Substack Vs Medium: Which Is Better in 2024?

A detailed comparison and my recommendation.

👋 Hey, I’m Casandra. I share really good business ideas to help you start and grow a business. I also share what I’m learning about building a business on Substack. If you don’t want to receive Substack business content, you can turn off notifications for “The Substack Shortcut” on your “Manage subscription” page.

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When it comes to starting an online business, choosing the right platform is crucial. The wrong platform will hold you back with missing functionality or unnecessary complexity, while the right platform will help you punch above your weight with the perfect mix of features for your use case.

The same is true for online publishing. While there are many platforms to choose from, each one has a different set of features, and the right combination will depend on your individual goals.

Two platforms that have become very popular in 2024 are Substack and Medium. Today, I’ll outline the differences between the two, the pros and cons of using each one, and share my recommendation for which is better.

Substack Vs. Medium: Which Is Better in 2024?

• Both Substack and Medium are growing and allow writers to monetize their content.

• Substack is growing faster and provides a more reliable platform for building a sustainable business.

• Medium is easier to use, and generic content is easier to monetize on Medium.

Substack by the Numbers

• Monthly Visitors: 86.9 million

• Paid Subscriptions: 4 million

• Search Interest Growth: 122% YoY

SimilarWeb estimates that Substack had 86.9 million visitors in October 2024. However, since many Substack publications are published on custom domains, that number is artificially low.

The New York Times recently reported that Substack has 4 million paid subscriptions,¹ up from 3 million paid subscriptions reported by Axios 8 months ago.²

Substack’s search interest has grown 122% when we compare this week to the same week last year.

Source: Google Trends

Medium by the Numbers

• Monthly Visitors: 127.5 million

• Paid Subscriptions: 1 million

• Search Interest Growth: 0% YoY

SimilarWeb estimates that Medium had 127.5 million monthly visitors in October 2024. That's likely a reasonable estimate since all Medium content is published on the Medium domain.

Medium currently reports over a million paid subscriptions,³ up from 760,000 paid subscriptions reported by TechCrunch in August 2023.⁴

Medium’s search interest has remained flat compared to the same week a year ago. However, because Medium is such a generic term, I had to limit my Google Trends search to “medium.com” to ensure I only included branded searches.

Source: Google Trends