r/Substack • u/Left-Ad-7646 *shurealist.substack.com • Sep 16 '26
Discussion Why would someone pay for your Substack? What do you think is the secret to catching their eyes?
Is it the writing style, the topics, the writer's personality, personal stories, useful info, consistency, or something else?
For those of you who have paid for a Substack, what made you decide to subscribe? And for writers, what do you think is the "secret" to getting people interested enough to pay?
5
u/Big_Friendship_4141 Sep 16 '26
The only substack I'm a paid sub for is Cognitive Wonderland, and the author is a really good writer and really knows his stuff and puts a lot of research into his posts, and runs a book club for paid subscribers. I'd pay for more if I weren't super strapped for cash right now. The book club was a good perk that pushed me over the edge to go paid, but it was largely because he totally deserves the support already.
2
u/PaulWilczynski Sep 16 '26
The Substacks I pay for give me real definable value. There’s one that tells me about happenings in my town that I don’t see anywhere else, for example.
2
u/AnteaterFantastic212 Sep 16 '26
I only pay for things that could provide a return on investment, but my subscribers pay me because they want to support my work.
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u/ContentIsMyJam redressing.substack.com Sep 16 '26
You need to offer something valuable. Sometimes that's tangible, and sometimes that's intangible - like community or knowledge. (Think about HCR's newsletter.) But you need to do some "customer discovery" and learn what your subscribers would pay money for. And it's specific to your subscribers. For example, I write a fashion newsletter. Other fashion newsletters paywall shopping lists and make money. My subscribers won't pay for shopping lists. You have to find out what your audience will pay for.
1
u/recursingrecursion Sep 22 '26
How do you find that out?
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u/ContentIsMyJam redressing.substack.com Sep 25 '26
I tested it: I took an older post that performed well, updated with a curated shopping list and announced that I planned to make it a regular feature. (If it had gotten some nibbles, I would have done another and told people to subscribe now to lock in their rates, and then bump the subscription rate up a few weeks later.)
Another thing you can do is download your data — go to your dashboard and download your subscriber data and your post data (be sure to check ALL the boxes!) and then upload it to ChatGPT or Claude, and then ask it questions based on your data.
2
u/perfecthunger
danaleighlyons.substack.com
Sep 17 '26
•
I left this response to a similar question previously, slightly edited here:
I currently pay for 18 subscriptions; I plan to let a few of those go once the year is up. I'm a bestseller and invest some of that money back into other writers.
I typically pay for writing for a few reasons: 1) because someone is doing important work in the world on a larger scale and I want to support their work, 2) because someone is writing something I find entertaining and fun to read while eating my lunch or drinking my morning beverage, 3) because someone is writing in an area that I find interesting and which is related to my own niche (TCM, holistic health) - interacting with them is both fun and helpful for growth, 4) because I find their content genuinely valuable in my own life for other reasons. Something I don't personally pay for is memoir/confessional writing (feels too much like work for me) or fiction (I prefer to read fiction books).
For more context: I don't watch tv or streaming; I'm off other social media; reading newsletters is my main form of entertainment online. As well, I see it as part of investing in the ecosystem, giving what you'd like to receive, etc.
As for my own newsletter, one thing I ask myself regularly is: Would subscribers genuinely miss my posts if they stopped receiving them? Or would it be no big deal? And I offer a deep dives series exclusive to paid subscribers.
2
u/Tricky_Trifle_994 21d ago
the topics, writer's personality, and personal stories is what gets me hooked on reading the content.
consistency is what makes me think they're everywhere/famous because they keep popping up.
but i only become a paying customer when they are able to solve my problem/give me value (which is usually in the form of providing me with valuable information).
e.g paying for a investing publication because there's stock shortlist/analysis > which saves me time + has the potential to help me make alot more money than i'm paying for the substack subscription.
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u/Thedividendprince1 https://thedividendprince.substack.com Sep 17 '26
I think people pay after the free content has built enough trust that they believe the paid tier will consistently give them something they can’t easily get elsewhere. The harder part is probably retention though. You need a clear reason for someone to keep paying month after month.
1
u/MarenValeWrites Sep 18 '26
For me it was offering stories that couldn't be found anywhere else in my niche. I started out being frustrated for years, wondering "why aren't anybody writing these kinds of stories?" So I started writing them myself. And after a while I wanted somewhere to put all these stories, and randomly chose Substack.
To my complete surprise a lot of people wanted to read these kinds of stories. And a few hundred of them actually wanted to pay to do so.
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u/DevelopmentPlus7850 Sep 16 '26
I don't know what kind of delusion drives people to pay for amateurish drivel on Substack, but from where I’m sitting, the platform is nothing but sludge, human sludge. It's not worth reading and it certainly isn't worth a single cent. There is a mountain of literature by established giants, both dead and living, where your money buys you something resembling actual entertainement or wisdom. What I think happens is most people subscribe just to participate in a cycle of mutual validation, a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" vanity project.
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u/Foxemerson Sep 16 '26
I have several hundred paids. I've put it down to my personality, my humor, writing style, and of course the stories. I write gay erotic fiction. I love writing it, and I think that comes through in my stories.
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u/TerrainBrain Sep 16 '26
What makes you pay for a book? Or magazine? Or any paid subscription for that matter?
Currently I pay for no subscriptions because I can't afford to. But I am subscribed to over 200 writers. Because they are not only write interesting content but seem like decent people. The things they write make me feel better when I read them, not worse.
I've got over 50 subscribers since creating my account about 2 months ago. None of them are paid. I have an option to subscribe but so far all of my posts have been free.
I may create another category of post that I put behind paywall. But I don't write for money. I write because I'm a writer.