🔎 Which Substack Publications Charge the Highest Subscription Fees (And Why They Can Charge So Much)
An analysis of 19 highest-priced Substack publications
This article is part of a series on Substack. Subscribe to access the full series.
Welcome back to Really Good Business Ideas! Last week we dove into the first opportunity we’ll be exploring together: Substack publications.
Now that we know more about why Substack is a great business opportunity, we’ll spend the new few weeks analyzing the top performing Substack publications to extract insights about how to succeed on the platform.
The primary way that Substack publications are monetized is through subscription fees. While most Substack publications charge between $5-50/month, some charge a very high monthly fee.
Today we’ll look at the 19 highest-priced publications to understand:
If they’re actually able to get subscribers at this price point.
If so, why they can charge so much.
These publications all charge more than $100 dollars per month and range from $120-$1,600, as shown in the gold box below.
Key Insights
We’ll start with the key insights from this analysis. If you’d like to take a deeper look at the individual publications, I’ve included them in the next section. As always, assumptions and limitations of the analysis are explained at the end of the article.
🔎 Most of the 19 highest-priced Substack publications are providing investment advice, either directly or indirectly.
While one publication (in the Faith & Spirituality category) is about women exploring their “dark” side, and another (in Education) is about getting into an MBA program, the remaining publications are all giving some form of investment advice. Many provide advice about investing in the stock market, but others discuss trends in specific industries like life sciences innovation, and shipping and logistics.
Recommendation: Only consider a very high subscription price ($100 a month or more) if your content is very niche (like Evil Single Woman), or financially beneficial for your readers. Most readers won’t be willing to pay this price unless they feel strongly about the value they’re getting in return.
🔎 Over half of the 19 highest-priced Substack publications are consistently publishing multiple times a week.
Most of the highest-priced publications are posting new articles at least weekly and many of them are consistently publishing multiple times a week.
Recommendation: Regardless of the type of content you produce, publishing more frequently is another way to add value if you want to increase your price.
🔎 Most of the 19 highest-priced publications have low numbers of paid subscribers.
Substack awards a bestseller badge to publications when they reach specific milestones: hundreds of paid subscribers, thousands of paid subscribers, tens of thousands of paid subscribers, and hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers. Using these badges—or the lack of a badge—we can estimate the number of paid subscribers a publication has.
Most of the 19 highest-priced Substack publications do not have a bestseller badge and, therefore, likely have less than 100 paid subscribers, if they have any at all.
Recommendation: If you’re trying to reach a wider audience, be cautious about pricing your subscription too high.
🔎 Annual revenue ranges indicate that higher priced publications with small audiences can still be lucrative.
While it’s entirely possible that the annual revenue of many of these publications rounds to $0 (almost no paid subscribers), the upper ends of the estimated revenue ranges show that it’s still possible to create a lucrative publication even if you only reach 100 subscribers. The publications with 0-99 subscribers included here have a maximum annual subscriptions revenue of $178K-$1.91M based on their monthly price.
Recommendation: If you’re confident in your ability to attract a small number of paid subscribers at a higher price, you can still create a solid business. Just make sure you really do have a reason to be confident about your expertise before pricing your publication too high.
Top 19 Highest Priced Publications Breakdown
Here’s a more detailed look at the top 19 highest-priced Substack publications, ordered from highest monthly price to lowest.
1. Dot Macro
Monthly price: $1,600 ($16,000 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0-$1,900,800
Publishing frequency: 2-4/month
Leaderboard ranking: #399 in Finance
Are people paying it? While we can’t say for certain that Dot Macro has any paid subscribers without a bestsellers badge, the fact that almost all their posts are completely closed to free subscribers leads me to believe at least a few people must be paying for access. Otherwise, Dot Macro probably wouldn’t continue to spend time publishing new content.
Why do people pay it? Macro Dot is offering data that can help inform investment decisions and good investments make money.
2. Blog van @Letuscompound - Zoektocht naar Old Skool Beleggen
Monthly price: $1,060 ($10,565 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$1,259,280
Publishing frequency: 1-4/month
Leaderboard Ranking: #491 in Finance
Are people paying it? Blog van @Letuscompound offers a lot of free content so it’s hard to say if anyone is paying for a subscription.
Why do people pay it? If anyone is paying for a subscription, it would be because they believe the investment advice can make them money. Also, since most Substack publications are written in English, some Dutch speakers may also be willing to pay more because it’s written in Dutch.
3. Convequity
Monthly price: $999 ($4,999 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$1,186,812
Publishing frequency: 1-4/month
Leaderboard ranking: #309 in Technology
Are people paying it? Convequity offers a lot of free content so it’s hard to say if anyone is actually paying for a subscription.
Why do people pay it? If anyone is paying for a subscription, it would be because good investment advice has the power to make investors money.
4. Evil Single Woman
Monthly price: $500 ($6,000 annual)
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$594,000
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Publishing frequency: Daily
Leaderboard ranking: #402 in Faith & Spirituality
Are people paying it? The content is mostly inaccessible to free subscribers so likely some people are paying to access it or the author wouldn’t keep publishing so much.
Why do people pay it? It’s not every day you come across content for women who want to explore their dark side. Extremely niche content can charge more due to scarcity. Plus this one offers daily content.
5. Ayushi’s Substack
Monthly price: $500 ($1,000 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$594,000
Publishing frequency: 8 total
Leaderboard ranking: #167 in Education
Are people paying it? Maybe. Most of content on this publication is paywalled so it’s possible at least a few people paid to access it.
Why do people pay it? If you really wanted to get into business school, you might be willing to pay for insider info that can help you.
6. Swany407 Investment Research
Monthly price: $495 ($1,195 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$588,060
Publishing frequency: Nearly daily
Leaderboard ranking: #48 in Business
Are people paying it? Swany407’s content is mostly locked behind a paywall so it’s likely some folks are paying for it. Especially since the publication ranks #48 in the Business category.
Why do people pay it? Good investment advice has the power to make investors money.
7. Energy Outlook Advisors' Newsletter
Monthly price: $495 ($4,000 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$498,960
Publishing Frequency: 2-5/week
Leaderboard ranking: #15 in Business
Are people paying it? Based on the fact that a lot of content is not accessible to free subscribers and this publication ranks #15 in Business, it’s likely some people are paying for access.
Why do people pay it? Good investment advice has the power to make investors money.
8. Topdown Charts Professional
Monthly price: $350 ($3,500 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Thousands of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $3,500,000–$41,995,800
Publishing frequency: 1-2/week
Leaderboard ranking: #73 in Finance
Are people paying it? Yes. We know from the bestseller badge that at least 1,000 people are paying for a subscription.
Why do people pay it? Good investment advice has the power to make investors a lot of money.
9. Daniel Curran's Off the Charts Investing without crazy risk.
Monthly price: $299 ($2,689 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$355,212
Publishing frequency: 2-4/week
Leaderboard ranking: #434 in Finance
Are people paying it? Likely a few people are paying for access since this publication has been publishing subscriber-only content for a while.
Why do people pay it? Good investment advice is valuable.
10. Capitalist Pig Collective
Monthly price: $250 ($2,500 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$297,000
Publishing frequency: 1-6/month
Leaderboard ranking: #464 in Finance
Are people paying it? A large section of each article is available for free so I suspect not many people are paying for full access.
Why do people pay it? People will pay for what they believe to be good investment advice because it makes them money.
11. BIOS+
Monthly price: $250 ($2,500 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$297,000
Publishing frequency: Inconsistent
Leaderboard ranking: #39 in Science
Are people paying it? A lot of content is only accessible to paid subscribers and there’s a lot of it. It’s likely BIOS+ wouldn’t put in all this effort without some revenue.
Why do people pay it? Think of BIOS+ as a trade publication. It’s highly useful for people in life sciences innovation—especially investors.
12. Elliott Wave Café
Monthly price: $205 ($2,050 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$243,540
Publishing frequency: Nearly daily
Leaderboard ranking: #193 in Finance
Are people paying it? Maybe. This publication has been creating paid subscriber content only for a while now so at least a few of their 500+ subscribers must be paying for full access.
Why do people pay it? They believe this investment advice will help them make money.
13. Capitol Account
Monthly price: $200 ($2,000 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $200,000–$2,397,600
Publishing frequency: Nearly daily
Leaderboard ranking: #16 in Finance
Are people paying it? Yes. Based on the bestseller badge we know that at least a hundred people are paying for a subscription.
Why do people pay it? It’s a trade publication focused on regulation for investors with daily information that can help them make better decisions and, therefore, make more money.
14. HFI Research
Monthly price: $200 ($12,000 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $120,000–$2,397,600
Publishing frequency: Nearly daily
Leaderboard ranking: #25 in Finance
Are people paying it? Yes. Based on the bestseller badge, at least a hundred people are paying for a subscription.
Why do people pay it? Investment research has the power to make readers money.
15. Misadventures in Shipping
Monthly price: $150 ($450 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $45,000–$1,798,200
Publishing frequency: Nearly daily
Leaderboard ranking: #56 in Finance
Are people paying it? Yes. Based on the bestseller badge, at least 100 people are paying for a subscription.
Why do people pay it? Very niche investing advice.
16. Hi Mount Research
Monthly price: $150 ($1,500 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$178,200
Publishing frequency: 2-3/week
Leaderboard ranking: #139 in Finance
Are people paying it? Perhaps a few. There is a lot of free content but also some paid subscriber content as well.
Why do people pay it? Investing advice. What else?
17. Valuabl
Monthly price: $245 ($1,140 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Less than hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $0–$291,060
Publishing frequency: 2-3/month
Leaderboard ranking: #235 in Finance
Are people paying it? Hard to say. Most of the content is accessible for free but there are likely some people paying for full access given how long it’s been running.
Why do people pay it? Once again, investment advice.
18. Nat Stewart - Stock Picking Newsletter
Monthly price: $175 ($500 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $50,000–$2,097,900
Publishing frequency: 2-5/month
Leaderboard ranking: #62 in Finance
Are people paying it? Yes. We know more than 100 people have a paid subscription from the bestseller badge.
Why do people pay it? Investment advice, of course!
19. Bismarck Brief
Monthly price: $120 ($960 annual)
Paid subscriber tier: Hundreds of paid subscribers
Annual subscriptions revenue: $96,000–$1,438,560
Publishing frequency: 4-7/month
Leaderboard ranking: #10 in Technology
Are people paying it? Yes. We know more than 100 people have a paid subscription from the bestseller badge.
Why do people pay it? Thorough analysis that can inform strategic bets and other investments.
Assumptions & Limitations of Analysis
Publications with annual subscription fees that are so discounted subscribers would logically only ever choose the annual subscription (thus lowering the effective monthly price) were excluded.
Publications without a Bestseller Badge are assumed to have less than a hundred paid subscribers. It is possible some may have chosen to hide their bestseller badge but this is unlikely:
The badge provides a form of social proof that can help the publication grow
The badge is enabled by default so there is friction to removing it.
This data was originally collected from Leaderboard pages, which seems to include paid subscribers data even when the author has opted out of showing the badge. For example, Steve Kirsch's newsletter doesn’t display a Bestseller Badge, but its blurb on the Leaderboard page for Health Politics still tells us it has Tens of thousands of paid subscribers.
Minimum annual subscriptions revenue is calculated using:
The annual price, which is typically discounted (10% is common) compared to the monthly price
The lower bound of the paid subscriber tier based on the bestseller badge
Maximum annual subscriptions revenue is calculated using:
The monthly price
The upper bound of the paid subscribers tier based on the bestseller badge
The data used in this analysis is a snapshot based on the date it was compiled. Metrics like leaderboard ranking, subscribers, and price will all change over time.
This analysis does not consider alternative sources of revenue outside of subscription fees. As we discussed last week, there are several other ways to monetize a Substack publication.
The dataset used to identify this list includes the top 500 publications in each category based on Leaderboard ranking; however, not all categories have 500 publications.
Coming Up Next Week 📩
That’s all for this week. Join me next week as we dive into an analysis of the most popular Substack publications. The following week we’ll look at which publications earn the highest revenue and see how that list overlaps with the highest-priced and most popular publications. Be sure to subscribe because you don’t want to miss it.
To endless possibilities,
Casandra
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