Substack

The short version

Substack started as a paid newsletter tool. It's now a newsletter, a podcast host, a video host, a live-streaming tool, and a short-form social feed called Notes, with an algorithmic home page recommending other publications to your readers.

That last part is the thing to understand before you build here. Substack's growth engine is its own network. Your readers get shown other writers. Other writers' readers get shown you. It works, and it's also why your "community" on Substack is partly Substack's community.

As a community platform in the Skool sense: no. One chat, no spaces, no courses, no gamification. As a paywall with the best writing tools and the cleanest exit of anything on this site: yes.

Pricing we checked

Free to publish, no matter how many subscribers. No plans.

When you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack keeps 10% of subscription revenue. Stripe's fees come on top: 2.9% + 30¢ on US cards, plus 0.7% for Stripe Billing on recurring payments. Stripe's rates vary by the country your Stripe account is registered in, so a Portuguese account pays Portuguese Stripe rates.

iOS in-app purchases: Substack's 10% is calculated on your web price. You choose whether to raise the in-app price to cover Apple's cut or eat it yourself.

Transaction fees

10% on paid subscriptions, before Stripe. Same headline number as Patreon, but simpler: no currency conversion fee from Substack, no payout fee from Substack, because Substack doesn't hold your money. Stripe pays you directly from your own account.

That's a real difference. Patreon's fee stack for a non-US creator runs to roughly 20%. Substack's is 10% plus whatever Stripe charges in your country.

Payments

Your own Stripe account, connected to Substack. Nothing else. No PayPal. If Stripe doesn't operate in your country, you can't charge on Substack.

Community and gamification

Chat: one publication chat with threads. Access controls let you open it to everyone, paid only, or founding members only. That's the whole community layer. No spaces, no groups, no member-created posts outside the chat.

Notes: Substack's short-form feed. It's a Twitter-shaped layer across all of Substack, not a space for your subscribers. Posting Notes is how you get discovered; it's not how your members talk to each other.

Live video: built-in streaming with a live chat alongside. Replays post as video.

Gamification: none.

Comments on every post, which for a lot of newsletters is the real community and works fine.

Courses

No course builder. Sections let you organise posts into groups, and some writers run "courses" as a section of sequential posts. There's no player, no progress, no quizzes, no certificates. Rated "No."

The three email questions

Does it send members a digest? Not of chat or community activity. Every post goes out as an email, which is the point. Chat activity surfaces in the app. Rated "Basic notifications."

Can you email your members from inside it? Yes, this is the product. Posts are emails. Segment by free, paid, or founding. One automated welcome email. No sequences, no automation beyond that. "Broadcasts only," but the broadcasts are the best in the category.

Can you get your list out? Yes, cleanly. Export a CSV of your subscriber list from the Subscribers page, all columns or visible columns, including plan type and engagement data. Names aren't included, which Substack states plainly. There's no Zapier connector, no Kit or Mailchimp sync, no public API. Export and upload is the only route. Rated "Manual export only."

Getting in and getting out

Members in: CSV, XLSX or ODS import with email addresses. You confirm they opted in, pick a subscription type, and it starts immediately. For paid subscribers from another platform, you comp them for a period (7 days to forever) and they re-enter card details on Substack. Their Stripe subscription doesn't carry over.

Members out: CSV, as above. Posts out: Substack exports your posts too, which Patreon doesn't. Comments: not confirmed.

Posts in: Substack's importer takes a publication URL from Medium, Ghost, WordPress, Mailchimp, Beehiiv, Tumblr or Blogspot, or an RSS feed, or a CSV. Patreon posts have to be copied by hand.

Mobile app

Shared Substack reader app on iOS and Android. It's where Notes, chat and live video live. No branded option.

Who it's for

• Writers and podcasters whose product is the publication.
• Anyone who wants the discovery network doing marketing for them.
• Anyone who wants to leave later with their list and their posts intact.

Who should skip it

• Course sellers. Nothing to put a course in.
• Anyone who needs their members talking to each other in spaces, with levels and leaderboards.
• Anyone who's uneasy about Substack's feed showing their readers other publications.

Known limitation

10% of paid revenue plus Stripe fees. One chat, no spaces, no courses, no gamification, no Zapier or ESP sync. Subscriber export excludes names. Paid subscribers can't be migrated in with Stripe subscriptions intact.

Sources

Checked 16 Oct 2026 against the Substack features page and these help centre articles: How much does Substack cost? (updated 29 Sep 2026); How do I export my email list on Substack?; How do I import my mailing list from another platform?; How do I move from my current platform to Substack?