This month, we’re shipping a range of updates that give you more control over your publishing workflow—from scheduling Notes in advance to new live video tools, post templates, and design details that make your publication feel unmistakably yours. Here’s what’s new.

Post templates

You can now create and save templates for longform posts, directly within the post editor. If your workflow includes recurring elements like calls to action, disclaimers, section structures, sponsorship placements, or code blocks, you can save them once and reuse them in new drafts instantly.

This removes repetitive setup work and helps you stay consistent without starting from scratch each time. Build your format once, and reuse it whenever you need it.

Learn more about using post templates in our Help Center.

Drop caps

Enable a drop cap—the large, stylized first letter that opens a piece of writing—for your Substack publication. You can turn this on in the Website Editor in your publication settings. From there, click “Posts,” toggle on “Drop caps,” and click “Save.” Visible on web, drop caps are a small detail that can give your writing a more considered, editorial feel.

Learn more about adding a drop cap to your post in our Help Center.

Live video: more control over how you stream and manage events

We’ve expanded Substack Live with new tools for publications running regular video programming:

• Choose where you stream: You can now decide which publication to go live from each time you stream, instead of being limited to your primary publication. This is available across iOS, Android, and web.

• From the new live video management dashboard page on desktop, you can now:

  • Schedule on behalf of a host. Contributors and admins can now schedule a livestream for another creator on your publication.

  • Edit scheduled streams. You can now update the title, timing, host, and notification settings for any scheduled stream after it’s been created. If a host needs to swap out or a time needs to shift, you can handle it directly from the dashboard without canceling and starting over.

  • Have quick access to stream keys. Contributors, admins, owners, and hosts can now view and copy stream keys directly.

Learn more about managing live video in our Help Center.

Schedule Notes

You can now schedule Notes to publish at a specific time, on web, iOS, and Android. Write in advance, set a publishing time, and your Note will go out automatically. All scheduled Notes appear in your Notes Drafts tab, where you can continue editing right up until they publish.

• On web, click the 📅 icon in the composer

• On iOS and Android, tap “…” and select “Schedule”

• Choose a publishing time in your local time zone

• Find and edit your scheduled Notes anytime in the Drafts tab

  

Learn more about drafting and publishing Notes in our Help Center.

Refine your feed with clearer controls

The “show less” control in your feed is now more visible and easier to use. When you see a Note you’re not interested in, tap the X to tell us why—whether it’s not relevant, feels like clickbait, or just isn’t what you’re looking for. Your feedback helps shape what you see going forward, so your feed stays focused on the work you care about.

Subscribe homepage block

The subscribe block—a customizable banner that prompts homepage visitors to subscribe—allows you to tailor your message to free, paid, and founding members. Now you can also customize its color and add a logo, giving you more ways to make it feel like yours.

Callout block

Add callout blocks to your posts: visually distinct, formatted containers that let a piece of text stand apart from the rest of your writing. Use them to highlight a key idea, surface a quote from another writer, flag a note to readers, or draw attention to something you want to make sure doesn’t get skipped. It’s a clean way to add visual rhythm or reference something you want your audience to see.

These updates are available now

We’re continuing to build tools that give you more control over how you publish and how you connect with your audience. As always, let us know what’s working and what you’d like to see next, in a Note, in a post, or by restacking.

Today, we’re launching the Substack Recording Studio, a built-in studio that makes it easier than ever to pre-record and publish a show on Substack. Substack Studio, currently available on desktop only, lets you record a solo video or a conversation with up to two guests and publish it when you’re ready, with auto-generated clips and thumbnails included.

Until now, creating video on Substack meant going live, or stitching together a separate stack of tools: a recording platform, a way to create and distribute clips, and something to design a thumbnail. Substack Studio brings all of those tools into one place. And as with live video, anything you share is automatically distributed through the Substack network—in the mobile app, on the web, and on the big screen with Substack TV. Here’s what’s new:

Recording Studio

Record a conversation without going live and publish it when you’re ready. On desktop, simply click the Recording Studio button under “Create.”​​ You can invite up to two guests, who can join from desktop or the Substack mobile apps. After they accept your invite, they’ll automatically join the preview room, and you can start recording. Once you’re done, you’ll get the same auto-generated clips and thumbnails you’d get from a live video.

of recently used Substack Studio to sit down with ’s for a deep dive into the trends reshaping the snack industry—recording, publishing, and clipping the entire episode using just Substack tools.

Publication branding

Hosts can now add a publication logo or wordmark directly into any show they record on Substack, whether it’s live or in the Studio. You can adjust it to appear in the top left, top right, or bottom left of the frame, and can also upload a custom asset if you want to add something specific to a show. This is the first step toward giving every show on Substack its own distinct look and feel.

Publisher recently added her Red Letter logo to an episode with congressional reporter .

Screen sharing

Hosts and co-hosts can share their screen mid-conversation to walk through whatever they’re referencing: a chart, a dataset, a news article, or a piece of writing. The shared screen is captured in the final recording, and is available for both livestreams and those taped in the Studio on desktop. For now, screen sharing is visual only; sound from shared content isn’t captured yet, though that’s coming soon.

AI and exponential technologies expert recently used screen sharing to give viewers a demo on how he runs his AI agent system.

Editable thumbnails

In December, we introduced automated thumbnails that generate as soon as your live video ends. Now, across both live and recorded video, you can pick the frame and customize the thumbnail text to match.

How to Feel Alive publisher customized the thumbnail text for her conversation with author Dan Coyle using Substack’s new thumbnail editing tools.

Learn more about the Substack Recording Studio in the Help Center.

The Substack Recording Studio and these new tools are available now. It’s worth giving them a try: recent data shows that creators who have used audio or video on Substack in the past 90 days have grown their revenue 50% faster than those who haven’t. Substack Studio makes getting started a lot easier.

To go deeper on these tools, watch our virtual masterclass, where we walk through the Recording Studio, share best practices for building a show on Substack, and answer questions from creators live.

Watch now

Save Notes as drafts

You can now save Notes as drafts on web and iOS, with Android coming this week. If you start writing a Note and hit cancel, you’ll have the option to save it instead. When you return to the composer, you’ll find your saved Notes in a new Drafts tab.

This makes it easier to capture ideas as they come to you, refine them over time, and publish when you’re ready.

Learn more about drafting and publishing Notes in our Help Center.

Pin multiple posts to your homepage

You can now pin multiple posts to your homepage to control what visitors see first.

To pin a post:

• Tap the pencil icon on your homepage

• Search for the post you want to feature

• Select it to pin

Learn more about customizing your homepage in our Help Center.

Export your publisher stats as a CSV file

Publisher stats are now exportable as a CSV file, directly from your dashboard. Exports reflect whatever filters and views you’re currently using, so you can pull the exact data you need. That might mean analyzing audience growth or tracking traffic trends over time, all in a format you can work with offline.

To export, select the time range you’d like to analyze in your publication dashboard, then click “Download CSV” from the menu.

Center, right align, or justify your text

You can now center, right align, or justify text in your posts from the web editor toolbar, giving you more control over how your writing looks on the page.

Hide revenue and subscriber counts

If you’d prefer not to see revenue and subscriber counts on your dashboard, you can now hide them. This lets you keep those metrics out of view while you focus on your work.

You can toggle this setting on or off in your publication settings.

Learn more about Substack’s metrics in our Help Center.

Improved code formatting

Code blocks now support syntax highlighting. Language is detected automatically, so your snippets render with consistent formatting, spacing, and line numbers, across web, mobile, and email. Readers can copy the full snippet with a single click. This works everywhere your posts show up, including email.

What’s included:

• Syntax highlighting

• Automatically detects language on paste from VS Code

• Indentation shortcuts (tab / shift+tab)

• Drag, cut, and paste support

• Line numbers for reference

• One-click copy to clipboard

def fibonacci(n):
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    a, b = 0, 1
    for _ in range(2, n + 1):
        a, b = b, a + b
    return b

print([fibonacci(i) for i in range(10)])

Learn more about using code blocks in our Help Center.

Manage live videos in one place

We’ve added a new section to your creator dashboard for managing live videos. Scheduled streams, recordings, and drafts were previously spread across different areas. They’re now organized in one place within your dashboard.

In this new section, you can:

• View scheduled live videos

• Access recordings of past livestreams

• See unpublished recordings of live videos

• Edit or cancel scheduled streams directly from the dashboard

This gives you a clearer overview of your live video workflow and reduces the need to jump between different tools to manage upcoming or past broadcasts.

Learn more about managing live video in our Help Center.

These updates are available now

We’re continuing to invest in improving the core parts of Substack—the tools you use every day to publish, design, and understand your work. We hope these updates give you more flexibility in how you publish, manage, and discover work on Substack.

Thanks for building with us.

When we introduced Polymarket embeds in 2024, creators started weaving prediction market data into their analysis, from election forecasts to AI breakthroughs to economic policy. As more creators have integrated and responded to this data in their work, we’ve been building tools to support how they reference and discuss it on Substack.

Today, in partnership with Polymarket, we’re introducing native tools that make it easier to share, discuss, and debate prediction market data directly on Substack. Polymarket has also joined our sponsorships pilot, supporting a cohort of creators who integrate these tools into their work.

What are prediction markets, and why do they matter?

Prediction markets are an emerging technology that aggregates real-time estimates of what will happen in the future. While the stock market lets people trade shares of companies, and the price reflects an estimate of how much a business is worth, Polymarket lets people trade shares of future events, like elections, economic trends, and scientific breakthroughs. The price reflects a market estimate of how likely an outcome is to happen.

So while the stock market can tell you how much traders think Nvidia is worth, Polymarket can tell you whether traders think the Fed will raise interest rates, that Ukraine will join NATO this year, or that One Battle After Another will win Best Picture at the Oscars. As with the stock market, these prices offer powerful insights into how participants are assessing the likelihood of different outcomes—everyone is free to disagree about how much Nvidia is actually worth, or what movie will win, but everyone still sees the same ticker of what it’s trading at, up to the second.

What’s new

When we first introduced Polymarket embeds, creators had to paste external links into posts. Even with that extra step, one in five of Substack’s top 250 highest-revenue publications started using them. Today, we’re making it easier with three new features, now available on iOS, Android, and web:

Notes embeds

Polymarket data can now be embedded directly in Notes, not just posts. This means you can quickly reference a prediction market that automatically refreshes with the latest odds, while sharing commentary, responding to news, or sparking a discussion—whether you’re writing a full article or a quick note.

Writer and podcaster referenced market expectations in a note about different timelines for Keir Starmer’s potential exit as U.K. prime minister, while tech analyst used a Polymarket embed in Notes to comment on how Anthropic’s research progress moved prediction market sentiment around AI model performance.

Search within Substack

You can now search for Polymarket data directly from the post editor or Notes composer. No need to open a new tab, find the right market, and copy a link back. Just search, select, and insert an embed directly alongside your analysis.

Dynamic visualizations

Polymarket embeds now adapt their visual format to match the type of question you’re referencing—a yes-or-no question looks different from one with multiple possible outcomes. Substack automatically selects the right format to ensure that the data is clear and easy to read.

For example, when embedded data on the Democratic favorite for 2028—with the caveat that it’s still “way too early to say”—it automatically displayed as a multi-candidate ranking. When embedded a question about whether the U.S. will confirm before 2027 that aliens exist, it displayed as a simple percentage.

These tools are available to start using today. You’ll find instructions in our Help Center, and if you publish something using the tools, tag —we’d love to see what you’re working on.

Publication design settings

We’ve made a number of updates to the theme editor that make it easier than ever to shape the experience subscribers have when they land on your publication’s homepage.

Here’s what’s new:

• Custom header and footer: Resize your wordmark and adjust its placement.

• Faster homepage editing: Click any section in the homepage preview to adjust its settings directly. You can also drag and drop sidebar modules to reorder them.

• Welcome page colors: Set a background color for your welcome page independent of your main homepage.

• Undo after saving: Made a change you didn’t mean to? Undo appears right after you save.

You’ll find these settings in the same place as before: Settings → Website → Theme.

Learn more about customizing your publication in our Help Center.

, the author of DrawTogether, used these updates to create a homepage that’s both beautiful and easy to navigate.

Drop Site News uses the custom layouts to add social links and highlight work from their contributors.

For more ideas, take a look at Sub Club’s distinctive logo placement and The Preamble’s expert use of the footer.

Recipe embeds (beta)

Recipe embeds are now available in beta on Substack, offering a clean, structured way to publish recipes inside a post.

If you’ve ever shared a recipe as plain text, you know it’s not ideal: ingredients and steps can get buried, readers have to scroll back and forth while cooking, and recipes aren’t always surfaced well by search engines. Recipe embeds solve these issues by giving recipes a dedicated format that’s easy to follow, save for later, and built for discovery.

To add a recipe embed to an upcoming post, open the post editor and choose More → Recipe.

Recipe embeds can include:

• An image

• Title and description

• Prep and cook time

• Ingredients and directions

• Optional descriptive tags for meal categories, cuisines, etc.

And recipe embeds automatically generate the proper metadata so search engines can index and surface your recipe, helping new readers discover your Substack.

, the author of To Vegetables, With Love, put the new format to use in her latest recipe, for napa cabbage and crumbled tempeh rice noodles.

To Vegetables, With Love

Napa cabbage and crumbled tempeh rice noodles

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. ‘ Find archived recipes on my recipe index…

Read more

2 months ago · 56 likes · 10 comments

Learn more about using recipe embeds in our Help Center.

Live video scheduling on Android and desktop

You can now schedule livestreams on Android and desktop, giving you more time to promote your event and build momentum ahead of going live. Each scheduled stream generates an RSVP link that subscribers can add to their calendar and share across Substack and social channels. Email and in-app reminders help bring your audience back when it’s time to tune in.

Learn more about scheduling a livestream in our Help Center.

Try them out today

We’re focused on building tools that help publishers own their space on the internet and connect meaningfully with their communities. Whether you’re refreshing your publication or experimenting with new formats like recipes and live video, we hope you’ll try out these updates and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

TL;DR: Custom themes are finally coming to the apps! Starting today on iOS, you’ll see this when you tap on Substacks you subscribe to from a new row atop the feed that makes it easy to keep up with your favorites. Soon, themed views will be everywhere in the apps, and this is just the beginning of a major effort to make Substacks richer and more customizable.

For years, anyone writing or creating online has faced a choice:

1. Build your own website or app, reflecting your taste and featuring your aesthetics and branding, and apply your rules for commenters and community members, but watch it fail to get much attention or traffic, especially over time, without costly marketing efforts on other platforms.1

2. Share your work directly on those other platforms to meet audiences where they are, but compromise on style and branding, cede some or all ownership of the relationships you build, and accept the rules of the platform owners, which can change dramatically and upend your livelihood overnight.

It’s a little like owning your own small shop versus operating in a mall. Your unique store might be laid out and managed exactly as you—and your customers—want, but if you cannot attract enough people, if too many customers prefer the convenience and centrality of a mall, you’ll struggle to remain afloat. The mall’s scale advantage often wins with audiences, even when they admit that your unique vision on its own is superior, even when it’s common to hear people lament: “I hate the mall.”

Online, audiences flock to massive social media or content platforms, ignoring even the most beautiful and well-run individual sites and apps. Writers, journalists, artists, musicians, chefs, critics, and creators of all kinds need to reach people at scale in order to earn sustainable livings, and so they wind up going where the audiences are, abandoning any hope of control or customization. And once they’ve built an audience on a platform, they’re locked in: they cannot take their audience with them if they leave.

Substack has long worked to offer a different model: one where the benefits of scale accrue to creators, not just to platform owners, while as much of the value of independence is preserved as is possible. You might say that our vision is that of a thriving commercial district within a city: the benefits of density and connection without the homogenizing pressures of a mall. Much of our work over the past few years has been to make Substack a place large numbers of people like to visit, while never changing that it’s a place any creative can choose to leave without loss. Here, you own your relationships. You also get growth through scale and network effects, through our ranked home feed, our recommendations system, and features like live video and chat, which together help people discover you and your work, often signing up to become paid subscribers.2

Now, we’re taking a small first step on a big effort to make this balance even better.

Starting today on iOS, you’ll see a row of Substacks you’re subscribed to right at the top of the app, with priority given to those with new posts. Tapping one brings subscribers into that Substack’s world, with its custom colors, typefaces, logos, and the newest post right at the top. Below that top post is a feed of notes and posts from that Substack, so subscribers can easily dive deeper into its world. It’s more like visiting a unique place, less like “consuming content” in a generic platform view.

But this is just a first step. Soon, we’ll be introducing features that will dramatically enrich what Substacks can be.

In the future, a Substack feed will be able to include not only its creator’s own work but also that of their community of subscribers, and even of other Substacks they recommend. All of this will be fully optional and controllable; some creators will want to curate a space with many contributors, while others will be happy to keep their Substack’s feed focused solely on their own work or that of a small set. For those who include others in their feeds, we’ll make it extremely easy to set moderation rules and apply them to their communities.

Whether your Substack is a solo effort, a salon, or a whole scene will be entirely up to you. For Substacks where the community is a significant part of the value, we think this can be a game changer. Your ability to customize how your space appears within the Substack app, combined with optional community feeds and the flexible moderation tools that support and guide them, will make Substack uniquely balanced in a way that works for creators and subscribers alike.

Together, these features will let writers, journalists, artists, musicians, and everyone else build their own inimitable and authentic spaces, with unique moderation dynamics and whatever level of community involvement they want. Subscribers can get an even closer look at how a creator thinks, what they’re interested in, and the community they’ve built on Substack. And everyone will still benefit from the Substack network; indeed, curated Substack spaces should lead to more cross-pollination and subscriber growth than ever, as audiences will see more from around the network and indeed around the Internet in every space.

With these features, your space can be distinct and personal —with your vision, your branding, your rules—while still living inside a platform where people are already spending their time. At Substack, creators can carve out their own corners of the internet without sacrificing the network effects that make platforms powerful.

The old choice was between independence and scale. Now you can have both.

We’ve turned off comments for this post. As always, feel free to share your perspective in a Note, in a post, or by restacking.

Today we’re launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV. Substack is the home for the best longform—work creators put real care into and subscribers choose to spend time with. Now these thought-provoking videos and livestreams have a natural home on the TV, where subscribers can settle in for the extended viewing that great video deserves.

That might mean watching reflect on her showbiz journey, read from his book, or interview leading figures in news and culture. , the author of and a frequent on-air contributor, put it simply: “Video doesn’t have to live in any one place. It needs to be wherever someone chooses to consume it. The Substack TV app does just that for me and my work.”

What you can do with the TV app today

Creators who already publish video don’t need to do anything new—your videos will automatically be available for subscribers who are signed in to the TV app.

This initial version of the TV app is focused on reliable, high-quality viewing, and we’ll be adding more features over time. We’re starting with the essentials and will keep improving it based on how people actually use it.

At launch, subscribers can:

• Watch video posts and livestreams from the creators and publications they’re subscribed to

• Browse a “For You” row that highlights videos from their subscriptions, plus recommended videos

• Open a dedicated page for each subscription to explore more videos from a specific publication

Both free and paid subscribers can sign in to the TV app and begin using it today, with viewing access matched to their current subscription level. While paid content previews for free subscribers aren’t supported yet, we plan to add them in a future update.

“I’m excited to report the Substack revolution will be televised,” said veteran journalist and former CNN anchor , who uses Substack’s live video feature to host a daily news show. “This is a game-changing moment for the rise of independent media. Substack has proven that legacy media consumers are not only searching for fresh alternatives; they are finding them.”

How to watch Substack videos on your TV

1. Search for “Substack” in your TV’s app store and download the app (Apple App Store for Apple TV, or the Apps section for Google and Android TV devices).

2. Open the app on your TV.

3. A QR code will appear on the screen. Scan it with your phone or enter the URL manually to log in.

4. That’s it—you’re signed in and ready to start watching videos from the creators you subscribe to.

To check which system your TV is running on, go to System or Specifications in your TV’s settings.

Learn more about setting up the TV app in our Help Center

What’s coming next

Because this is an early version, some familiar Substack features aren’t available yet. We’ll expand what the TV app can do over time, including:

• Audio posts and read-alouds

• Search and improved discovery

• Previews of paid content for free subscribers

• In-app upgrades to paid subscriptions

• Sections for different shows from one publication

Don’t forget to let your subscribers know you’re on Substack TV, and let us know what would make the experience even better.

Leave a comment

Since live video rolled out on Substack in January, we’ve been building toward a simple idea: creators show up with something to say, and the platform handles the rest. What starts as a live conversation becomes durable media—recordings and clips—that can travel, be discovered, and earn, long after the stream ends.

Over the past year, writers and creators have used live video to report on news as it unfolded, host recurring shows, perform songs live, and talk directly with their communities. Along the way, we’ve worked on improvements to make live video easier to use, more flexible, and better aligned with how publishers actually work.

Below is a look at what’s new, along with a survey of how live video has evolved over the past year and the creative ways people are using it.

How live video has evolved

As creators experimented with live video in different ways, we paid close attention to what worked, what didn’t, and what they asked for next. That feedback has guided how live video has evolved on Substack over the past year.

Today, we’re taking the latest step forward by introducing auto-generated thumbnails for live video recordings. These create a polished cover image that viewers see before they press play—across your publication, in email, and on platforms like YouTube. Below is an example from a live conversation between , , and .

Learn more about auto thumbnails in the Help Center

This builds on a series of improvements we’ve shipped throughout the year, all shaped directly by creator feedback:

• Scheduling: Plan live videos in advance with an auto-generated calendar link for audiences and easy-to-share promotional assets.

• Audio-only mode: Go live without video, for those who prefer not to be on camera.

• Music mode: Perform live with higher-quality audio, designed specifically for musicians and musical performances.

• Desktop streaming: Go live directly from your computer, giving people more flexibility and control over their setup.

• Enhanced clips: Automatically turn live moments into dynamic, shareable clips that extend the life of a conversation beyond the stream.

• Auto-publishing clips: Automatically share clips from your live video to YouTube and LinkedIn, making it easy for conversations to reach new audiences.

Looking ahead, we’ll continue building more ways for publishers to create compelling video and supporting materials, without needing extra tools or technical expertise. We’ll have more to share in the new year, and we’re excited to keep building alongside you.

A year of live video on Substack

In 2025, writers, analysts, artists, chefs, and musicians used live video to share insights, respond to events in real time, and connect with audiences in ways that felt immediate and personal.

At the start of the year, live video became a way to make sense of economic uncertainty. Newcomer’s joined Sequoia Capital partner to discuss how rapid advances in AI models are reshaping private tech startups, why more companies are choosing to stay private longer, and the rise of venture capital megafunds.

Live video also created space for creativity and craft. Food creators and used Substack live to talk about taste, offering viewers a unique look at how different creative disciplines approach food storytelling.

For musicians, live video became a way to bring fans closer than ever. and longtime collaborator Lenny Kaye went live from her home for an intimate performance and conversation.

of and of shared their own perspectives on media and internet culture.

In another standout discussion, i-D’s editor in chief went live with his team to host a magazine pitch meeting, giving audiences a rare look inside the editorial process.

And tomorrow, Thursday, December 18 at 1:30 p.m. PT/4:30p.m. ET, comedians and will go live on Substack to humorously unpack what they’re leaving behind in 2025.

If you’ve been thinking about going live, now’s a great time. Go live from desktop or mobile to reflect on the year, share what you’ve learned, and what you’re thinking about as we head into the new year. Tag , and we may feature it in the Substack feed.

Substack is building video infrastructure so that creators don’t need to be editors or videographers. Your job is to create—the rest should feel effortless. You bring your perspective, and Substack turns it into durable media that can travel across the internet.

Today, we’re taking another step toward that vision with desktop live video and enhanced clips. These updates give you more flexibility in how you go live and produce sharper, more engaging highlights automatically.

Whether you’re interviewing a peer, telling a personal story, or responding to breaking news, Substack now makes it easier to capture the moments that matter and share them far beyond your publication.

Here’s what’s new.

Desktop live video

If you’ve gone live from the Substack app before, desktop streaming will feel familiar. You can start a live video the same way you start any post—just click “Create,” and you’ll now see a live video option. Add a title, choose who you’re broadcasting to, and enter a preview room where you can check your setup and talk with any co-hosts before going live.

You can go live on desktop even if your co-hosts are on mobile. Scheduling livestreams on desktop is coming soon.

Learn more about desktop streaming in our Help Center.

Clips are a growth engine

Clips are becoming a meaningful part of how creators share their work and reach new subscribers. As more creators experiment with them, we’re seeing clear signs of momentum.

Here’s what the data shows:

• Nearly 50% of all livestream hosts now share or download a clip the same day they go live, taking advantage of clips as a strategic promotional tool.

• Since clips rolled out earlier this year, they have directly generated nearly 500,000 free subscriptions across the Substack ecosystem.

• Substack-generated clips on external platforms now receive more than 500,000 views every day, thanks to auto-publishing integrations with YouTube and LinkedIn.

Learn more about auto-uploading to YouTube and LinkedIn in the Help Center.

We’ve made improvements to clips to make them even more engaging and easier to share.

• Dynamic editing highlights the active speaker, trims dead air, and adds subtle zooms to make conversations feel sharper.

• Clean title cards give every clip a polished opening that captures attention across platforms.

• Instant availability means ready-to-share clips appear the moment your livestream ends.

• One-tap sharing and downloads make it simple to post clips to Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, or any other network where you connect with your audience.

How creators are using clips to grow

Creators on Substack use clips to capture the moments that resonate with their audience, whether it’s an unscripted insight, an unexpected emotion, or a funny exchange. Substack’s tools make it easy to turn those moments into something you can share anywhere, without needing an expensive setup or technical skills.

Below are a few examples that show the range of what clips can make possible.

• and had a thoughtful conversation about the small, practical actions anyone can take to combat loneliness.

• and mused about the unique, and often comically stressful, experience of grocery shopping in Paris.

• shared an emotional reflection about a difficult relationship with her brother. Her honesty connected deeply with viewers and spread quickly across the network.

• sat down with to talk about AI’s impact on dating.

Many of these clips drove new subscriptions. But more importantly, they show how a compelling moment can introduce your work to people who might never have found you otherwise.

Try it out

Go live today, from desktop or mobile, and share your best moments across your networks. Tag @SubstackTeam, and your clip could be featured this month on our Notes account.

In the past three months, the Substack app has driven nearly half a million paid subscriptions and more than 32 million free subscriptions to writers and creators. Most of these connections come from the feed, which anchors the app and has become the heartbeat of discovery on Substack. There’s a lot of curiosity about why Substack built the feed and how exactly it’s designed. Members of the Substack team recently spoke to a group of publishers in New York for a look behind the scenes. Here’s what we shared.

Why a feed?

Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie opened the night by answering the question directly. Writers and creators, he said, have always had to go somewhere online to promote their work and reach new audiences. The problem is that other platforms aren’t built for the success of these creators.

“Social networks have gone in a pretty weird direction. They’re playing a different kind of game, which is based on keeping you stuck in an endless scroll because that’s what their business needs. They need you to never leave the app. They need you to not go seek out a longform post or a deeper experience with a writer you trust. We do nothing to stop you from leaving Substack except show that we are providing enough value that you want to stay. We only make money when you make money, and you have the ability to leave anytime you want. We’re building this social network of discovery and discussion features to give writers and creators more power, and to give consumers the ability to vote for the culture that they want to thrive by voting with their dollars instead of just being turned into sort of mindless bots who scroll a feed.”

The feed’s algorithm is designed with the same principle that guides everything at Substack: helping audiences connect with work they genuinely love while giving publishers the means to build lasting, independent businesses.

Read more from Hamish about the feed: Substack is a social media app

Finding your audience through Notes

Notes, like any gathering place on the internet, attracts all kinds of characters: the memelords, the cat posters, the photo-gallery-loving members of the Tumblr diaspora. There’s no single recipe for success.

A field guide to Notes posters

But there is one practical throughline: the feed is designed to help you reach beyond your existing audience and point new people to your work.

At the event in New York, members of the team acknowledged that most creatives want to focus on their work, not marketing it. But using Notes to share your value proposition—who you are, what you do, and why someone might care—can help the right audience find you.

often posts notes that very explicitly share who she is and why she is on Substack. This note drove 32,535 new subscribers and a $4,546 revenue increase.

posted a set of illustrations with a crisp explanation of what her newsletter delivers. From this note alone, she picked up nearly 4,000 new subscribers.

Food creator posted a short cooking video that organically communicated her value proposition: subscribers get access to her recipes. This specific note brought in 437 new subscribers and $480 in revenue.

Fashion writer has seen roughly 30% of her total subscribers come directly from her notes. We took a closer look at what is driving this growth from the feed.

For Viv, it’s clear that steady, consistent posting has grown her audience even more than occasional virality. She often posts notes teasing ideas, asking for input, and pointing back to longform posts when they publish.

Viv has a strong brand and visual identity associated with her Substack, but many, if not most, of her most successful notes are low-key, casual, and observational.

Just as important, she’s not afraid to highlight others engaging with or celebrating her work. She also does the same for others.

We’ve found that signal-boosting other publishers and joining the wider conversation are both linked to noticeable growth. Restacking and replying to people you genuinely admire—and sharing when they do the same for you—isn’t just good community behavior, it’s one of the most effective ways to grow.

And if you already have audiences elsewhere, sharing your notes off-platform can build on that momentum. Publishers like , who shares notes to LinkedIn, and , who turns notes into carousel posts on Instagram, use other networks to spark curiosity that brings new subscribers to Substack.

Our top recommendations

Here are our key takeaways to help publishers grow from Notes:

• Reach beyond your existing audience. Each note is a chance to introduce your work to someone discovering you for the first time.

• Publish consistently. Showing up on a regular basis keeps your work visible and helps new audiences recognize your voice over time.

• Be clear about your value. Make it easy for people to understand who you are and what they’ll get by subscribing.

• Engage. Reply, restack, and endorse. Notes work best as a conversation.

• Cross-post with intention. Share your notes to other platforms to bring people back to Substack.

Demystifying the feed: Q&A with Substack’s head of machine learning

The home feed is designed to connect Substack users with work they’ll love while helping publishers build their businesses. But what does that actually mean in ones and zeroes? We spoke with Mike Cohen, Substack’s head of machine learning, who has been involved since day one in shaping how the feed works. In a Q&A, Mike explained how the algorithm is built, what it’s optimized for, and how it continues to evolve as more publishers use Substack.

In very simple terms, how is our feed designed?

We take a look at who you are as an individual opening the Substack app, where you are in the world, what language you speak, what things you’re subscribed to, who you follow, and what interests you’ve specified, among other things. We try to turn that into a numerical representation so that we can compare it to things that you might want to load in your feed.

How is that different from other platforms?

[Other social feeds] are largely based around time spent. 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 so you do. Then they hope you pay for whatever you clicked on.

For us, it’s basically the opposite. We don’t care if you are someone who only wants to do longform. If you’re interested in reading, that’s fantastic. If you like short-form text, that’s great too. We’ll keep showing you things you want to see and engage with, and if not, we’ll try something else. If you love video, we’ll show you more of that. Ultimately, there’s no prior belief about what’s good. It’s about what’s best for you, as long as you’re finding things you engage with and eventually subscribe and pay for.

How do you balance helping creators grow without optimizing for virality?

It ultimately boils down to what the objective function of our feed is. The goal is to get people to discover, subscribe, and ideally pay. That’s how we built the feed and how we continue to iterate to make sure that we’re driving subscriptions up.

Tonight we saw some really good examples of writers extracting quotes from other things they’ve enjoyed or restacking. Those actions are great because they all happen on the Substack platform, which means we can understand the full life cycle of behavior and help intersect audiences. What we start with is an understanding of a user, who they follow and subscribe to. If we see overlaps between audiences of different publications, that becomes a virtuous cycle that feeds back into what other people who are similar might enjoy.

Are there any misconceptions about algorithmic feeds that you’d like to clear up?

The word “algorithm” went south at some point, and I get it. It’s a bit of a bummer, because not all algorithms are intentionally bad. The idea behind it is good. We want to pair you with stuff that you like, and that doesn’t seem too bad. What can be bad is what you’re optimizing for. We’re optimizing for sign-ups and subscriptions. If you think that’s bad, then yes, that algorithm is bad. But if you don’t think that’s bad, then it can be good.

You’ve talked about making sure that the feed surfaces things people will find interesting. How do you ensure that people aren’t getting boxed in and only seeing a very specific kind of work?

That’s a challenge we always have to be working on and checking. Every time we make a change or run an experiment, it’s a risk. We always have metrics we’re trying to improve and guardrail metrics to make sure we’re not regressing on things we care about. Breadth of content is something we check to make sure we’re not pigeonholing people forever.

We’ve made changes in the last couple of months to the core retrieval step of the algorithm to make sure that where you are in your reading or feed journey isn’t stagnant. If you’re on a poetry streak, we’ll keep giving you that, but not forever. We want to understand where you are in your flow. We’re trying to make the feed more dynamic and more alive.

Where do you see the feed going in the next year or two?

We’re always trying new things, improving the core algorithms, and running experiments to understand behavior changes when we tweak something. We’ve improved the core retrieval, what content surfaces for you, and we’ll keep iterating to make sure what you’re seeing is the most relevant thing at all times. Basically, we’ll keep hammering until it’s perfect, [though that’s] not possible!

Interview edited for length and clarity.

One last note: Post to the feed! You never know who you might find.

Around the world, we’re seeing an increase in laws aimed at reducing harm from online speech by requiring platforms to block, label, or collect identification before people can view certain content.

Substack cautions against regulatory measures like these, including the U.K.’s Online Safety Act. Though they are often well-intentioned, these laws are not necessarily effective at achieving their stated aims, and they come with real costs to free expression. They introduce friction, forcing an identification step before people can read on the internet. They compel platforms to put a thumb on the scale of what people can see, which can create distortion and self-censorship among those trying to express themselves. They also place significant power in the hands of regulators and political leaders who help determine what speech is allowed, even for adults, setting a precedent for future restrictions.

Despite this position, we respect the right of countries to set their own laws, and we comply with local regulations where required. Our goal is to make the experience as seamless as possible while preserving the maximum amount of freedom of expression within the boundaries of the law.

With that context, the U.K. is now requiring online platforms to label certain types of content and ask people in the country to verify their age before viewing it, with Australia expected to introduce similar requirements in mid-December. Only specific categories fall under these rules, and we’ve shared more details on our support page.

What this means for you and subscribers in the UK and Australia:

• Your connection with your subscribers won’t change, and the way you publish content for your audience remains the same. Your email list, publishing process, and relationship with your subscribers are not affected.

• If content is labeled under one of the categories covered by the law, anyone viewing it on the web or in the Substack app may see a notice requiring them to complete age verification before viewing it.

• Paid subscribers are already verified. Anyone with a credit card on file does not need to take extra steps.

• Many subscribers may already be verified through other platforms. Because age verification is now required across online services in these countries, some people will have completed the process and will not need to do it again on Substack.

Here is how we’re handling this:

• We aim to keep the experience on Substack as smooth as possible while preserving as much expressive freedom as the law allows.

• When a law requires us to restrict content or request documentation to access certain material, we will do so only in the countries that require it, and we will make the process and the reasoning as transparent as possible.

• We will continue refining our labeling system, and we welcome your feedback. More information on content labeling is available on our support page.

We’ll continue to share updates as these rules evolve. Thank you for everything you do to help make Substack the home for great culture.

Addendum: As of December 10, 2025, the Online Safety Act has required Substack to introduce age verification for users in Australia. View more information on Substack’s Australia-specific content policy here.

These days, culture happens in real time. Casual fans and the most devoted stans alike log on for album drops, playoff wins, chaotic award shows, and episode recaps. But on Substack, these moments also have the potential to go deeper. Using community features, Substack publishers can turn these flashpoints into further conversations and meaningful connection with their audiences.

Here’s our advice on how to engage with these collective moments as they happen.

Open your Chat

Chat is where you and your audience can gather in the moment, like a group text for cultural obsessives. Opening your Chat gives your audience a place to react together, swap theories, and feel part of your community.

One of the most effective uses of Chat is hosting real-time conversations around live events. When comedian dropped his special, he turned his Chat into a watch party. For the length of the special, subscribers riffed, reacted, and shared photos of their snack setups.

runs one of the internet’s most engaged Chats, a subscribers-only destination where every new episode of Survivor offers a live forum of theories, hot takes, and reactions.

Plan ahead for big moments. If you’re hosting a live conversation or watch party in Chat, let your audience know in advance—post on Notes, email your subscribers, or tease on socials so they know when and where to show up. If you don’t already paywall your whole chat, we recommend limiting these high-demand threads to paying subscribers to increase a sense of community and potential for conversion.

Read our full guide to Chat formats and best practices

Post on Notes

If Chat is your group chat, Notes is the town square. On the Notes feed, your observations and theories have the potential to travel far beyond your existing audience.

See how creators , , , , and use Notes to capture culture in motion.

Debrief on Live

Every big moment deserves a debrief. Live gives you the space to process and keep the conversation going. Think of it as the afterparty, where you and your audience can go deeper.

went live with days after Audrey’s debut album release. In their conversation, Audrey detailed her songwriting process and discussed the immediate reactions to the music.

Feed Me

Talking to Audrey Hobert about songwriting and pop stardom.

Listen now

7 months ago · 161 likes · 2 comments · Emily Sundberg and Audrey Hobert

The next time the culture gives us a collective moment, don’t just scroll past. Open your Chat, drop a Note, or go Live. You can capture the fun of the moment and create an expansive place for your community to gather, reflect, and connect.

Last week we partnered with of Shop Rat to kick off New York Fashion Week with a series of panel discussions, featuring writers and retailers, on the state of shopping in 2025. One panel seemed particularly valuable to the wider audience of writers and creators on Substack: “What Makes a Shopping Newsletter?”

Here, we’ve collected a few of the most salient clips and quotes from the panel of experts: of Magasin, of Consider Yourself Cultured, and of the invite-only newsletter Opulent Tips and the Washington Post’s new fashion-week Substack. It’s a glance at one of the fastest-growing categories on Substack, including reflections that are likely to resonate with creators in any category.

When you guys started your respective newsletters, what references were you looking at, if any?

Rachel: I was informed by two old-school magazine experiences that I’d had, one of which was working at Vanity Fair when Graydon [Carter] was there, and the gift guide was put together by this woman named Punch Hutton. The level of discernment that Punch had about, like, “We can’t just put any children’s Bentley in the Neiman Marcus catalog gift guide. It has to be the best children’s Bentley.” I was always really struck by that kind of discernment about these really strange and eccentric things.

And the other was working at GQ with Will Welch. Will would always say when we were looking at products, “Would you actually use this? Would you really wear this?” And that was really shocking to me, because having worked at several fashion magazines, that wasn’t really a question you asked. It was [more] sort of “What’s the advertiser need?”

Laura: I came to similar conclusions by seeing what not to do. I was at InStyle. I learned a million things from them, but it was at the peak of women’s mass media trying to reach as many people with affiliate content, and it really diluted the message, I think. So while it was an amazing learning experience, when I decided to go out on my own, I said I really need to dig a lot deeper and figure out what I want to say and what’s actually relevant, and what conversation really is going on with shoppers.

Jalil:  I used to work at Saks. There were certain aspects of my job where I didn’t really feel fulfilled in a creative sense. So I saw Substack as a way to get my thoughts about fashion and whatnot out there. And of course, Rachel’s newsletter is fantastic, and that was definitely an inspiration. Also, the writing of André Leon Talley.

What makes a good shopping story?

Rachel:  What at least your three newsletters [Laura, Jalil, and Emilia] and some of the others you mentioned have, is that they’re able to treat mood and ambience and these things that seem sort of ephemeral as news or information that’s actionable.

I remember the first time I opened your newsletter, Laura, I was like, this is like reading a newspaper. I mean, it’s organized, reported, and it’s so thorough. What propels something beyond a roundup of links is having that feeling of authority and storytelling.

Jalil:  Usually on Wednesdays [my posts] are kind of like a roundup situation, which is I think a common feature with a lot of Substacks. But the stories that I am most passionate about, the ones that really get me excited, are my lookbook stories, which really tap into the emotion and tap into the feelings that are abstract.

When I was at Saks, something that really frustrated me was, why are we not teaching our customers how to style their things in so many different ways?

People were buying a lot of stuff, but they were also returning it. So my thought was, okay, you want to curtail people returning their items, you should show them like 10 different ways of how to wear a flip-flop. So that’s what I think I really morphed my newsletter to in the end. I want to tap into the feelings that I’m feeling at the moment, what’s happening on the runway, but also, “These are 15 ways that you can wear a flip-flop and not feel lost.”

Laura: Whenever I see a shopping story and think, “I wish I wrote that,” it’s because the writer found something happening in the ether and has been able to articulate it just in time. You know? It’s just seeing it in that moment and calling it out. I’m always so mad whenever someone else gets it.

I think it’s about tapping into something that maybe everyone’s feeling or sensing or wondering. And it can be down to a super-specific product, or nebulous, or a brand, but it’s fun to see those things that unite us all in the subconscious.

Emilia:  Totally. And I think something that I really love about Substack, too, is that I’m not seeing the stories that are like “everyone on TikTok is wearing x, y, and z.” I was so sick of writing those stories, because I felt like I didn’t believe what I was saying and I didn’t see these trends in real life.

How have shopping newsletters shaped consumer habits in the past five years?

Laura: One thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of [fashion newsletters] are so deeply linked to the affiliate world and the ShopMy of it all. And obviously that’s a huge part of how I make my living, so I am always going to stand by that, because I still think you can make great content and have [affiliate links] be part of it. But I think that the fashion newsletter boom, for those with less journalistic integrity maybe, created a lot of brands. And so it’s kind of been a kingmaker, for better or worse. It’s just something to call out, I think.

Emilia: Yeah. I mean, this is not a bad thing—I wore them the other day—but like the “newsletter pants.”

Jalil: Certain brands have really benefited from the exposure on Substack.

Emilia:  Smaller brands too, which is really cool to see. And something that I’ve enjoyed, too, is getting to know these people behind these brands a bit more. Something that I’ve learned is that bigger publications can cover these bigger brands, and we can cover the small [brands]—like, there’s enough for everybody to go around. It’s not one or the other.

How do you decide what goes in a newsletter?

Jalil: For my send-out that is more link-focused, I have a running note of things I want to talk about. And then when it comes to my send-outs that are more lookbooks, I pre-style everything. So everything that I shoot will make it into the newsletter. And I have a rack of clothes dedicated to styling that, so if you’re on the rack, then you’ll be in the newsletter.

Laura:  I publish multiple times a week, so there’s room for lots of stuff. When I do a news send, I wait until right before I’m actually going to publish it, basically, to write everything, so that it feels timely. And I go through my infinite list of things that are happening, have launched, or sales that are going on, and just see what feels right. So the decision-making doesn’t take any time at all.

Rachel: It has to be something that I would buy and that I just don’t have the money to buy at the moment. And then sometimes I think, “Who’s someone who doesn’t really like me?” and if they were opening this, would they be like, “Ugh. I hate to admit it, but she kind of knows her stuff.”

How has Substack changed Fashion Week?

Rachel:  I like that now there are more people from backgrounds that aren’t necessarily legacy media coming to Fashion Week, and that there are events like this that become a part of Fashion Week.

 A year ago, I wrote a piece where I talked to maybe all three of you about how this was just beginning, and that was only a year ago. So think of what’s going to happen next. I think it’s exciting.

Emilia:  It’s amazing. I reread that article this morning, and I couldn’t believe that that was just last year. The article was like, “Substackers are at Fashion Week, they’re front-row!” Also, like, “Where do we put them?” Which I thought was a really funny question. It’s like, “Are they influencers? Are they writers?”

Do you think the Substack fashion bubble will pop, or is there space for more writers?

Jalil: There are so many updates happening to Substack itself. Like, you can have a podcast, there’s Notes, there’s a little bit of everything on there. I think the different points that are coming on the platform, maybe using it in different ways, will give rise to fresh ideas, [new] takes.

Rachel:  If you look at 10 or 12 years ago, there were all of these fashion bloggers, including a woman on this stage who might be me. There was this kind of [feeling] like, “Oh my god, is legacy media going to be able to compete with these bloggers?” And basically what happened is legacy media just took a bunch of lessons from those people, and then the survivors became influencers. And there hasn’t been fashion blogging in the way that there was for a long time.

And now I think what we’re seeing happen with Substack—and I would also extend this to commentary on Instagram and TikTok—is that you have this new generation of voices again who are making legacy media look a little bit behind the ball.

What’s interesting is that from a purely pragmatic perspective, it’s much more complicated to make money from selling things for another company versus from selling them on your own Substack. If you’re rounding up links for InStyle or for Harper’s Bazaar, you’re not getting that affiliate revenue the magazine is. So I think that’s something that is going to maintain the independence of a lot of these voices.

Emilia: Totally. I always say: if you’re thinking about it, do it. If you’re interested, then it’s still going, and you should do it.

Interviews were edited for length and clarity.

Today we’re launching two updates designed to help you understand your audience better and reach more people: a new growth chart that shows you exactly where your subscribers are coming from, and new social sharing assets that make it easier than ever to promote your work across platforms.

A clearer view of growth

The new growth chart now lives in a dedicated Growth Sources tab in your dashboard, giving you the clearest view yet of how your audience is finding and subscribing to your publication. Instead of a static snapshot, you’ll see a timeline that shows when growth happens and what’s driving it.

What you’ll see:

• Timeline of growth: Track spikes in revenue, subscribers, and traffic over time. Markers along the bottom let you correlate audience activity to the posts you publish.

• Granular source breakdowns: See which specific platforms are responsible for your growth. This includes both Substack sources like Notes and Recommendations and links from other Substacks (Trackbacks), as well as external platforms like Instagram and Google search.

Behind-the-scenes improvements: We’ve made your stats more accurate and consistent across your dashboard, emails, and CRM. You may notice some numbers being distributed differently across sources, but your revenue and subscriber counts are completely unchanged. You’re now seeing a more accurate picture of where your growth comes from.

As part of our continued efforts to improve your dashboard, we’ve updated the Home tab to highlight essential metrics like revenue, subscriber count, and inbound traffic. All your other stats are still available in the Stats tab.

Learn more: A guide to Substack metrics

New tools to accelerate growth

We're also making it easier to reach new subscribers. Now after you publish, you’ll receive ready-to-share social assets for Instagram Stories, Facebook, and more.

, author of , has been using the new sharing assets to let his followers on other platforms know when he publishes on Substack:

“As a newer creator, having a seamless way to share my Substack updates to my other communities is a game changer!”

Try them today

Open your dashboard to explore the new growth chart, and promote your next post with the new social sharing assets. We can’t wait to see what you do with them.

The Substack app drives more than 30% of all paid subscriptions, making it a major source of discovery and discussion. Until now, however, it hasn’t always been possible to upgrade to a paid subscription directly in the app.

That’s changing. Apple now allows Substack to include external links for paid subscriptions in the iOS app in the U.S., while also requiring that all publications offer in-app purchase (IAP) as an option.

For users in the U.S., this is what the subscribe screen in the app now looks like:

More than 30,000 Substack publications already have IAP enabled, and early tests suggest that the additional options help bring in more paid subscribers.

has seen a jump in paid sign-ups since her IAP launched:

“With the Substack iOS app, subscribing to now happens in just a few taps—without leaving the app. Whether readers pay via the web link or Apple’s in-app purchase, it’s been a huge boost for growth by making it easier than ever for devoted readers to become paid subscribers in seconds.”

About Apple’s fees

Subscriptions from outside the app and via the app’s external link flow are billed as before. For IAP subscriptions, Apple collects a percentage of the payment. To protect your earnings, Substack automatically sets your iOS app price higher so you take home approximately the same amount as a web-based subscription. By default this adjustment is on, but you can turn it off in your settings if you prefer. We’ve also built migration tools so you can export those subscriber relationships, if needed.

What’s next

In-app purchase is now fully enabled for all paid publications in the Substack iOS app, and the improved subscribe flows are already live in the app. No action is required unless you want to adjust prices via your publication settings.

For more details, check out the FAQ. And if you have any questions or feedback, leave a comment below or contact Support.

Thank you for publishing on Substack and for being a valuable contributor to a new economic engine for culture.

The Substack app drives more than 30% of all paid subscriptions, making it a major source of discovery and discussion. Until now, however, it hasn’t always been possible to upgrade to a paid subscription directly in the app.

That’s changing. Apple now allows Substack to include external links for paid subscriptions in the iOS app in the U.S., while also requiring that all publications offer in-app purchase (IAP) as an option.

Subscriptions purchased via Apple’s IAP have different fees, payout timing, and billing controls compared with web-based subscriptions. This FAQ explains those differences and the tools Substack has built to help you protect your revenue, maintain your subscriber relationships, and stay in control.

Basics

What is IAP?

In-app purchase (IAP) is Apple’s required payment system for buying digital content inside iOS apps. Apple has long required that any app selling paid content must offer IAP, which includes a 15% to 30% commission: 30% during the first year of a subscription, dropping to 15% starting in the second year of continuous billing.

Will this affect all my payments or just app subscriptions?

Only new subscriptions purchased in the iOS app via Apple’s IAP are affected.

• Web-based checkout in the app (shown to U.S. subscribers) is unaffected and works like all other web subscriptions.

• Subscriptions purchased on desktop, mobile web, or via email links are also unaffected.

Can I opt out of IAP altogether?

No. To comply with Apple’s App Store rules, IAP will be enabled for all paid publications in the iOS app.

Why do U.S. subscribers see both web checkout and IAP, but international subscribers only see IAP?

Due to a recent U.S. court ruling (Epic Games v. Apple), apps in the U.S. can display a link to an external web-based payment option alongside IAP. Apple does not allow this outside the U.S., so international subscribers only see IAP.

Apple does have an alternative payment program in the EU/U.K., but it comes with additional fees and complex requirements. We’re evaluating whether it would meaningfully benefit publishers, and will update you if we decide to support it in the future.

For users in the U.S., this is what the subscribe screen in the app now looks like:

Is in-app purchase (IAP) available everywhere?

In-app purchases (IAP) in the Substack iOS app are currently available for publications whose Stripe accounts are based in the following countries:

• United States

• United Kingdom

• Canada

• Most of the European Union

We’re working to expand this to all Stripe-supported regions by mid-2026, so more publications can accept paid subscriptions directly in the iOS app.

In the meantime, subscribers everywhere can still pay via web or mobile checkout—these payment flows are unchanged.

What about Android users?

This change only affects the iOS app. Android users cannot currently purchase subscriptions in the app.

Pricing and controls

How will my prices be set for Apple’s IAP option?

To protect your earnings, Substack will automatically set your price in the iOS app higher for subscriptions purchased through Apple’s in-app purchase (IAP) system. This increase offsets Apple’s fee, so you receive approximately the same payout you would for a web-based subscription.

What happens to my IAP price if I change my web subscription price?

If you have automatic price adjustment turned on, your Apple in-app purchase (IAP) price will automatically recalculate whenever you change your web subscription price. This ensures that the IAP price continues to offset Apple’s fee so you receive approximately the same net earnings from both payment flows.

How do I turn off the automatic price adjustment?

This feature is optional. You can disable it anytime in your billing settings under in-app pricing options.

What happens if I turn off the automatic price adjustment for Apple’s IAP?

If you disable automatic price adjustment in your settings, your Apple IAP price will approximately match your web price going forward, so you will earn less after Apple’s fees.

New IAP subscribers will see this updated price. Existing IAP subscribers will keep the price they originally paid through Apple unless they cancel and resubscribe.

Can I offer discounts or promotions through IAP?

No. Apple does not support discount codes, founding subscriptions, or custom promotions for IAP. These features remain available via web-based subscriptions.

Payouts and fees

How long does it take to get paid for IAP subscriptions?

Apple pays Substack monthly, typically up to 45 days after the end of the month. This means that for all IAP subscriptions purchased in January, you can expect to see earnings in your Stripe account by mid-March. Substack will always deposit your earnings as soon as we receive them from Apple.

Web-based subscriptions (including U.S. web checkout in the app) are paid out on our normal schedule.

Does Substack keep a larger share of IAP payments?

No. Substack will continue to take a 10% fee based on your original web price.

Our share does not increase with the adjusted pricing to account for Apple’s fees, and we’re not benefiting from Apple’s cut.

How are refunds handled for subscriptions purchased in the iOS app?

It depends on the payment method:

• In-app purchase (IAP): Refunds are handled by Apple. Subscribers can request a refund directly through the App Store.

• Web checkout (U.S. web payment link in the app): Refunds are processed through Stripe and can be managed from your Substack dashboard.

What currencies does Apple support for IAP?

Apple supports in-app purchases in all currencies available in the App Store for the subscriber’s country. Pricing is automatically converted from your set IAP price using Apple’s currency conversion rates. You cannot set different IAP prices by currency; adjustments must be made to your base price, which Apple then converts for all supported markets.

Data and subscriber relationships

Will I still get the email addresses of IAP subscribers?

Yes. You’ll receive the subscriber’s email address regardless of whether they paid via the web-based flow or IAP.

Will I have full billing info for IAP subscribers?

No. Apple handles IAP billing, so details like payment method aren’t shared. For web-based subscriptions (including U.S. web checkout in the app), you retain full billing info.

What happens if I leave Substack?

For IAP subscribers, Apple does not transfer billing relationships between platforms. You will still have access to their email addresses, so you can reach out and invite them to re-subscribe elsewhere.

We’ve also built a process to make this outreach easier for creators who decide to move their business off Substack. Our support team can work with you directly to guide you through your options.

Web-based subscriptions (including those from U.S. web checkout in the app) transfer normally with full billing information.

Why this change is happening

Why is Substack adding IAP now?

Apple requires it for any app selling digital content. We previously offered IAP as an opt-in feature, but Apple is now enforcing full compliance, so we must make IAP available for all paid publications.

How is this different from other platforms?

The underlying Apple rules are the same, but our timing works to your advantage. Thanks to a recent court ruling, U.S. subscribers will still see web-based checkout as the default. Many other platforms were required to implement IAP before this option existed, giving their users no alternative to Apple’s in-app payment flow.

Will this hurt my growth?

No, we expect it to help by making it faster and easier for subscribers to pay without leaving the app. In-app payments remove extra steps, potentially leading to more conversions, especially from casual readers or those on mobile.

If you have any questions or feedback, leave a comment below or contact Support.

Leave a comment

Let’s dive in.

Title testing

Title testing helps you find the headline most likely to lead subscribers to open your post. The feature allows you to test multiple title options for a set of your subscribers and then automatically send the top-performing title to the rest of your audience. (Title testing is currently available only to publishers with at least 200 subscribers, as smaller audiences are less likely to generate reliable results. It’s also not yet available when publishing through the app.)

We’ve been testing this feature with a group of Substack bestsellers and have been encouraged by the results and feedback. Publishers have told us that it reduces the pressure on finding the perfect headline, increasing the chances that their best work gets seen by their subscribers. Those who have used the tool have tried to test out a range of approaches to titles, from bold and punchy to soft and subtle. In nearly 60% of tests, a title other than the original came out on top.

Wayan Vota, author of , was among the first to try title testing and said it has given him more publishing confidence:

“I’ve been sending email newsletters for 20 years across various platforms, and title testing is a game changer for open rates. Even when I think I’ve nailed the title, I can’t be sure—it’s incredibly valuable that Substack helps me see what actually resonates with readers.”

To run a title test, follow these steps:

1. Prepare your post as usual in the web editor.

2. Enable the setting “Run a title test” in the Publish dashboard.

3. Add alternative titles and/or subtitles to test.

4. Choose the test duration (it defaults to 1 hour) and select what percentage of your audience will see the test.

5. Publish your post.

What happens next:

• The test runs on the selected audience segment, sending each title variant to an equal-sized cohort.

• After the test ends, Substack automatically selects the best-performing title and sends the post with that title to the rest of your audience.

• Your post’s title (and subtitle, if part of the test) will automatically update to reflect the winning version.

• You’ll receive an email with the results, and you can track everything in the Testing tab within post stats.

• Prefer to manually pick the winner? You can end the test at any time and choose the title yourself.

Learn more: How to run a title test

Profile themes

Your profile is one of the most prominent pieces of real estate you own on Substack. It’s where people learn who you are, what you publish, and who you subscribe to. We’re making it easier to customize your profile’s design and brighten up the place.

Substack profiles now support accent colors, background tints, and cover photos, giving you more tools to express your style and brand your work.

Check out the examples below from and .

Currently:

• All publishers can now update their cover photo.

• Bestsellers get access to new accent color and background tint options.

As a default, the new designs may automatically reflect your current publication branding—so we recommend taking a quick look and customizing as you see fit.

To edit your profile:

• On web, click “Edit Profile” and look below your name and bio.

• In the app, tap “Branding.” (Make sure you’ve got the latest version installed.)

Learn more: How to edit your profile theme

We’ll continue to work on design customizations and aesthetic improvements you can make to the surfaces you own on Substack, making it feel like your ideal creative home.

Improved guest-management tools for Substack Live Video

Hosting a livestream with a guest? We’ve added a few upgrades to help things run more smoothly behind the scenes—making sure everyone’s in the right place at the right time before you broadcast to your audience.

Now, when you schedule a stream:

• You’ll get a push and email reminder 3 hours before the event to warn you if your guest still needs to install the app.

• You can also check co-host status anytime on the scheduled livestream event page, with a “Remind” button to nudge them if needed.

• You can now manage your scheduled livestreams from the Activity Center, which also flags any co-host readiness issues before you go live.

These improvements are designed to give you more visibility and peace of mind before you go live—so you can focus on the conversation, not the logistics.

Learn more: Schedule a live video

Try them out today

From fine-tuning your titles to customizing your profile and running smoother livestreams, we’re continuing to build tools that help you publish with confidence and connect meaningfully with your audience.

We hope you’ll give these new features a try, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Leave a comment

AI is here—at schools, in memes, and, yes, even on Substack. But beyond sniffing out its usage—who’s being too liberal with the em dashes or the “It’s not [this]. It’s [this]” constructions—AI’s actual applications in creative work are hazy.

So we asked publishers directly: Are you using AI? How, and why?

Who we heard from

We surveyed over 2,000 Substack publishers, including writers, artists, podcasters, and video creators, from around the world. The survey was designed to reflect key segments of Substack’s publishing community.

Among respondents:

• 21% were bestsellers (with at least 100 paid subscribers), and 70% run paid newsletters.

• There were publishers at every revenue level, from those running free publications to some earning seven figures.

• Most have been on Substack for one to two years, with 20% reporting four or more years on the platform.

• They publish in a wide range of primary categories, including Culture, Technology, Literature, Politics, Art & Illustration, Humor, Education, and more.

What do we mean by “AI”?

“Artificial intelligence” can mean a lot of things, depending on who you ask. When publishers in our survey talked about AI, they were usually referring to generative tools and large language models—the ChatGPTs and Claudes of the world. But AI also runs quietly behind the scenes, embedded in familiar apps and tools that aren’t explicitly called AI.

That ambiguity makes it harder to pin down how publishers think about and engage with AI. While the public conversation often centers on content generation and its implications for art and authenticity, publishers on Substack are often using AI tools in more varied and nuanced ways1.

Who’s using AI?

Out of about 2,000 surveyed publishers:

• 45.4% said they’re using AI

• 52.6% said they’re not

• 2% were unsure

Based on our results, a typical AI-using publisher is 45 or over, more likely to be a man, and tends to publish in categories like Technology and Business. He’s not using AI to generate full posts or images. Instead, he’s leaning on it for productivity, research, and to proofread his writing. Most who use AI do so daily or weekly and have been doing so for over six months.

• Publishers 45 and over were more likely to use AI than those under 45.

• Men reported higher adoption than women (55% vs. 38%).

• Women were more likely to express concerns about using AI than men (67% vs. 47%).

AI adoption didn’t correlate significantly with revenue: usage remained fairly similar across revenue levels.2

In the responses, AI adoption varied widely across publishing categories3. Technology, Business, and Finance had the highest rates of adoption, while Literature, Music, and Art had some of the lowest. A 64-point spread between the Technology and Literature categories marks the widest divide in the responses.

How it’s being used

Publishers who use AI bring it to a diverse range of research and creative workflows, from summarizing legal filings to parsing data to optimizing their work for SEO. Some have even used AI as a virtual business coach.

Surveyed publishers said they’re primarily using AI tools for knowledge work (research, writing assistance, ideation) rather than for content generation. Of generative use cases, image generation was the most common, at 41%.

These publishers don’t always see LLMs as distinct from their innate creativity, sometimes describing them as a kind of mirror. One creator said that the tool “remembers my way of articulating ideas.” Another wrote, “It reflects back to me my voice and streamlines my creative vision.” As the tools become more attuned to a user’s patterns of thought and expression, the boundary between creator and assistant begins to blur.

A number of publishers described AI as especially helpful for accessibility. “I have several disabilities, and AI helps me organize my thoughts cohesively and streamlines my writing process. I’m able to brainstorm, refine, and keep a schedule in ways I couldn’t on my own,” said one publisher.

“As a dyslexic with ADHD, it allows me as a round peg to fit into a square neurotypical world and for me to be able to express myself.”

“It really helps people like me, with ADHD and dyslexia, to thrive on a written-word platform, which was very difficult for us without AI.”

“I am blind, and the applications of AI for increasing accessibility are enormous, so my views on [AI] are fairly nuanced.”

“I have ADHD, and using AI is like having an editor and organizer for my thoughts.”

Language translation also surfaced as a notable use case. Nearly 17% of AI-using publishers said they rely on these tools to translate writing, audio, and video across languages.

Respondents under 45 were more likely to rely on AI for translation. Younger publishers also said they were more likely to use AI for ideation and writing help than the older cohort. Those 45 and over work more with AI for research and image generation. Audio- and video-related use cases show little variation by age.

When AI-using publishers were asked to estimate how much of their published content in the past three months had been AI-generated, “including AI-generated sentences, paragraphs, images, and videos,” most reported that they hadn’t used generative AI at all, or used it sparingly—though there is a small cohort that reported using it in 100% of their posts.

Nearly 85% of AI-using publishers use these tools daily or weekly.

Which tools are people using?

ChatGPT’s first-mover advantage still shows. Nearly 8 in 10 AI-using publishers report using it, far more than any other tool. Usage drops off from there, with Claude (28.2%) and Grammarly (27.9%) as the next most commonly used. Image and video generation tools like Midjourney (8.1%), Runway ML (1.6%), and Lumen5 (1.1%) remain relatively niche.

Many publishers independently named the AI-powered research engine Perplexity as a tool they use and love.

Several publishers expressed interest in tools that could help them better understand and grow their audiences—specifically around analytics, engagement, and audience insights.

How do publishers feel about AI?

Publishers’ outlook on AI is split sharply along usage lines. Those already using AI tools tend to be much more optimistic about the opportunity, enhancement, and new creative possibilities for their work, while those who haven’t adopted AI are far more likely to expect harm or disruption.

There were some points of overlap: both AI-using and non-using publishers voiced concerns about creative skills, plagiarism, and the environmental impacts of AI.

But on a personal basis, publishers who use AI overwhelmingly said that it adds value to their work.

When asked, “Imagine you were prevented from using AI in your work. What would you pay (US$/month) to regain access?” the average answer was nearly $140/month.

Still, slightly more than half of these AI-using publishers said they have at least some reservations and concerns about AI.

Many cited fears about AI eroding their creative style and instincts. “I want it to still be my voice, and I’m trying to find that balance,” one publisher wrote. Another said he was concerned that he would “lose my voice and my story, which is what people are here for.”

Ethical concerns were also widespread, especially around how AI is trained and whether original work is being used without permission4. “My novels have been pirated for AI. I don’t like the stealing of the IP,” wrote one publisher. Another said, “[AI training] is stealing content from creatives like me and creating derivative AI slop.”

Ethical concerns were also a priority for the 52% of the surveyed publishers who do not use AI tools: over three-quarters of them cited such concerns as a reason why they choose not to use AI.

These publishers were also concerned about creative atrophy. “Creativity is like a muscle. You have to use it or it withers away,” one wrote. “Outsourcing your creativity won’t help you in the long run.”

Publishers saw how AI could boost productivity but reflected on creativity as a fundamentally human act of emotional and intellectual transformation.

“The best part of being human is taking the time and energy to wrestle with complex emotions and information and turn it into art that inspires, uplifts, and makes other people feel seen and known.”

“Only a human who has experienced, seen, or studied the things he or she writes about can craft a factual and entertaining story,” one publisher noted. Another wrote, “Writers are willing to make that effort. We don’t need tools to do it for us, and the existence of these tools threatens our employment opportunities as well as the perceived importance of the work we do.”

Looking ahead

We’re still in the nascent stages of the AI revolution, and as the above chart suggests, there’s a sharp divide in how creators are thinking about the days ahead. Transparency around AI came up again and again in survey responses, as publishers raised questions not just about whether disclosure is necessary but how it should be handled, and what audiences should know.

One publisher had a particularly lucid vision of the future:

“We’re entering a spicy new era, where human-created content will be ‘premium.’ Faceless YouTube channels proliferate, and countless Medium articles are written by AI without disclosure. And we are only just getting started. . . The speed with which the tech can create passable content means that we will soon be inundated with machine-generated words. Authentic human writing and video will be sought out and prized above the noise.”

In all likelihood, the future of AI in the creator space isn’t going to be a binary choice between “AI” and “human creativity.” Instead, it will be formed by thousands of individual decisions about which tools serve a publisher’s individual goals and which detract from them.

And as AI continues to impact creators across industries, we’ll continue to host an open, evolving conversation where publishers can gather intelligence, share insights, and make informed decisions on their own terms.

Since expanding live video to all publishers, we’ve seen a wide range of creative uses. But a few key patterns have emerged: going live with others, bringing in new voices, and sharing standout clips are driving the most growth.

We’ve made a few updates to make that process more seamless, from setup to promotion to post-stream sharing.

Learn more: How to go live

Improvements from start to finish

Substack’s livestreaming tools are now easier to use and more flexible, with features designed to help you reach new audiences on and off the platform.

When you schedule a livestream, Substack now creates promotional assets you can share on Notes and your social channels. You can also invite guests via email or SMS—even if they don’t have a Substack account. This short setup guide walks first-time guests through everything they need to know before the stream starts: setting up an account, what to expect, and how to feel camera-ready when it’s time to go live. For creators who prefer not to be on video, an audio-only mode is now available.

After the stream ends, Substack automatically generates short clips likely to resonate with your audience. These are shared on Notes to help you reach more people and get a sense of what’s working. If a clip performs well, you’ll be notified in real time so you can share it more widely. On iOS, you’ll also see how clips are performing in your video post stats (coming to Android next week).

This feature is enabled by default, but you can turn it off at any time under Settings > Growth features > Enable auto clips in feed.

If you’ve linked your YouTube account in your settings, your top two clips will also be uploaded to your Shorts channel. It’s an easy way to reach new audiences off-platform and bring more people back to your Substack.

Learn more: How to connect your YouTube account to Substack

What creators are saying

Chris Cillizza, the author of , told us how live video updates are helping him reach new subscribers:

“Live video has been a powerful growth engine for me. The clips Substack creates and shares after each stream do a great job of highlighting the best moments from the discussion and leading people back to the full video, where they often convert into new subscribers. It’s been one of the most effective ways to get my work in front of more people, wherever they are.”

What this unlocks

These updates are designed to help your livestreams keep working even after they’re over. You can invite your dream guest—even if they aren’t on Substack yet. Your audience can add your event to their calendar ahead of time. A clip might take off on Notes or YouTube Shorts. And the replay can continue to bring in new subscribers long after the stream has ended. It all starts with one stream.

Check out a few of our favorite clips below.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who writes , went live with Max Read, author of Read Max, to share their favorite films of the 21st century, including a hot take pick from the Coen Brothers.

Brandon Kyle Goodman, author of Messy Mondays, hosted Hunter Harris of for a thoughtful conversation about when she first felt confident calling herself a professional writer.

Lastly, Ally Jane Ayers, author of Money Changes Everything, spoke with Lindsey Stanberry of The Purse about the importance of naming the right beneficiaries on your financial accounts.

Try it out

Whether you’re hosting a quick Q&A or running a recurring show, now’s a good time to get the app and go live. Substack helps you highlight the strongest moments, so you can get the most from every stream.

Get more from Substack Team in the Substack app

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Last week, we hosted our inaugural Substack Study Hall, a new education series for publishers to share strategies, swap ideas, and connect. Our first event brought Los Angeles writers and creators together for hotseat interviews and a Q&A with our product team.

The participants

is a social media consultant who writes , a newsletter covering social media strategy and resources. is a stylist, creative director, and brand strategist and a former magazine editor and fashion director. She writes , a lifestyle and fashion newsletter. is a writer, performer, and host who writes Messy Mondays, a newsletter with a focus on identity, sex, and relationships.

Each of them joined our head of lifestyle, , onstage to discuss getting started, going paid, making the most of live video, and more.

Getting started on Substack

Brandon said Substack doesn’t demand perfection to be successful or to build community: “I really like that it doesn’t have to be high-production. I think in some other spaces, things have to really look perfect. I’m here imperfectly, so I’m gonna see what works, throw some shit at the wall. If it doesn’t work, great. If it does, beautiful.”

Rachel recommends faking it till you make it: “Act like a writer before you’re a writer. Really hold yourself to standards and a consistent schedule.”

Laurel emphasized removing any friction that prevents consistent publishing: “Just start it. Don’t worry about a logo, don’t worry about everything being perfect. If you start feeling like ‘I can never do it because every time I write one, I have to do X, Y, and Z, all this legwork,’ then stop doing that legwork. Like, whatever it takes. If you want to do this, just make it easy for yourself to stay consistent.”

Key takeaway:

• Consistency beats perfection every time: All three creators advise that showing up regularly with authentic content will build stronger communities than waiting to create something more polished.

Going paid & pricing strategy

Rachel recommends starting simple with paid offerings: “There’s a temptation when you go paid to feel like you need to offer a lot, when really, just one clear, valuable send can be enough for people. You can always add on more paid perks, but you can’t take them away. And so I think that’s something that I would think about when you’re going paid: what can I promise to offer that is so valuable and that I know I can deliver on?”

Brandon shares a trick they learned from : “Sometimes she just paywalls, like, the last paragraph. You don’t have to paywall the whole thing, because at that point, people just want to support you. And I found that to actually be a better model in general.” Their own editorial schedule makes good use of this strategy: “The livestreams on Monday nights are for everyone. And then there’s an additional post on Friday that has, like, a mini-podcast, and that is behind the paywall. But still in that post there’s a bunch of free shit. So it’s just a little extra.”

And Rachel reminded creators of a useful truism: know your audience. In Rachel’s case, she realized that many of her subscribers could expense her newsletter as professional development, and built her pricing strategy around this insight. “I knew because social managers would be subscribing that they could ask their boss for this to be an educational stipend. So I wrote a template that they could use to ask their boss if they could expense it. That has been huge. I see people in that doc to this day, years later.”

This led Rachel to price her newsletter at $8 a month instead of the usual $5, knowing some companies would cover the cost. She also created a $150 founding-member tier, titled “If your company’s paying for this, this tier is for you.”

Key takeaways:

• Start simple with your paid offerings. You don’t have to offer subscribers multiple perks; focus on easy-to-understand offerings that you can consistently deliver.

• Partial paywalls can work better than all-or-nothing approaches. Try paywalling just the last section of a post, or offering “a little extra” for paid subscribers.

• Think strategically about who’s actually paying for your newsletter. Consider whether your content serves a professional need that companies might cover, and don’t be afraid to price higher if you’re providing business value that organizations will invest in.

Going Live

Brandon started going live once a week because it offered a low-production way to engage with their community consistently. “Can I be really honest? I was posting [on Substack] twice a week. I was writing on a TV show. I was writing my next book, writing a stage show . . . you know, the well was kind of dry. And so when Live video was introduced, it was like, ‘Oh, I can just talk to people. I don’t have to edit anything. Y’all make the clips for me. Love this.’”

Scheduling in advance and promoting across social media is a consistent part of their Live show workflow:

“I post on Instagram stories. I promote on the [Substack] app. I’ll also add the poster at the bottom of the newsletters, like: this is happening next week or in two weeks, and then I schedule my live video and I invite the [guest].”

They publish their recordings immediately after going live, “so that if people are coming late, it’s already up.” Then they add a write-up or context when they have more time, usually an hour or two later.

Laurel also described keeping Live video simple and not overthinking the process: “I love a styling video. I love to talk through why the proportion of this works with this, and how it can also work with a flip-flop or it can work with a heel. I love to talk through that reasoning. I don’t write a script for myself. I’m just standing in my living room talking.”

She treats her Live shows with guests like a coffee chat. “One of the things I miss about living in New York is [how] you would just bump into someone on your way to work, and you’d be like, ‘Oh, let’s go grab a coffee.’ And you have a 30-minute micro-hang, and you get through everything in those 30 minutes. So I set a timer for myself, because I love to talk . . . we just get on and talk about whatever.”

Brandon brings their chat into the mix, too. In a livestream over Memorial Day, they and pulled tarot cards. “In the chat we were like, tell us what this one means. And so people were engaged in that way, looking it up for us, telling us what our futures were. That was a really fun moment.”

Key takeaways:

• Embrace simplicity with Live shows: Both Brandon and Laurel discovered that going live made connecting with their subscribers easier, not harder—there’s no editing, scripting, or post-production work required.

• Follow best practices: Schedule your Live show through the app, promote it on social media, and post your recording right away so that anyone who clicks the notification that you’re live can see your video (even if it’s over).

Promoting on social media

Rachel uses social media apps like Instagram and X to demonstrate her thinking and give people a taste of what’s in her newsletter: “When I promote my newsletter on social media, I don’t just post the link to it and say, ‘Read today’s newsletter.’ I really try to take a nugget from that week’s newsletter and break it out in a social-first way. Finding ways to translate what you’ve written about into other platforms in a way that’s not just asking people to click over has been really helpful.”

One of her biggest growth days came from an X thread about Reformation’s viral influencer strategy—a topic she’d originally covered in a paid newsletter. “That led to articles in Business Insider and Morning Brew. Just because I posted on Twitter, I never posted the link, and it was one of my biggest free-subscriber growth days because people are like, oh, I like the way she’s thinking here. I’m gonna go find her newsletter on Substack."

Brandon describes Substack as the platform where they build community with their audience. They treat other social media as a way to invite people into that community space: “The reason I joined Substack was because I wanted to create an ecosystem for my brand, and I wanted a place that people could come and communicate with each other. So Substack feels like a really great foundational space for all the other things that I’m doing, because you can’t really talk to me on the podcast. So I do promote [Substack] on the podcast, I’ll promote it on Instagram, and then I’ll funnel everything to Substack.”

Key takeaway:

• External social media promotion works best when it introduces your audience to what’s happening on Substack, invites them to follow you, and encourages them to go deeper. Use social media as an opportunity to showcase your insights, perspective, and the conversations you’re having on Substack. The goal is to give people a window into the community you’re creating, rather than just asking them to subscribe.

These interviews were lightly edited for length and clarity. For more in-depth insights and the full origin stories behind these publications, watch our complete Study Hall interviews with Brandon Kyle Goodman, Laurel Pantin, and Rachel Karten.

Bonus: Substack team Q&A

The Substack product team was on-site at Study Hall L.A. to answer audience questions about Live shows, Notes strategy, and what’s coming next. Here’s some of what was covered:

What’s the sweet spot for live video length?

Quality over quantity, always. In a subscription model, you should defer to what serves your content best. If you have 3 minutes of reaction to breaking news, go live for 3 minutes—your audience will love that you're concise. If you want to do a 12-hour stream with rotating guests, do that. Unlike platforms that depend on ad-revenue, there is no benefit on Substack to stretching content just to keep people around. The best thing you can do is create content that makes people think "this was really good and I want to subscribe or pay for it."

Is there ever going to be a feature that helps connect publishers to potential collaborators?

Live video collaborations are a powerful driver of growth and we are exploring ways to suggest collaborations within the app. Be on the lookout for updates in the near future.

What’s the best strategy for using Notes?

Focus on establishing yourself as an interesting, compelling person rather than just promoting your latest content. The creators who’ve grown most through Notes often share other people’s work that they genuinely like, adding their own commentary. This builds relationships with other creators, exposes you to their audiences, and shows the feed algorithm that your engagement drives subscriptions.

What’s the recommended pricing for subscriptions?

For most creators with an audience paying out of pocket or following for personal interest $5 to $6 per month is the sweet spot. This is accessible for individual subscribers while still meaningful revenue. If your audience is following for professional reasons and can justify the subscription as a professional expense, we recommend $10 or more per month.

How can I get my community chat more engaged?

Start by making chats open to all subscribers, not just paid ones. Create events around your chats—live discussions during award shows, sporting events, or breaking news. Consider inviting other creators to join your chat, which can bring their audience over too. Make it feel like a destination or must-attend event rather than just setting it up and waiting to see if people engage. You can embed chat links directly in newsletters and promote specific discussion threads to drive participation.