spend too much time on this or worry about getting it exactly perfect.

How to Set Your Publication Category

To set your publication category, navigate to your publication’s dashboard and select “Settings,” “Basics,” and then look for the “Categories” section.

Select the category that best matches your publication from the first dropdown, and then select the second-best category in the second dropdown. If you’re still not sure what to select, you can use Substack’s category checker to see which categories they think are a good match.

Using Post Tags Thoughtfully

• Reuse tags instead of inventing new ones every time.

• Use consistent naming (avoid near-duplicates like “art” and “arts”).

• Link to tag pages as:

  • Resource hubs.

  • Informal series.

  • Collections of paid posts.

  • Topic roundups you reference often.

Consistency matters more than completeness. A few well-used tags are more useful than dozens of one-offs.

How to Add Tags to a Post

To add tags to a post, start editing the post, click “Settings” in the bottom-right corner, then scroll down to “Add tags.” Click the down arrow to see all your existing tags or start typing to add a new one.

How to Manage Your Publication’s Tags

To manage your publication’s tags, navigate to your publication’s dashboard and select “Settings,” “Website,” and look for the “Custom tags” section. There, you’ll be able to rename, add, and delete tags, and view the URLs for your tags.

Common Misconceptions About Categories and Tags

Myth: Changing my category will improve growth.
Reality: Categories describe your publication; they don’t fix positioning or demand.

Myth: More tags mean more reach.
Reality: Tags aren’t keywords in the SEO sense. Adding more doesn’t automatically do anything.

Myth: Tags work like SEO keywords.
Reality: They don’t. Their primary job is organization and structure.

Myth: Categories and tags determine success.
Reality: They don’t. They support structure and do not replace good writing, distribution, or reader trust.

Categories and tags aren’t something to overoptimize or obsess over. They’re simple tools meant to describe what you publish and help keep things organized over time.

Choose an appropriate category, use tags consistently, then move on to the work that actually matters: publishing things worth reading and making sure people know about it.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

P.S. If you’re thinking more intentionally about your publication’s structure, the Substack Creator OS is for you The content calendar makes it easy to map out post tags and connects your publishing schedule directly to growth tactics (like keyword research and promotion) and monetization strategies (like products and sponsorships).

Right now, the Substack Creator OS is free for Really Good Business Ideas Premium subscribers, so sign up today to get your copy!

Substack doesn’t. 😒

If you’ve ever tried to include a table in your Substack post, you’ve probably run into the same frustrating options:

• Upload a blurry screenshot.

• Try to hack something together with spacing (that breaks on mobile).

• Just skip the table entirely.

But tables are too useful to give up on entirely. Whether you’re comparing prices, summarizing research, or laying out pros and cons, a good table makes your post clearer, more professional, and easier to read.

Luckily, there’s a better way…and it’s free.

Why Use Tables in Your Substack Posts

Tables are one of the simplest ways to organize any structured information, not just numbers.

Whether you’re writing about business trends, wellness routines, or research insights, tables can help you:

• Compare pricing plans or product features.

• Summarize pros and cons.

• Lay out a publishing schedule or project roadmap.

• List tools, resources, or reading recommendations.

• Highlight before-and-after results or milestones.

Unlike plain text or long paragraphs, tables make it easy for readers to scan, compare, and understand key points at a glance. They add structure to your writing and boost credibility, especially when you’re sharing data-backed ideas or helping readers make informed decisions.

If you’re writing posts that include options, rankings, or breakdowns, chances are a table will make your content clearer and more impactful.

The Problem: Substack Doesn’t Support Tables

Despite being a go-to platform for writers, Substack still doesn’t offer a native table block in its editor. That means you can’t just insert a table the way you would in Google Docs, Notion, or WordPress.

That leaves you with three main options, none of them great:

• Skip the table entirely → Your post lacks structure.

• Use spacing to fake a table → Breaks on mobile and is difficult to read.

• Paste a screenshot → Loses accessibility, readability, and SEO value.

If you want to present your data in a way that’s readable, responsive, and searchable, you need something better.

Why Screenshots Don’t Cut It

Screenshots might feel like the easiest fix. Just snap your table and upload it as an image, right? But they come with serious trade-offs.

• They’re not accessible: Screen readers can’t interpret images of text, so your table becomes invisible to anyone using assistive tech.

• They’re not mobile-friendly: What looks fine on your desktop might shrink down to an unreadable blur on a phone.

• They’re bad for SEO (and AI readability): Search engines, Substack’s discovery tools, and AI assistants typically can’t read the text inside images. If your key data is in a screenshot, it likely won’t show up in search results or summaries.

• They’re hard to update: If you make a typo or want to update the numbers later, you’ll need to recreate and re-upload the image.

Screenshots are static, limited, and outdated. Fortunately, there’s a better (and free) way, and it only takes a few minutes to set up.

The Better Way: Use Datawrapper to Embed Responsive Tables

Instead of screenshots, use Datawrapper, a free tool that lets you create beautiful, responsive tables you can embed right into your Substack post.

It takes just a few minutes and works seamlessly on both desktop and mobile. Best of all, you can update the data anytime without editing your post; the embed stays live and up to date.

1. Start using Datawrapper for free.

Go to datawrapper.de and click Start creating.

2. Upload your data.

If you’ve already created your data in a spreadsheet, you can upload or link it now, but you can also add your data directly to Datawrapper.

To add your data manually, write each row of your table on a new line, with a semicolon between each cell. The first row will be used as your column headers.

3. Check your data.

Next, Datawrapper will show you your data in table format so you can confirm everything looks as it should. It you see any issues, navigate back to the “Upload Data” tab to fix them before moving on.

4. Select table as your chart type.

Next, select your chart type, in this case: Table.

5. Customize your table.

This is where Datawrapper excels. There are many features you can use to customize Datawrapper charts, but these are the most important ones to look at for your tables.

Refine Table: Since I’m not using any numerical data, I turned off “Make sortable” for each column so users can’t change the row order of my table.

Annotate Table: In the Annotate tab, fill in your table’s Title and Byline.

Layout Settings: Finally, I turned off the download and share buttons on my table since I don’t want people using it without my permission.

6. Publish and get your embed link

Once everything looks good, click Proceed to publish your chart. You’ll be prompted to create an account, but since I already have an account, I simply logged in.

After you’ve created your account, click Publish now. You’ll receive a simple URL that you can paste directly into the Substack editor to embed your table.

6. Paste the embed link in Substack

Now all you have to do is navigate to where you want your table to appear and paste the link! Substack will take care of the rest.

Your table will look professional on both web and mobile, and will give your readers the ability to sort and interact with the data, all without breaking your post layout.

Here’s the live version of the table we just built!

Better Tables Make Better Posts

Substack might not support tables out of the box, but that doesn’t mean your content has to suffer.

With Datawrapper, you can:

• Share clean, readable tables.

• Let readers sort, scan, and explore your data.

• Keep your content accessible, mobile-friendly, and SEO-friendly.

So next time you’re tempted to upload another table screenshot…don’t, and use Datawrapper instead.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

Still, managing content access has historically had a lot of limitations on Substack. Yes, you could set a whole post to free, paid, or founding-only, or start a post free and add a paywall partway through, but that was the extent of the control. The mid-post paywall, where everything above it stays public, and everything below it locks, is crude. Everything below the paywall locks with it, including signoffs and footnotes that should be accessible by all readers.

Substack has finally made it possible to show each subscriber tier something different inside the same post. A new feature called audience-specific content opens up a world of possibilities for content personalization, from converting first-time visitors to rewarding your most loyal subscribers.

What Is Audience-Specific Content?

Audience-specific content is a set of blocks publishers can use to show different content to different subscriber tiers within a single post.

Substack splits your readers into four groups: Not subscribed, Free subscribers, Paid subscribers, and Founding subscribers, and each one can see unique content. The blocks handle the same content as the rest of the editor, so text, images, embeds, and anything else you’d normally add all work. You can add these blocks to any post type, so even a podcast or video post can carry tier-specific notes or links alongside the media. You can also add a For everyone else block as a fallback for anyone outside the group you picked. RSS feeds and search engines only see the Not subscribed version, so whatever you put there is what shows up in search and in the feed.

How to Add Audience-Specific Content

Setting up your first block takes less than a minute.

Open a draft, click More in the editor, choose Audience-specific content, and select Custom.

Use the audience drop-down to choose a tier, and add your content to the block. Add a For everyone else message for readers outside that group.

Finally, click Preview to confirm what each tier sees before you publish.

You can also save any audience-specific block you build as a reusable template, so you can add the same personalized content to future posts with just a couple of clicks.

10 Ways to Use Audience-Specific Content

There are many ways you can use these content blocks to convert new readers, serve your existing subscribers, reward and grow your base, or sell your products, but these are some of my favorites.

1. Build a Native Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a free resource, like a checklist or an ebook, that readers get in exchange for subscribing. With audience-specific content, you can deliver a lead magnet directly within the post. Non-subscribers see a description of the resource and a subscribe button, while free subscribers see the actual file instead. As soon as non-subscribers click the subscribe button, they’ll see the lead magnet, too, meaning they can get instant access without leaving Substack or waiting for a confirmation email.

Need lead magnet ideas? Subscribe to get instant access to my free swipe file of really good lead magnets from 25 different niches!

Subscribe now

2. Warm Readers Up Before Your Paywall

When a new reader who just discovered your publication hits a hard paywall, they’re unlikely to pay. At this stage they barely know who you are and they haven’t built enough trust in your publication yet. You can soften that ask by adding a step in between. Show non-subscribers a preview with a call to action to subscribe for free to keep reading, while free subscribers see the rest of the post. Now you’re giving new readers a reason to subscribe without overreaching. Once they’re already on your list, you can make the case for a paid upgrade later.

3. Give Every Tier Its Own Call to Action

Each reader is at a different stage of awareness and interest in your publication, and the best next call to action depends on where they are right now. A non-subscriber can't upgrade to paid yet, and a paying member has no reason to see a subscribe button. With audience-specific content, you put a different call to action in the same spot for each tier. For example, non-subscribers see a subscribe button, free readers see an upgrade nudge, paid members get a referral ask, and founding members get a bonus. Everyone sees the best next step for them, with no wasted attention on asks meant for someone else.

4. Show Social Proof to Cold Readers Only

Testimonials and other forms of social proof do their best work on people who haven't subscribed yet. Add that content to a block that's only visible to the Not subscribed group. Your subscribers have already bought in, so there's no reason to keep selling them.

5. Add a “Who I Am” Intro for Cold Traffic

When a post takes off and gets shared a lot, most of the new readers landing on it have no clue who you are. A short block for non-subscribers can introduce you while your subscribers (who already know you) skip right past it. A post that starts off with an introduction is much better positioned to convert that increased traffic into subscribers. A post that skips the intro risks leaving thousands of strangers confused about where they are and why they should care.

6. Personalize Your Welcome or Table of Contents Post

Plenty of creators pin a "start here" post to help new readers get their bearings, and longtime readers access their archive more easily. Show non-subscribers the full pitch for who you are and why they should subscribe, and show existing subscribers a warmer note that points them toward your best work. The same pinned post works as a sales page for strangers and a signpost for the people who already follow you.

7. Help Existing Subscribers Manage Their Subscription

Breaking your publication into Sections lets readers manage their subscriptions based on interests. They can receive emails for the Sections they’re interested in and skip others. But plenty of subscribers never realize this is an option. To highlight this feature, create a Not subscribed block with your subscribe call to action, and then use the For everyone else block to show current subscribers how to manage their section subscriptions. This typically makes the most sense at the top or bottom of your posts.

8. Reward Your Founding Subscribers

Your founding subscribers pay you the most, but they rarely get acknowledged for it. Share an early-access link or write a quick thank-you that only your founding subscribers see. A couple sentences can go a long way toward making sure your highest-value subscribers feel appreciated and want to stick around.

9. Ask Your Most Engaged Readers for Referrals

Your paid and founding subscribers are the ones most likely to recommend you, so put your referral ask in front of them and skip everyone else. A non-subscriber barely knows who you are and has no reason to recommend your publication yet so use the same space to to tell them why they should subscribe instead.

10. Run Personalized Promos and Product Offers

When you launch a product or run a sale, you can tailor your offer to each tier using the same post. Give your paid and founding subscribers early access or a discount that only they see, and show everyone else the standard offer with a reason to subscribe. Your whole audience hears about the launch, and your paying readers get a perk for sticking around, but you don’t need to write separate emails for each group.

Audience-specific content is a huge upgrade for Substack publishers. For the first time, a single Substack post can be personalized to each type of reader, which means it can convert newcomers and reward your most loyal subscribers at the same time.

💬 The ideas above are just a few possibilities to get you started and I’d love to hear what’s worked for you, too. If you’ve tried out audience-specific content, or seen someone do it well, share it in the comments!

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

And yet, Substack never supported them natively.

That finally changed. With a new feature called audience-specific content, you can now build a lead magnet inside a single Substack post. Non-subscribers see a pitch for your freebie, and the moment they subscribe, the lead magnet takes its place.

What Is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a free resource you provide in exchange for an email address. It could be a template, a checklist, a swipe file, or even a short guide that solves one specific problem. And since most lead magnets are digital products, once you’ve created one, there’s usually no added cost to give a copy to each new subscriber.

If you’ve ever subscribed to a list just to get the free resource it offered, you’ve experienced firsthand how effective lead magnets can be.

A good lead magnet gives readers who were about to keep scrolling a reason to stop and subscribe. The best ones are tightly aligned with what you write about, so they attract the same people who’d want your newsletter anyway, and those readers tend to stick around after they get their free download.

Why Lead Magnets Used to Be Hard on Substack

Despite how effective lead magnets are for list building, Substack never really supported them, so publishers used workarounds instead.

1. Welcome emails: Every time someone subscribes to your publication, they receive a welcome email. Some publishers offer lead magnets and deliver them by including a link in their welcome email. The problem is that the same welcome email is sent to every new subscriber. This means that if you used multiple lead magnets, you would need to include all of them in the same email. This quickly gets out of hand, and current subscribers have no way to access new lead magnets.

2. Third-party tools: The other route is a third-party tool like Kit or Gumroad. You add a custom button to your Substack post that links to a landing page where readers can enter their email to get the freebie. It works, but it pushes readers off Substack onto a separate form and a separate list, so you are managing two databases and paying for a second tool to do something you should be able to do inside your publication. The emails you collect also reside on the third-party list, not on your Substack, so you have to export and import them manually for those readers to become Substack subscribers. Since the lists are not connected, anyone who unsubscribes on Kit stays subscribed on Substack, with no way to automatically remove them, so they keep receiving your emails even after they've opted out.

Let’s look at how Substack’s new audience-specific content feature solves this!

How Substack’s Lead Magnet Feature Works

Audience-specific content is a single block you add to a post, and it shows different content depending on who’s reading. For a lead magnet, you give it two states.

• The IF Audience version, with Free, Paid, and Founding selected, shows your subscribers the resource: a download button, a link, or the file embedded right there.

• The For everyone else version shows every non-subscriber the pitch: what the resource is, and a button to subscribe for free.

From the reader’s side, it happens in one motion. Someone lands on your post and sees the offer and a subscribe button. They subscribe, the page updates, and the block that showed a pitch a second ago now shows the download. The subscription is the opt-in. The whole thing happens on your post, with no redirect to another site, and no third-party tool or secondary list to manage.

How to Set Up Your First Lead Magnet on Substack

Adding a lead magnet to one of your Substack posts takes only a few minutes. Here's the full process, step by step.

1. Make the resource and decide where to host it. It can be a file you upload directly to your post, or a link to somewhere else, like a Google Doc or a Notion page.

2. Open your post and place your cursor where the lead magnet should go. In the editor toolbar, select More, then Audience-specific content.

   

3. Choose a template, or pick Custom. Set the first block's audience to Free, Paid, and Founding.

4. Drag your file into the block. A download button will load and you can click Edit from the hamburger menu right side of the file to add a thumbnail. If your lead magnet is a URL, you can add your URL to the block instead.

5. Write your pitch in the For everyone else block. Share what readers will get when they subscribe and add a subscribe button. This is what logged-out visitors and non-subscribers will see.

   

6. Hit Preview and check both views. Non-subscribers and logged-out visitors will see your offer, while subscriber will see the free download. Once a non-subscriber clicks the subscribe button, the lead magnet will take its place.

7. If you plan to reuse the same lead magnet in the future, save the setup as a template so you can add it to future posts in two clicks.

What Makes a Lead Magnet Worth Subscribing For?

For most people, creating a lead magnet is the easy part. Identifying a lead magnet that people actually want is harder. The best lead magnets are focused on a specific problem and immediately valuable to your audience. For example, a home-cooking newsletter might offer a week of quick, healthy dinners with simple recipes and a prepared grocery list for busy readers who are trying to eat out less.

Since the lead magnet can live inside a normal post, it will also have a URL you can share in Substack Notes, your welcome emails, or anywhere else you want to promote it. No need to maintain a separate landing page outside your publication!

The best lead magnets are built to get them into as many hands as possible and help you grow your list. Having a one-click subscribe button that automates delivery can help them reach even more people, so higher-value offers that have a cost associated with them, should be added to your paid tier as perks instead.

25 Lead Magnet Examples for Inspiration

Here’s where I share my lead magnet so you can see how the feature works firsthand :)

I put together a swipe file of 25 lead magnets you can explore for inspiration. These examples come from creators and brands across a range of niches, each with a short note on why it works. It’s free and it’s one click away.

If you’re not subscribed to Really Good Business Ideas yet, click the subscribe button below, and you’ll get instant access to the swipe file. I set this up using the same audience-specific content block this post just walked you through.

Subscribe now

Build Your First Lead Magnet This Week

Building your first lead magnet doesn't require a redesign or a new tool. Pick one resource you can make this week. Remember it doesn’t need to be fancy as long as it solves a specific problem for the readers you want to reach. Once you have a lead magnet ready, build your blocks in your next post, preview both subscriber and non-subscriber views to make sure everything is working properly, and hit publish. You'll have a lead magnet running automatically inside your publication, turning readers into subscribers while you write the next post.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

Until now, the hard part has been delivering your perks to subscribers. Substack didn’t natively support perks, so getting them to the right people often required a lot of MacGyvering as publishers made do with janky workarounds. There was also no native way to give annual subscribers a reward that monthly subscribers couldn’t also claim.

Substack's new subscriber perks feature closes that gap. It's available to all publishers with payments enabled, so you can set up perks for your publication today.

What Are Substack Subscriber Perks?

Substack Subscriber Perks are rewards for paid subscribers that live on a dedicated Perks tab on your publication, separate from your paywalled posts.

Perks unlock automatically based on a reader’s plan. You lock each perk to a tier, eligible subscribers can open it, and everyone else sees it locked with a prompt to upgrade.

Substack has three paid plan types: monthly, annual, and founding. You can target a perk to a specific plan, so you can give annual or founding subscribers a reward that monthly subscribers don't get.

Before subscriber perks, you couldn’t differentiate perks by tier natively. Rewarding annual or founding subscribers with something monthly subscribers didn’t get meant delivering and tracking it by hand. Now you attach a perk to a specific tier, and Substack handles access automatically.

How Subscriber Perks Work With Substack Paid Subscriptions

Monthly and annual subscribers usually get the same perks, and the main difference is the price discount the annual plan offers. Some publishers also reserve higher-value perks for annual subscribers, so a reader can’t subscribe for a single month, claim a one-time perk, and cancel. Founding members typically get everything, plus an extra reward.

Until now, you couldn’t differentiate perks by tier natively, so an annual-only or founding-only reward had to be delivered manually. The new Subscriber perks feature solves this by letting you attach a reward to a specific plan and have Substack automatically handle access.

How to Set Up Subscriber Perks

Subscriber perks are available to all publishers with payments enabled. They work on your web publication only, not the Substack app.

To set up your subscriber perks, navigate to your publication’s dashboard, click on Settings, then Payments, and scroll to the bottom of the Benefits section, where you will see Subscriber perks.

Once there, click Manage, followed by Create Perk.

On the Create New Perk page, you’ll be able to name your perk, write a short description, upload a perk cover image (1200 × 800 px), choose which tier can access the perk, and set up a perk delivery method.

You can also limit a perk to new paying subscribers by turning on the New subscribers only toggle and setting a start date and time.

Substack offers five perk types: a discount or promo code, a digital download, a community invite, a link (like a Zoom session), or a Substack Live video.

• A discount or promo code. Share a code for an external site, such as a discount with a SaaS partner. You can give every eligible subscriber the same code, or issue a unique, one-time-use code to each person (handy for something like a course).

• A digital download. Upload a file for subscribers to download directly, such as a PDF, ebook, or zip file, up to 700 MB.

• A community invite. Link subscribers to a private space, such as a Discord server.

• A link. Point subscribers to an online resource, such as a Zoom session.

• A Substack Live video. Give paying subscribers access to an upcoming live video.

The first time you publish a perk, a Perks tab is added to your publication’s navigation, where all your active perks appear. You can also find your perks page by adding /perks to the end of your homepage URL. For example, my perks page lives at reallygoodbusinessideas.com/perks.

You can rename or hide the Perks tab in the Website > Navigation bar section of your Settings. Click Edit next to "Perks" to rename it, or toggle it off to hide it.

When a subscriber visits your perks page, they will see all your perks listed with an option to “unlock” each one.

When a subscriber unlocks a perk, Substack warns them that doing so makes them ineligible for a refund for the rest of their current billing period. It's a smart safeguard that protects publishers from readers who claim a high-value perk and then ask for their money back.

Subscribers who are not yet eligible will be guided through an upgrade process to access the perk, making the perks page a powerful paid conversion tool.

How to Design Perks That Drive Subscription Upgrades

A perks tab won’t make people pay for a perk they don’t want. The new feature handles delivery, but you still have to choose rewards worth paying for and decide which subscription level each one belongs to.

My recommendation is to keep your everyday perks, like community access or your content archive, on the base paid tier so every paying subscriber feels the value right away. Reserve your high-effort or high-cost perks, like physical products or one-on-one services, for annual and founding subscribers, where the increased price makes the work involved worth it for you.

See my analysis for the full menu of the types of subscriber perks you can offer, and how often top creators use each type.

Explore What 145 Top Publications Actually Offer

Now that you can deliver tiered perks natively, the next question is what to put on your Perks tab. The Paid Offers Database will help you find the answer. It has 520 real benefits from 145 top publications, organized by publication category, tier, perk type, and price, with screenshots of each upgrade page.

Ready, Set Your Perks!

The subscriber perks feature gives you a native way to deliver rewards to specific subscription plans.

If you don’t offer perks yet, they’re a great way to expand your offer and increase your monetization potential. Consider what you could give your subscribers to add more value to your paid tiers, then set up your first perk.

If you already offer perks, you can move them onto your perks tab and let Substack handle delivery, whether that’s a link, a code, a digital download, or a live video. Get your cover images ready and set them up.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

The longer you stay, the more ads you see, so the feed learns to serve whatever holds your attention the longest. Often, that turns out to be outrage. It’s why our feeds fill up with rage-bait, and we get sucked into doomscrolling that leaves us feeling like crap.

Substack is built on a different incentive. It earns a cut of subscription revenue, not ads, so it has no reason to trap users in an endless scroll. Co-founder Hamish McKenzie put it plainly, "We only make money when you make money, and you have the ability to leave anytime you want."1

And yet, most publishers still approach the Notes feed the way they’d approach any other algorithm, testing posting times and copying whatever went viral last week. They don’t realize that the Substack algorithm is different.

Last week I made the case that the only way to beat an algorithm is to think like one, using the explore-exploit loop that powers everything from Netflix recommendations to drug trials. This week is the companion piece: a deep dive into the specific algorithm you’re working with on Substack, with insights from the head of machine learning who built it. It runs on a different objective than the feeds you’re used to, so your approach to mastering it needs to be different, too.

What Does the Substack Notes Algorithm Optimize For?

The Substack Notes feed is built to turn readers into paying subscribers, not to keep them scrolling. That single goal explains everything else.

The Substack Notes feed optimizes for one thing: getting readers to discover publications, subscribe, and eventually pay.

It does not optimize for time spent in the app or for raw viral reach, which is the core difference between it and almost every other social feed. As Mike Cohen, Substack’s head of machine learning, put it, “The goal is to get people to discover, subscribe, and ideally pay.”2

Cohen was specific about how other feeds make their money, and it lines up with what we all feel scrolling them: “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.”

A lot of Notes advice ignores how the feed works and treats it like every other platform. Apps like Instagram and X optimize for attention, so tactics borrowed from them often don’t translate to Substack.

On most social media networks, adding a link to a post tends to hurt its reach, since the platform would rather keep people from leaving. On Substack, getting readers to your posts is the whole point, so you can link to your own articles without watching your reach drop.

Substack profits only when a reader becomes a paying subscriber to one of its writers, so its feed is optimized to connect people with writers they’ll want to pay for, not to keep them scrolling.

How Does the Substack Algorithm Decide What to Show You?

The Substack algorithm analyzes each reader and shows them more of whatever they engage with. It doesn't favor any format, so there's no secret format or posting trick to crack.

The Substack algorithm feed builds a numerical profile of each reader, based on who they are, where they live, what language they speak, who they follow and which publications subscribe to, and the interests they’ve set, then compares that profile against candidate posts to decide what to load.3 Substack recently rebuilt part of the algorithm so readers don’t get permanently boxed into a single topic. It has no built-in preference for any format, so a long-form essay, a one-line text note, and a short video all compete on the same footing.

There is no secret format the algorithm rewards, which kills a myth that a lot of publishers still believe. Cohen was blunt about it: "There's no prior belief about what's good. It's about what's best for you." If a reader loves video, they see more video. If they only want long-form, the feed leans that way for them. Don't worry about trying to guess Substack's preferred format. Make the thing your specific readers will engage with, and let the feed sort out who sees it.

The feed also won't lock readers into a single topic. Cohen described recent changes to "the core retrieval step" so that someone on a poetry streak keeps getting poetry, "but not forever." For us publishers, that means a note outside of our usual topic can still find the right readers, even when it doesn't look like what we normally post.

One caveat: Substack has told us what the feed optimizes for and roughly how it represents readers, but not how it weights those signals. "A numerical representation" is still a bit of a black box, so think of this information as directional rather than definitive.

Who Can See Your Substack Notes?

Your notes reach your own followers and anyone their replies and restacks travel to. Engaging with other writers is what expands that reach.

Your notes can reach three distinct groups:

1. The people who already follow or subscribe to you.

2. The audiences of any publication that recommends you.

3. Anyone whose feed surfaces a restack, reply, or comment on your note from someone they follow.

The further a note travels through restacks and replies, the deeper it reaches into those second- and third-degree networks. According to Substack’s support documentation, this is exactly how the Home feed is assembled.

Underneath that is the thing that drives reach: audience overlap. When two publications share readers, Substack treats that overlap as a signal and starts showing each audience the other’s work. Cohen explained why on-platform actions feed this so well: restacks and quotes “all happen on the Substack platform, which means we can understand the full life cycle of behavior and help intersect audiences.” When the system spots overlapping audiences, “that becomes a virtuous cycle.”

This is the part most growth advice gets right by accident. People tell you to restack and reply because it helps build relationships. The deeper reason is mechanical: every restack and reply is data that helps Substack map which audiences belong together. On Notes, engagement is part of how the feed calculates distribution in the first place. It’s the same pattern I dug into in my article, Your Next 100 Followers Are Closer Than You Think: the fastest organic growth tends to come from second-degree connections, the people who already follow whoever you engage with.

A couple of mechanics are easy to miss. Notes don’t go out by email the way posts do, though subscribers may catch them in a notes roundup digest or a push notification. And notes have an unusually long shelf life, often resurfacing days or weeks after you post them, which I covered in more depth in Substack Notes Explained. That piece also includes my mini-study finding that most of the people in the Notes feed are other Substack authors, so write with that in mind.

What Actually Drives Reach on Substack Notes?

Substack shared five recommendations for growing on Notes and backed each with real numbers. The biggest lever is being clear about what readers get from you.

The five things that drive growth on Notes are reaching beyond your current audience, posting consistently, being clear about your value, engaging with others, and cross-posting to other platforms. These come straight from Substack's own recommendations, and the team backed each one with real publisher results.4 Here's what they found, and why each one works.

1. Reach beyond your existing audience.

Every note is a chance to introduce yourself to someone who's never heard of you. This is the whole point of the feed surfacing your work to overlapping audiences, so write at least some notes for strangers (aka future readers), not just subscribers who already get your emails.

2. Publish consistently.

Fashion writer Viv Chen has seen roughly 30% of her total subscribers come directly from her notes, and Substack found that her steady, consistent posting grew her audience more than the occasional viral hit did. Many of her best-performing notes are casual and observational rather than polished, detailed content.

Showing up regularly keeps you in circulation and gives the feed more chances to match you with the right readers.

3. Be clear about your value.

This one has the most dramatic receipts. Julie Fratantoni, PhD, posted a note that explicitly explained who she is and why she's on Substack, which drove 32,535 new subscribers and a $4,546 revenue increase.

Anna Lena Feunekes paired illustrations with a crisp explanation of what her newsletter delivers and picked up nearly 4,000 subscribers from a single note.

Food creator Olivia Noceda posted a short cooking video that made her value obvious, which brought in 437 new subscribers and $480.

When the feed hands your note to a stranger, make it easy for them to understand what they get from subscribing.

If you haven't nailed that down yet, start with my guide to your unique selling proposition. It's hard to communicate a value you haven't defined.

4. Engage.

Reply, restack, and endorse other writers, especially ones you genuinely admire. Substack found that signal-boosting other publishers and joining the wider conversation are both linked to noticeable growth, which makes sense once you know that engagement is how the system maps audiences together. Highlight people whose work you respect, and don’t be shy about sharing when they do the same for you.

Replying and restacking is just the start. For bigger collaborations like recommendation swaps and guest posts, I broke down seven ways to collaborate on Substack.

5. Cross-post with intention.

If you already have an audience elsewhere, use it. Justin Welsh shares his notes to LinkedIn, and Anna Kai turns hers into carousel posts on Instagram, both using outside networks to spark curiosity that sends new subscribers back to Substack. A note doesn't have to live and die inside the Substack app.

For ideas and real examples of what to actually post, from behind-the-scenes peeks to milestone celebrations, I wrote a whole list in 16 Ways You Should Use Substack Notes.

Why Notes Is the Best Place to Run Experiments

Notes are quick to post and include per-note stats, making them the ideal place to test ideas and double down on what works.

Notes is the ideal lab for the explore-exploit loop. They are quick to create, and you get real data every time you post. When you open a note’s stats, Substack shows you the revenue it generated, the new paid and free subscribers it brought in, your new followers, and total clicks and shares.

That feedback speed is what makes the loop work. You can explore by testing different hooks, topics, formats, and tone in small batches, measure which ones pull in the right subscribers, and then exploit the winners by doing more of what worked. Because notes are easy to make and resurface for weeks, you get a lot of shots on goal without burning yourself out. The explore-exploit playbook walks through the full system if you want the step-by-step.

Stop Trying to Game the Feed

There’s nothing to game in the Subtack feed. Simply post like yourself, post consistently, and let the algorithm do the rest.

It turns out we can let go of a lot of the rules we think we're supposed to follow. There’s no best time to post and no format the feed secretly favors. Writing long instead of short doesn’t cost you anything, and the viral moment you’re chasing isn’t what grows you anyway. Most of what publishers worry about with Substack’s algorithm was never a real problem in the first place.

What’s left is simpler, if less exciting. Keep telling people who you are and what you do, and stay engaged with the writers you like. That’s what the feed rewards, because that’s what turns a stranger scrolling past into someone who subscribes and pays.

You don’t need a growth-hacking playbook. You only need to be yourself and share your unique value as you participate in the community.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

Maybe you’ve gotten a notification saying you’re “Rising” in your category, only to lose that status a few hours later without knowing why.

It's easy to get sucked in. Substack’s leaderboards are designed to trigger that dopamine hit that keeps you coming back (and sharing your rankings). But just because a feature is good at capturing your attention, that doesn’t mean it’s a metric worth chasing.

The good news is that the mechanics behind Substack’s leaderboards are less mysterious than they seem. Once you understand what each board actually measures, you can stop obsessing over your ranking and start making more intentional decisions about your growth.

What Are Substack Leaderboards?

Substack leaderboards are ranked lists that surface the highest-earning and fastest-growing paid publications on the platform, organized by category. There is also a cross-category board that highlights publications that recently achieved Bestseller status for the first time.

To appear on any of the Substack leaderboards, you must have paid subscriptions enabled. There are no leaderboards for free publications right now.

The Substack leaderboards can be found through leaderboard tabs for each category or by clicking the ranking listed on a publisher’s profile. A publication can appear on multiple leaderboards (Rising, Top, Bestseller) at the same time, but it can only be associated with one category at a time.

Does Publication Category Selection Matter?

Category selection comes up a lot in discussions about leaderboards, so it’s worth addressing briefly. Because leaderboards are category-specific, the category you choose influences where your publication appears and how it’s grouped. A publication in a niche category like Philosophy is “competing” against a smaller field than one in Business or Politics.

Substack allows you to choose two categories, but you’ll typically only appear on leaderboards for your first category selection. The right approach is to choose the two categories that most accurately describe your publication’s core focus, and then move on. Categories help Substack and readers understand what your publication is about, but they’re not an important growth lever.

Substack Leaderboards Overview

• Top Bestseller: Top 100 publications by category or country based on annual recurring paid subscriptions revenue.

• Rising: Top 100 publications by category based on paid subscriber growth (regardless of publication size).

• New Bestsellers: Publications that received their first bestseller badge in the past 30 days.

How Does the Top Bestseller Leaderboard Work?

The Top Bestsellers leaderboard ranks publications by annual recurring revenue (ARR), which is the total paid subscription revenue a publication generates over a year.1 As far as I can tell, Substack’s ARR metric does not factor in discounts. It appears to use the list price rather than actual realized revenue. This means a publication’s rank might be inflated if they frequently run promotions.

This board is updated daily and is category-specific.2 If your publication is listed in the Technology category, for example, it can only appear on that category’s Top Bestseller board, not on any other.

Because it is driven by ARR rather than raw subscriber numbers, the Top Bestseller board rewards a combination of audience size and price. Two publications with identical subscriber counts can rank very differently depending on how they price their Substack. A newsletter with 500 paid subscribers at $10/month generates $60,000 in ARR. Another newsletter with 500 paid subscribers at $5/month generates only $30,000. Although they have the same number of paid subscribers, these two publications will have very different rankings.

You can also view the Top Bestseller rankings by country at Substack Around the World, which covers 50+ countries. Rankings are based on the location of the publication or author.

How Does the Rising Bestseller Leaderboard Work?

The Rising leaderboard ranks publications based on recent paid subscription growth within a category.3 Publications that are gaining paid subscribers quickly relative to their baseline (regardless of their overall size) can appear here.

This board updates every few hours, which has an important implication: it is highly volatile. Writers regularly report appearing on the Rising board in the morning and dropping off by the afternoon. If you see yourself here, take the screenshot immediately because it might be gone by your next cup of coffee.

A publication can appear on both the Rising board and the Top Bestseller board simultaneously, which means that even established newsletters can show up on Rising if they experience a surge in new paid signups.

How Does the New Bestseller Leaderboard Work?

The New Bestseller board is the most distinct of the three. Unlike the other two, it is category-agnostic, meaning it pulls from across all of Substack’s 33 categories. It features publications that achieved Bestseller status within the past 30 days.4

“Bestseller” status, as Substack defines it, is earned once a publication reaches at least 100 paid subscribers.

Because it spans all categories, the New Bestseller board tends to be eclectic. You might find a philosophy newsletter sitting next to a fitness publication, next to a local news outlet. A publication can appear on both the New Bestseller board and a category-specific leaderboard at the same time.

How the Bestseller Badge System Works

It is worth separating leaderboard rankings from Substack’s bestseller badge system, because many writers conflate the two. Badges are color-coded indicators of your active paid subscriber count. They appear next to your name wherever it appears on Substack.

• White: 100+ paid subscribers

• Orange: 1,000+ paid subscribers

• Purple: 10,000+ paid subscribers

Note that free trials and complimentary subscriptions do not count toward your badge threshold; only active, paying subscribers do.

If you’d rather not display your badge publicly, you can hide it via the “Privacy” settings in your Substack author profile.

Do the Substack Leaderboards Actually Matter?

Leaderboards serve a real purpose on Substack, just not necessarily for you. They help new readers discover publications they might be interested in, and the gamification keeps authors engaged through the slow, unglamorous slog of audience building. Both of those things benefit the platform.

For most authors, leaderboards aren’t a meaningful growth lever. They’re a byproduct of growth, not a driver of it. A Rising appearance won’t meaningfully accelerate your subscriber count, and a Top Bestseller ranking reflects work you’ve already done rather than anything you can act on today.

The healthiest way to think about them is to celebrate a leaderboard appearance when it happens, use it as social proof if it feels comfortable, and then get back to the things that actually build an audience, like SEO and collaborations.

How to Think About Each Substack Leaderboard

It’s easy to get fixated on Substack leaderboards, but they’re really a distraction from more important metrics and more powerful drivers of growth. Here’s how I recommend thinking about each leaderboard.

• Top Bestseller: Only the top 100 publications in each category make this list, and rankings are based purely on Substack subscription revenue. Discounts aren’t factored in, so the publications you see may be generating less than their position implies, and writers further down the list may be out-earning them through other revenue sources. It’s interesting context, but not something useful to focus on.

• Rising: Treat it as a fun, fleeting milestone. Screenshot it, share it if it’s meaningful to you, then move on. It is too volatile to track week-to-week.

• New Bestseller: Treat it as a legitimate moment worth celebrating and broadcasting as social proof. Earning your first Bestseller badge is a big milestone, and this board is Substack’s way of publicly recognizing it.

Substack leaderboards are a well-designed engagement feature. They're fun to watch, satisfying to appear on, and useful for onboarding new readers. But they're a reflection of growth, not a cause of it. The writers who build sustainable Substack publications do so by focusing on what leaderboards can't measure: a clear point of view, quality content, consistent publishing, and thoughtful paid subscriber perks.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

That setting is your wordmark upload. A wordmark is a stylized image version of your publication name that replaces the default text in your navigation bar. Without it, Substack displays your publication name in its default web font, and you miss an opportunity to personalize your publication and build a strong, easily recognizable visual brand.

What is a Wordmark?

A wordmark is a text-based logo that uses a stylized version of a name or word as the brand's primary visual identifier. Unlike an icon or symbol logo, a wordmark is typography-driven. Think of how Google, Coca-Cola, or FedEx use their names as logos.

Where Your Wordmark Appears on Substack

On Substack, your publication wordmark is a horizontal image of your publication name that appears in the navigation bar at the top of every page, replacing the plain-text title Substack displays by default.

It appears on:

• Your publication homepage (the page readers see when they visit your Substack URL directly).

• Individual post pages.

• Any other pages within your publication (About, Archive, and so on).

• At the top of your Substack profile page.

It does not appear in your emails. The header image in your emails is a separate asset called an email banner, which has different dimensions and gets uploaded from a different part of your settings. If you want a branded header in your newsletters too, you’ll need to create that separately. (My guide to Substack visuals covers all of it.)

What Are Substack’s Wordmark Specs?

Getting the dimensions right before you start designing saves a lot of frustration later.

• Minimum size: 1344 × 256 pixels

• Aspect ratio: 21:4

• Accepted file types: PNG or JPEG

I recommend using a PNG with a transparent background. If you upload a wordmark with a white background and a reader views your publication in dark mode, the white box will sit visibly on top of the dark background. A transparent PNG adapts to both light and dark mode automatically.

One thing a lot of people gets wrong is leaving blank space around the edges of the canvas. Your wordmark file might be the correct 1344 × 256 px, but if your text only fills the middle third of the canvas, Substack shrinks the whole image down proportionally and your publication name ends up looking tiny on the page. Fill the canvas edge-to-edge. The header section on your publication site provides its own padding, so you don’t need to leave buffer space inside the file.

How to Create Your Substack Wordmark in Canva

Canva is the most straightforward free option for creating a wordmark. There’s no built-in Substack wordmark template in Canva, so you’ll need to set the dimensions manually.

Step 1: Open Canva and click Create. Select Custom size, enter 1344 px wide and 256 px tall, and click Create new design. (Premium subscribers can skip this step and open the template at the bottom of this post.)

Step 2: Add a text box with your publication name. If you already have a logo, use the same font. If you don’t have a logo yet, choose a font that fits your brand's personality. For example, publications that read more like a journal might choose a cursive font, while more technical publications might prefer a mono font.

Step 3: Scale the text until it stretches to the edges of the canvas. This is important to ensure your wordmark doesn’t appear too small in your publication.

Step 4: To export your workmark, click Share and scroll down to and click Download.

Export your wordmark as a PNG. To get a transparent background (which you want), you have two options.

1. Canva Pro lets you export with a transparent background directly.

   

2. If you’re on the free plan, export as PNG normally, then use a free tool like remove.bg to remove the background.

Step 5: Upload your wordmark to Substack (see the next section for instructions), then check how it looks against your publication’s background. If anything looks off, adjust and re-upload. It takes less than a minute once you have the file ready.

Step 6 (Bonus): Upload your wordmark to your brand vault. I use a brand vault to keep all my brand’s visual assets in one easy-to-access place. I even include multiple versions of my wordmark, like a black version for light backgrounds and a white version for dark backgrounds.

How to Upload Your Wordmark to Substack

1. Go to your Substack publication’s dashboard.

2. Click Website Editor in the left sidebar.

3. Select Header from the menu on the left.

4. On the right, find Wordmark and click Add Image and then Upload Image to select your wordmark file.

5. Once you’ve uploaded your wordmark, use the slider to adjust the size.

Do You Actually Need a Wordmark?

Strictly speaking, you don’t need a wordmark. Many publications are very successful without one.

Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American is one of the most-read and highest-earning publications on Substack. Her publication doesn’t even use post images or a logo, let alone a wordmark.

A wordmark adds visual polish, but it doesn’t drive subscriptions. Readers subscribe because the writing is good, the topic is relevant, and someone they trust recommended it. I’ve never seen anyone explain their subscribe decision as “the header looked professional.”

That said, I recommend that most people add a wordmark to their Substack publication. Especially if any of the following are true:

• You’re building a brand that extends beyond Substack and want a consistent visual identity across platforms.

• Your publication name has a font or letterform style that’s meaningful to the brand (a hand-lettered look, a specific typeface that signals something about the content).

• You find the default text display visually inconsistent with the rest of your design choices.

But if visual brand isn’t an important part of your publication, feel free to skip it!

Common Wordmark Problems (And How to Fix Them)

Problem: My wordmark looks tiny after uploading.

Solution: This is the most common complaint, and the fix is almost always the same: the text isn’t filling the canvas. Go back to your Canva file, scale the text up until it nearly touches all four edges, and re-export. Don’t leave padding inside the file itself.

Problem: I can’t find the wordmark option in my settings.

Solution: The wordmark upload area is in the website editor, not the Basics section, where you upload your square icon logo.

Problem: The wordmark looks fine on desktop but strange on mobile.

Solution: Your wordmark will appear much smaller on mobile screens because it is a wide image, and mobile screens are much narrower. Keep the design to a single line of text and make it as simple as possible. Small details, thin letterforms, or anything decorative tend to get lost.

The wordmark is a small detail that can give your publication a more personalized or polished look, but if you’re still setting up your publication and this feels like one more thing to do, skip it for now. Your default text header works fine, and you can always come back to this later.

For the rest of your Substack visual identity, including logos, cover images, email banners, and post images, the full breakdown is in my Complete Guide to Substack Visuals.

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

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You could be the best writer on Substack, but if your newsletter looks unpolished, cluttered, or hard to read, people won’t stick around long enough to realize it.

Visuals aren’t just decoration; they’re trust signals. The right design choices make your publication feel intentional, professional, and worth subscribing to. They communicate who you are, what your newsletter is about, and why someone should care—all before they’ve read a single sentence.

The good news? You don’t need a design degree (or even Photoshop) to make your Substack look great. You just need to know what to focus on.

This guide covers every visual asset you should consider, starting with the basics, like your headshot and bio, and moving all the way up to social share images and visual formatting inside your posts. For each one, you’ll get:

• What it is.

• Why it matters.

• Image specs.

• Tips to make it easy.

Let’s make your newsletter look as good as it reads.

Substack Profile Assets

These are the visuals that represent you as the person behind the publication, because people subscribe to other people, not just content.

On Substack, your profile and your publication are technically separate. Your profile includes your headshot, handle, and bio. This is what people see when you leave a comment, get mentioned in Notes, or if someone clicks on your name. Even if your newsletter is fully branded, your author identity still shows up everywhere.

A strong, consistent personal presence goes a long way. A well-chosen headshot and a scannable bio can help build trust, recognition, and a sense of connection, before a reader even opens your first post.

Profile Photo

What It Is: Your author photo, visible on your profile page, in Notes, in comments, and at the bottom of your posts.

Why It Matters: It makes you look real. A clear, approachable photo builds trust and signals you’re active and intentional, not just a ghostwriter behind a brand.

Specs:

• File Size: Use a square, high-resolution image, at least 400 × 400 px.

• File Type: JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, or GIF.

Tips:

• Natural light and a neutral background work great.

• Match the tone of your newsletter (e.g., if you write about cooking, don’t be afraid to include a photo of yourself in the kitchen or wearing an apron!).

• If you don’t have a professional headshot yet, consider editing a selfie with Nano Banana. It’s really easy to do and the results can be quite good!

• Directions for updating your profile photo on Substack.

Profile Header Image

What it is:

Your publication wordmark (explained later in this article) will also be displayed as a header image at the top of your Substack profile page.

Why it matters:

A wordmark is a great way to personalize your publication and create a recognizable visual brand for your readers. Having it appear automatically at the top of your profile page is an added bonus for reinforcing your brand.

Specs:

• File Size: Use a high-resolution image with an aspect ratio of 21:4, at least 1344 x 256 px or larger

• File Type: JPG or PNG; I recommend a transparent PNG.

Tips:

• It’s best to add your wordmark through your publication’s website editor so you can make sure it looks good there first.

• See the wordmark section below or read my guide to wordmarks on Substack.

Substack Publication Assets

These visuals shape how your newsletter looks and feels as a standalone brand, on your homepage, in inboxes, and across the web.

Your Substack publication has its own identity, separate from your personal profile. These assets define how polished, professional, and cohesive your publication feels to readers—especially first-timers. Think of them as your brand’s storefront: the header, logo, colors, and favicon work together to make a strong first impression.

Publication Logo

What It Is: A simple, recognizable graphic that represents your brand. It could be an icon, monogram, or symbol, but it should be clear and consistent.

Why It Matters: Your logo is the anchor of your visual brand. It shows up everywhere your publication does, and a strong logo makes your newsletter feel like a real brand.

Specs:

• File Size: Minimum 256 × 256p px or larger.

• File Type: JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, or GIF.

Tips:

• Design a logo that works at multiple sizes (especially small). Keep it simple: think shape, not detail.

• Use a square format and a transparent background for flexibility.

• No need to include your publication’s name in the logo because the name will always automatically appear along with the logo.

• If you don’t have one yet, you can easily design a logo in Canva for free!

• Directions for updating your publication logo on Substack.

  

Publication Wordmark (Optional)

What It Is: A stylized version of your publication’s name using a specific font, layout, or design treatment.

Why It Matters: This is often the missing piece that makes a Substack feel like a professional publication. Without a wordmark, your newsletter can look like every other default template. With one, it feels branded, intentional, and visually distinct.

Specs:

• File Size: Use a high-resolution image with an aspect ratio of 21:4, at least 1344 x 256 px or larger

• File Type: Use a transparent PNG.

Tips:

• Choose a stylized font that is legible and represents your brand.

• When combined with your icon logo, the two become a complete logo that can be used on other brand assets.

• If you don’t have one yet, you can easily design a logo in Canva for free!

• Directions for updating your wordmark on Substack.

Brand Colors & Fonts

What It Is: The theme colors and font pairings you choose in your Substack design settings, including background color, brand accent color, heading and body copy fonts, and link style.

Why It Matters: These subtle choices shape the overall feel of your entire publication, from your homepage to your posts and every email you send. They’re part of what makes your newsletter feel cohesive instead of simply copy-pasted..

Tips:

• Make sure your accent color matches one of the brand colors you’ve chosen for your logo.

• Use high-contrast color combinations to ensure readability in both light and dark modes.

• Select fonts that match your tone. For example, serif for a classic look, sans-serif for a modern feel, or mono for a techy feel are common.

• Your logo will also be used as your favicon (the icon that appears in the browser tab when your site is loaded).

• Directions for updating your brand fonts and colors in Substack.

Publication Cover Image (Optional)

What It Is: The cover image appears at the top of your publication’s welcome page, sitting just above your publication name and description. If you leave it empty, your logo will be placed here instead.

Why It Matters: This is your newsletter’s first visual impression. For many readers, it’s the difference between “this looks legit” and “is this even a real website?” A strong cover image instantly communicates tone, quality, and brand identity, before they even read a word.

Specs:

• File Size: Use a high-resolution image of at least 600 x 600 px.

• File Type: JPG, PNG, WebP, or AVIF.

Tips:

• Use your wordmark (or a combination of logo and wordmark) as the focal point.

• If you decide to use it, this is a way to communicate the vibe you want your brand to convey.

• Directions for updating your cover image on Substack.

Email Banner (Optional)

What It Is: An optional banner image that appears at the top of every email your Substack sends above your post title, like a masthead.

Why It Matters: It’s the first thing readers see when they open your email. A well-designed banner gives your newsletter a polished, publication-like feel. If you’re going for a more personal letter from a friend vibe, feel free to skip it.

Specs

• File Size: Substack recommends 1100 x 220 px with a transparent background, but it could also be taller.

• File Type: PNG

Tips:

• Incorporate your wordmark, icon logo, or brand colors to reinforce your visual identity.

• Keep it clean and readable, and avoid small text or edge-to-edge clutter.

• Directions for adding a banner to your Substack emails.

Substack Post-Level Assets

These are the visuals that show up inside your actual posts. What readers see in their inbox, on the Substack site, and when scrolling through your archive.

Well-chosen post visuals can make your newsletter feel more polished, more readable, and more engaging. They help break up text, reinforce your ideas, and give your posts a professional finish by using screenshots, illustrations, AI-generated images, or even just free stock photography.

Post Social Image

What It Is: An optional image uploaded in the post editor for each post you publish. The image shows up as the thumbnail when your post is shared on social media, featured on your homepage, or previewed in the inbox.

Why It Matters: This is the first visual impression of your post. It’s what shows up in social media feeds like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Substack Notes. A strong preview image can stop the scroll and increase clicks, shares, and open rates.

Specs:

• File Size: Use a high-resolution image with an aspect ratio of 14:10 (at least 1456 x 1048 px is ideal).

• File Type: JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, or GIF.

Tips:

• If you don’t upload a social image, the first image in your post will get used instead, but I recommend making a conscious choice about whether that image will work well or if you should create something different.

• Many publishers prefer to use a consistent color or style to reinforce their brand; others like to experiment with different ways of capturing attention and standing out in social feeds.

• Be aware that the image may be cropped differently on different social networks and devices. Try to keep text centered so it doesn’t get cropped, or avoid text entirely.

• Directions for uploading a social preview image in your Substack posts.

In-Post Visuals

What It Is: Any images you embed directly into the body of your posts: screenshots, charts, illustrations, memes, product shots, etc.

Why It Matters: These visuals break up walls of text, add context, and make your post more engaging and memorable. Used well, they can also help explain complex ideas or reinforce your tone and personality.

Specs:

• File Size: Use the highest-quality version of the image you have, in any size.

• File Type: JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, or GIF.

Tips:

• Make sure you properly source images when appropriate, and consider adding alt text for people who use screen readers.

• If you use screenshots, consider light annotation (circles, arrows) for added clarity.

• Have fun and be creative! This is a great way to enhance the reading experience.

• Directions for adding images to your posts on Substack.

Substack Image Specs

Here’s a quick reference summary of all the recommended image sizes and allowable file types across Substack visual assets. If you’re not sure which filetype to use, go with PNG since it works for everything on the list.

You don’t need a design degree to make your Substack look great. You just need a few well-chosen visual assets. Ones that align with your tone, reflect your brand, and stay consistent from post to post.

Start with the basics: a clean headshot, a strong logo or wordmark, and social post images that look good on both desktop and mobile. From there, layer in headers, banners, and brand colors to your newsletter to life.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s clarity, trust, and a visual identity that makes your readers feel like they’re in the right place. Remember, you can keep improving as you go!

A Strong Visual Brand Starts With Strong Positioning.

If you want help refining your own positioning so you can build out your visual brand, I created a step-by-step worksheet to walk you through it.

Inside, you’ll get:

• A simple 4-question framework to uncover your niche.

• Tips to avoid common positioning mistakes.

• A plug-and-play sentence formula to describe your newsletter clearly.

• Real examples to guide your own.

By the end, you’ll have a strong niche where you can thrive and a one-sentence positioning statement you can use to build out your brand.

This resource is available to Really Good Business Ideas Premium subscribers in the Really Good Resource Library.

Premium members also get access to office hours, where you can get one-on-one feedback and guidance from me directly.

Upgrade to access the worksheet and start sharpening your positioning today.

Subscribe now

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

💬 What’s the best visual brand you’ve seen on Substack? Share your favorite in the comments!

For brands that are not ready to build that infrastructure, or that want to create some presence on Substack before fully committing, there is an easier entry point: the founder or executive who already has something to say.

This is the Substack backdoor. Instead of standing up a complete editorial operation, the brand gets a foothold on the platform through a person who already has credibility, a point of view, and a reason to write. The publication lives under their own name, not the brand’s. The brand shows up organically, and the audience that builds around that person transfers trust back to the company in a way that no content calendar can manufacture.

Why Thought Leadership Over a Branded Publication?

Some branded publications work well. These tend to have a few things in common:

• They publish on a consistent schedule.

• They have a defined editorial focus that is specific enough to attract and hold an audience.

• They have someone accountable for the quality of every issue.

Many brands are not in a position to satisfy all these requirements or may want to establish a presence on the platform while they figure out the larger editorial question. In these cases, the thought leadership path removes most of these obstacles.

The Benefits of Thought Leadership Publications

When an executive publishes under their own name, the brand gains three things that a content team cannot produce on its own behalf.

1. Clear ownership, which leads to consistent publishing.

A thought leadership publication has one owner: the person whose name is on it. That single point of accountability is what keeps it alive. Brand publications often stall because ownership is distributed across a team, an approval chain, or a rotating cast of contributors, and when everyone is responsible, no one is.

2. A new audience that did not already know the brand

may be the founder of Megababe Beauty, but her Substack, , is not Megababe. When publications live under the executive’s name rather than the company’s, readers subscribe to the person first, and the brand benefits from that relationship without having to earn it from scratch.

3. Product mentions that read as personal recommendations.

Crown Affair’s hair products frequently show up in packing lists and haircare tips on ’s Substack, , but they do so alongside other products she recommends. When a trusted person mentions a product in passing, it lands differently than when a brand mentions its own product. The inbox is the highest-trust real estate a brand can occupy, and a founder writing personally earns that trust in a way a brand publication rarely does.

3 Brand Executives Building a Real Audience on Substack

I’ve tracked 11 thought leadership publications connected to brands on Substack since the start of 2026. The publications in this dataset with the most consistent cadences are all founder-led, although the specific approaches vary considerably. Some executives write directly about their product category, others treat the publication as a personal outlet where the brand appears only incidentally. Let’s take a look at three different successful approaches.

1. Jones Road: Bobbi Brown by Founder Bobbi Brown

publishes under her own name, not the Jones Road Beauty brand. The publication runs biweekly, has 15K subscribers, and carries a paid tier with thousands of paid subscribers. She regularly shares Jones Road content with her subscribers, giving the brand a direct line to an audience that already trusts her judgment.

Bobbi Brown

How To: Brows

I've always loved the look of a strong brow. When your brows are defined and clean, they frame your face and draw attention to your eyes. Brows aren’t something to be scared of—they're a simple step in your makeup routine that can completely elevate your look. Here’s a deep dive into all things brows…

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a year ago · 22 likes · 4 comments · Bobbi Brown

The publication has bestseller status and earns revenue independently of anything Jones Road does. That changes the strategic calculus: this is not brand support. It’s a business inside the business, one that also happens to be the most credible beauty endorsement channel the brand has access to.

2. The Only Jane: Jane on Jeans by Founder Jane Herman

spent 20 years in editorial before launching a denim brand. That background shows in Jane on Jeans, a weekly publication that covers exactly one thing and covers it with the kind of authority that only comes from someone who has spent a career thinking about it. has 11K subscribers and reached bestseller status with a paid tier. Traffic grew from 6,100 visits in January to 11,300 in March 2026, a trajectory that suggests the audience is still expanding.

What makes Jane on Jeans different from most founder publications is that its editorial focus and product category are the same. She is not writing about her life with jeans in the background. Jeans are the subject. Readers subscribe because she knows more about denim than anyone else they follow, and that credibility is what the brand runs on.

3. Ghia: Night Shade by Founder Melanie Masarin

is ’s Substack. It has almost nothing to do with non-alcoholic beverages. The posts cover fashion, food, New York life, travel, and personal essays. But Ghia appears often in passing and as part of explicit calls to action.

The publication has 13,000 subscribers, bestseller status, a paid tier, and Q1 2026 traffic that grew from 7,600 visits in January to 16,400 in March. That is the strongest growth trajectory among all thought leadership publications in this dataset over the same period. Melanie's readers trust her taste, and Ghia is part of that taste. When it shows up in the newsletter, it lands the way a friend's recommendation does, rather than feeling like an ad.

Should Your Brand Create a Thought Leadership Publication?

Not every executive is equipped to do this. Those who are successful already have a point of view they express in other contexts and are willing to attach their names to an opinion. Executives who want the audience without the writing are not a fit: A ghostwritten founder publication usually reads like one, and not in a good way.

Jane Herman spent 20 years in editorial before launching a brand. Bobbi Brown’s credibility in beauty is decades in the making. You can’t shortcut either of those.

What you can do is identify the executive in your organization who already has something to say and give them a reason to say it consistently. And with the right executive, like those listed above, a thought leader publication is a high-value distribution channel that a content team simply cannot build on the brand’s behalf.

Q1 2026 Substack Brand Report

The full Q1 2026 Substack Brand Report covers all 33 publications I tracked, with traffic data, subscriber counts, publishing patterns, and authorship models for each. If you want the complete picture, you can access it here.

Access the report

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

PS. Know about any brands on Substack that I missed? I’d love to check them out, too! Leave a comment or DM me!

But lately, brands are starting to slip in and do some pretty interesting things.

I’ve been tracking brands on Substack since the start of 2026, looking at data points like traffic, subscriber counts, publishing patterns, and authorship models. The entire dataset is in my full 2026 Q1 Substack Brand Report, but today I’ll share some key insights, including five standout publications that demonstrated how brands can win on Substack.

Why Substack Makes Sense for Brands

Over the past year, a growing number of companies have launched their own Substack publications. The platform now hosts more than 50 million active subscriptions, search interest just hit an all-time high, and brands are starting to notice. On other platforms, organic social reach is down, SEO traffic is volatile, and CPMs keep climbing. But on Substack, a subscriber is yours, and no algorithm decides whether your next post reaches them.

But why Substack? Why now? And is the strategy actually working for these companies?

Here’s why some brands are making the shift:

• A direct line to your audience. Every post goes straight to your subscribers' inboxes. No algorithm deciding who sees it, no paying to reach people who already signed up to hear from you. For brands that have been at the mercy of platform changes for the past decade, that's a meaningful difference.

• A reason to build loyalty, not just awareness. The brands doing this well use Substack community features and behind-the-scenes content that their audience actually looks forward to. A subscriber who chose to be there is a different reader than someone who stumbled across a post in a feed.

• Room for a real editorial voice. Substack's format rewards substance over frequency. Brands are using it for founder stories, original data, and cultural commentary that needs more than a caption to land.

• An early-mover window that won't stay open forever. Most brands still aren't on Substack, which means the ones that show up with something worth reading get more attention than they would on a saturated platform. That window will close as more brands figure this out.

Not every brand should be on Substack. It takes real editorial commitment to do this well. But for companies willing to put in the editorial work, nowhere else offers the audience-building potential that Substack does right now.

5 Brands Building a Real Audience on Substack

I’ve tracked 33 brand publications on Substack since the start of 2026 and the range is wide. Some brands have built huge audiences that rival established independent newsletters. Others have only a couple hundred subscribers and no clear strategy. These five are worth paying attention to.

1. Polymarket: The Oracle

is the largest brand publication by subscriber count on the platform, with 93,000 since its launch in June 2024. That number alone tends to end the conversation about whether brands can build an audience on Substack.

The Oracle publishes insights from its prediction market on a hybrid authorship model: the publication lives under the Polymarket account, but individual writers get secondary credit. Named bylines let the writers build their own reputations, while Polymarket gets a publication people actually want to subscribe to. Beyond that, Polymarket also collaborates with outside creators who have established publications and audiences of their own, which is probably the bigger driver of subscriber growth.

The most interesting strategic move is the formal Substack partnership, which lets any writer on the platform embed live prediction-market odds directly into their posts. That turns the entire Substack creator base into a distribution channel for Polymarket without Polymarket having to produce any of that content.

2. M.M.LaFleur: The M Dash

M.M.LaFleur launched in January 2025 and reached 82,000 subscribers by Q1 2026. For context, the median number of subscribers for a branded publication in my dataset is 4,300. So either M.M.LaFleur is doing something very different, or they got very lucky.

They’re doing something different. The M Dash runs on a creator collaboration model: alongside internally written pieces, they regularly publish external contributors who have their own Substacks and their own audiences. Writers like Maayan Zilberman (Red is Best) and Alison Cheperdak (Elevate Etiquette) bring their subscribers with them when they publish in The M Dash, and M.M.LaFleur builds their list on the back of it.

The strategic lesson is that subscriber growth on Substack doesn’t have to be organic or slow. If you can publish writers who already have audiences, you can borrow distribution in a way that directly transfers subscribers, not just impressions.

3. OpenAI: The Prompt

OpenAI’s doesn’t come from their marketing team. It comes from the Global Affairs team, and it has a very specific audience in mind: DC policymakers, journalists covering AI and regulation, and people who want to understand what OpenAI thinks about governance.

That narrow mandate explains why it works so well with 32,000 subscribers and an average of 58,400 monthly visits in Q1 2026. Most people ignore topics like the Stargate announcement, AI governance frameworks, and state-level AI policy. But for the people who are interested, there’s almost nowhere else to get OpenAI’s actual thinking on these questions.

Brands often try to be interesting to everyone and end up being interesting to no one. OpenAI took a different path and built a publication that’s essential to the people who influence where AI policy goes next.

4. Shopify: In Stock

Shopify’s launched in October 2025 and was already drawing around 14,000 monthly visitors by Q1 2026. Six months is a short runway to build traffic, and the explanation is straightforward: three named internal writers share the publishing load at a weekly-plus cadence, which means the publication actually shows up consistently, and Shopify has access to material no outside creator could replicate.

In Stock’s content includes first-person accounts from merchants building a business on the Shopify platform and commerce trend thinkpieces that draw on transaction data from millions of stores. Shopify is translating access into stories.

Companies traditionally show up online under their brand name rather than employees, but that model creates a disadvantage on Substack. In my dataset, publications with named writers in the byline consistently outperform those that publish under the brand name alone.

5. Blackbird: The Supersonic

Blackbird is a restaurant loyalty platform that most people probably haven’t heard of, but , which has been publishing since May 2022, has 11,000 subscribers.

The writing covers restaurant culture: profiles of restaurateurs, essays about dining, and lists that are actually useful. It reads like journalism because that’s what it is.

The Supersonic matters here because the branded Substack model doesn’t require a massive platform or a big distribution budget to work. Four years in, a brand most people haven't heard of has built an 11,000-person audience highly relevant to their product by publishing consistently and taking the editorial seriously.

Q1 2026 Substack Brand Report

The full Q1 2026 Substack Brand Report covers all 33 publications I tracked, with traffic data, subscriber counts, publishing patterns, and authorship models for each. If you want the complete picture, you can access it here.

Access the report

To endless possibilities,

Casandra

PS. Know about any brands on Substack that I missed? I’d love to check them out, too! Leave a comment or DM me!

Building an audience takes time, and knowing if you’re on the right track is hard. That’s why it’s so helpful to be able to learn from people who have already done it. A big part of the magic of Substack is the community (see tips 17–19) and having a platform for collaborating and learning from each other.

23 Tips For New Publishers (from Substack Bestsellers)

These tips are straight to the point and cover the entire journey from figuring out what to write to promoting and growing your Substack to making sure readers want to stick around.

To become a Substack bestseller, you need 100+ paying subscribers, so reaching that status represents a huge vote of confidence. I’m a big fan of all of the bestsellers quoted here and am so grateful they shared their tips with us. Their publications cover a wide range of topics, so be sure to check out any that interest you!

1. Plan monetization first.

“Before you write a single post, decide what you're selling and build your content around it. Most new writers do it backwards: they publish for months, grow an audience, and then try to figure out monetization, only to discover they've attracted the wrong readers entirely. My approach is different: define what you sell → write about it → grow. You don't need a finished product on day one. You need a direction, you can build it in public. Even a rough answer will do, like: "I'll offer deeper frameworks and templates for people who want to [solve this specific problem]" is enough to make every content decision from. When your free posts point toward something valuable, the right readers find you, trust you faster, and convert without you having to push. That's the foundation everything else is built on.”

— ,

2. Make sure you know who your audience is.

“Really visualize who you are writing for. Don’t fall into a trap of writing for some fictional smart person you hope is out there. If you can’t clearly describe who would read your stuff, they probably don’t exist.”

— ,

3. Map your content to your audience’s needs.

”My number one tip is for new Substack creators to really know their audience - their pain points, fears, desires and aspirations and to create content that meets their needs. Everything from their bio, short description, offers, welcome emails and about page should speak to these needs and wants.”

— , , ,

4. Write what you want to read.

“Write the newsletter you would want to read—not the one you think will ‘perform.’
Stop obsessing over niches, algorithms, or trying to sound like everyone else. Readers can tell when you’re being authentic, and they’ll stick around for your voice—not some polished version of what you think they want. Oh, and one more thing: promote the hell out of it. Writing is half the job; the other half is making sure people actually see it.”

— ,

5. Have a point of view and own it.

“My #1 tip for anyone starting a Substack.
Forget helpful. Be interesting instead.
I watched myself do this wrong for months. Careful posts. Structured advice. Everything useful and nothing memorable. The kind of writing people read, nod at, and never think about again.
What changed things wasn’t better writing. It was saying something I actually meant.
Not a tip. Not a framework. A point of view that some readers would disagree with — and the right readers would feel quietly relieved someone had finally said.
That’s what earns a subscriber. Not the information. The perspective.
Because information is everywhere. A writer who says something real and stands behind it — that’s still rare.
Write the post you’ve been watering down. See what happens.”

— ,

6. Be open to learning and iterating as you go.

“The willingness to take action, learn and iterate, is the number 1 skill to consider. It’s okay to start where you are and keep making it better, and if you don’t stop success is inevitable.”

— ,

7. Test topic ideas before you write about them.

“Use Linkedin or Substack notes to test topics and stories and only write about them in longer form in your newsletter when you get good engagement.”

— ,

8. Consistently do the work.

“My advice is simply to write and publish every day. In every company I've built, I've never had success with hacks or strategies. It's always been growth over the long run by consistently writing and publishing.”

— ,

9. Focus on delivering real value.

“Writing a newsletter is a long-term journey, so it needs to be approached sustainably.

Don’t let short-term fluctuations (subscriber gains or losses, monetization pressures, or growth hacks, etc) drain your energy.

Instead, focus on consistently delivering real value to your readers over time. If you stay committed to that, the results will follow.

Those results might be fame, money, or subscriber growth, but those are byproducts, not the goal. The most meaningful reward is your own growth along this journey.”

— ,

10. Be a conduit for your readers’ transformations.

“Even if you write a very personal Substack, growth is ALWAYS about whether you are a good conduit for the reader’s transformation. If you are having trouble growing, the more you can focus on the transformation somebody is getting from you, the more people will resonate and gravitate.”

— , and The Hapitalist

11. Leverage your unique perspective and superpowers.

“My top tip is to sharpen your focus around your superpower. What's the unique experience and/or insight you can share, and who are you helping? This may seem obvious, but I think it helped that I spent time as a Substack reader before starting my own publication. It helped to understand how I like to use Substack, and use that perspective to inform how I write for my audience. There's always a temptation to follow the trends of what's "working" on here, but I think the best way to thrive on Substack is to be yourself, find your voice and hone in on the unique perspective that only you can bring.”

— ,

12. Put your personality at the forefront.

“Inject as much of your personality into your newsletter as possible. In a world increasingly flooded with AI-generated content, the one thing nobody can replicate is you; your story, your perspectives, your lived experiences. People don't just want information, they want to learn from real people they can relate to and trust. The creators who lean into that are the ones who build the most loyal audiences.”

— , ,

13. Build your free audience first.

“Focus on building your free audience first. Pour your heart into your writing, share notes daily, and think about the paid strategy later.”

— ,

14. But don’t be afraid to turn on paid subscriptions.

“Set up and turn on your paid tier right from the start. Don't wait until you have a certain number of subscribers. Some people will want to support you financially off the back of your free content.”

— , and .

15. Help your readers find their way.

“Pin a “Start Here” post to the top of your homepage.

I know it sounds basic but it’s the single highest-impact thing I did early on. Countless readers told me that post was THE thing that made them subscribe. It gives a new visitor an instant overview of what you’re about and where to begin. Without it, someone lands on your page, sees a wall of posts, and leaves.

Your “Start Here” should have a short about section and links to your best articles organized by topic. Think of it as a table of contents for your entire newsletter. When I shared this tip in a Substack Office Hours thread it blew up, and several big newsletter writers implemented it immediately.

The deeper principle here: map out what a random stranger experiences when they land on your page for the first time. Step into the shoes of someone with zero context about you. What do they see? Is it obvious what you write about and why they should care? Most new publications obsess over writing more content when the real problem is that their existing content is impossible to navigate.”

— ,

16. Use the right ‘Call-to-Action’ at the right time.

“What do you want your readers to do? Calls to action (CTAs) to grow on Substack are essential. It’s important not to overdo them or you risk disturbing reader flow or worse overwhelming your reader with ‘things to do’. Here are three tips:

1. A good place for a subscribe button is after the first paragraph to capture early interest.

2. At the end of every post, guide your readers on what to do next—whether it’s joining the comments, upgrading to paid, or sharing your work on Notes. You can’t assume they’ll take action without a nudge.

3. I also use evergreen CTAs in my email headers and footers, ensuring key messages (like my membership offer) appear in every email. That way, even if I don’t mention it in the post itself, readers still see the opportunity and it builds awareness over time.

Substack’s “Join the Chat” button is another great way to encourage engagement if you’re using your chat strategically for your publication. Why not get creative with custom buttons or design up graphics and embed a url. The possibilities are endless.”

— ,

17. Get to know your readers and other writers.

“Build genuine relationships with both your readers and other writers. Understanding who your readers are will make it so much easier to create helpful content. And knowing other writers will be a door opener for so many collaboration opportunities that can help you grow your audience much faster!”

— , ,

18. Turn your newsletter into a community.

“Remember that a newsletter is a people business first and a writing business second. Your readers and subscribers are not just looking for information. They are looking for proximity, connection, community. That requires thinking different and beyond and spending time nurturing those relationships. Find your own way to support others, collaborate and be more than just a newsletter. Creating a community takes longer but it pays off.”

— ,

19. Don’t just build a community; start a movement.

“You’re not just starting a newsletter—you’re building a community around a topic you’re passionate about. People crave deeper connections, and you have the power to bring like-minded individuals together and even spark a movement. Substack’s multimedia features help you amplify your reach, from Chat to deepen engagement, LIVE video to connect in real-time, recommendations to grow together, audio and podcasts to strengthen your voice, and Notes to show up as your authentic, multi-passionate self. This isn't just your newsletter, you can start a movement. If you capitalize on the community features to build a community that truly matters to you and others, Substack will change your life.”

— ,

20. Use guest posts to find your people.

“One of the best ways to *grow* your total subscriber count is guest posts. Substack is full of talented and friendly creators, and there’s almost certainly a publication here that has an audience of folks that would also like your content.

Find newsletters that are adjacent to your niche, and reach out to the writer/operator and introduce yourself! It’s a great way to make friends, and writers are often open to guest posts if you can explain a topic that their audience would love. It gives them a break from their posting schedule, their audience a new and unique perspective, and you a chance to get your insight in front of a new audience.

I try to guest post at least once a month, and it’s been the source of almost all of my newsletter subscribers.”

— ,

21. Focus on your strongest distribution channels.

“Leverage your strongest distribution channel—for me, that’s LinkedIn, where I repurpose key insights to drive subscribers.”

— , ,

22. Don’t forget about retention.

“Everyone focuses on getting more and more subscribers, but people often ignore what's really important: Retention. Getting subscribers is important too, but retention is what builds a thriving Substack. If people don’t stick with you, growth is just a vanity metric. Focus on delivering consistent, high-value content that makes readers excited to open every single email. Your goal should be to build a loyal audience that voluntarily spreads the word for you, making growth easier and more sustainable.”

— , ,

23. Embrace being small and use it to your advantage.

“Don't get stuck in your head before you've even started.

I keep seeing new writers on Substack sharing that they're afraid they'll lose subscribers if they publish a certain topic, that people won't like it. People curate themselves. If a topic isn't for someone, they'll leave, and that's fine. You want readers who stay for you as a writer, not just for one subject. When you're just starting out, you have nothing to lose, and this is the best time to experiment. It only gets harder later when the audience is bigger and the stakes are higher. I didn't know my niche or how I help people when I started. I figured that out along the way by listening to my readers, engaging in conversations with them, and looking at the data constantly. But the one thing I always did was make sure I really enjoyed what I wrote before I hit publish. Quality is what gets people to subscribe, stay, and pay. The topic matters less than you think, and with time, you figure out what people come to you for and get more confidence in picking topics anyway.”

— ,

My number one tip? Just start! If you’ve made it this far and haven’t started your publication yet, what are you waiting for? Now is a great time to start a Substack publication, and you’ve got a big community waiting to help you!

To endless possibilities,

Casandra