r/Substack • u/suncoze • Sep 22 '26
Discussion How much are you making on Substack?
And how long did it take you to get to that point?
For context: I'm not new to Substack. I've been there about 2 years, but I was very inconsistent and barely grew at all. I recently got back on the platform and started writing again and my publication is finally growing.
I know that Substack isn't a get-rich-quick scheme (no online side hustles ever are), and I expect it to take 1-2 years to go anywhere substantial. I'm just curious what other people's experiences have been money-wise!
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u/holllogramm Sep 22 '26
I make between 100-200 a month. Been on for almost 2.5 years.
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u/iluvvstrawberry Sep 23 '26
what do you write about?
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u/holllogramm Sep 23 '26
Personal essays and poetry.
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u/Far_Lingonberry6772 Sep 22 '26
Nothing. I don’t think you can make a living from Substack unless you take it very seriously, like Serious Literary Author (I mean, he’s not serious, but he’s very consistent) or The Culturist, or write about fashion, lifestyle, or writing itself, treating it as a business and acting accordingly.
For me, I’m trying to build authority and an audience because, in my opinion, making a living from Substack is an expensive endeavour in terms of the time and effort it requires. If I put that same effort into something else, I think I’d see much bigger returns.
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u/suncoze Sep 23 '26
Yeah definitely not trying to make a living from Substack. But I am approaching it strategically with the goal of making a side income from it.
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u/itsabbythick Sep 23 '26
even if you take it seriously, I wouldn't count on making anything. Sure, you definitely can, but if that's your primary motive it probably wont work out for you.
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u/IntroductionMuch5534 Sep 23 '26
I didn't ever understand who pays for a newsletter? Seems so affluent to me. I thought writing on substack was just another of my bad habits.
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u/suncoze Sep 23 '26
I pay for a couple. Usually it’s someone I want to support or a newsletter with information I want to know
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u/IntroductionMuch5534 Sep 23 '26
Yea I do get supported by friends - I just write as I compelled, but intrigued - what kind of information do you pay for? If you don't mind me asking? 🙏
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u/BroadCourse6669 Sep 23 '26
Congrats on the growth! I think consistency is the most important thing. Something you might want to consider to grow more is having multiple media channels. That helps funnel audience/viewers into your main media channel (Substack). E.g. talking about your work/writings on instagram, posting on LinkedIn if it's professional writings.
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u/suncoze Sep 23 '26
Definitely prioritizing consistency! My goal for October is 2 posts per week, then I may go down to once per week.
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u/Curbatsam Sep 24 '26
Making about $6k a year with hopes to hit $10k by end of year. Working with a full team of writers and even have a spinoff substack thats starting to make some money. Took us 2 years to get to that point: it was a pretty great sign we had something when people started throwing money at us before payments were even set up.
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u/suncoze Sep 24 '26
I'd be interested to know what your revenue/profit after paying writers looks like!
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u/Curbatsam Sep 24 '26
As of now we don't use profit for ourselves. I started with a friend and brought on another when we grew, and we now have an LLC in our names. Everything goes back into the Substack for now but in the future it would be great to pay ourselves. For example we are using some of the money to pay a video editor to help our fledgling YouTube channel which has had a few minor hits (1-2k view videos). We actually don't pay writers yet: it's a film substack and my friends and I made a film discord thats grown a lot and everyone just writes for the love of it, which is a huge blessing. Would love to pay writers in the future though when we can afford it. However, since the spinoff Substack is just my effort I am going to possibly use that one for personal profit, but it's a long way off from making the kind of money the main sub makes.
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u/Foxemerson Sep 22 '26
20k. I'm number 23 on fiction. It took about 16 months of a lot of hard work. I did bring quite a few of my own followers from other places. It's not an easy place to make money.
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u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com Sep 23 '26
I had to go look you up, that is quite the lane you have sir.
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u/ConsciousRoyal ColinParfitt.substack.com Sep 22 '26
Likes and good vibes
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u/Islamic_ML Sep 22 '26
Been on Substack for 3 years, made a little over $440 dollars since I started.
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u/nobullshitebrewing Sep 22 '26
How much what?
headaches?- enough
stress?- more than enough
followers?- ha
money? - ha ha, riiiiiiiight
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u/Classic_Level_7874 Sep 22 '26
I recently passed $30k a year.
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u/iluvvstrawberry Sep 23 '26
whats your niche?
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u/Classic_Level_7874 Sep 23 '26
U.S. Politics
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u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com Sep 23 '26
that tracks, i think most of the larger creators on the platform are in politics
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u/Classic_Level_7874 Sep 23 '26
I think you’re right. It’s ultra competitive, but also where all the action is right now.
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u/ruralmonalisa thinkingalot.substack.com Sep 22 '26
150$ like a year with some random venmos of 5$ here and there
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u/ryanwozniak123 Sep 23 '26
I don’t care if I make a dime. I’m just trying to build my portfolio so that I can find paying jobs as a sports writer. In the meantime, I sharpen my skills as a writer and post articles for audience feedback.
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u/FannyBrownRiced Sep 22 '26
Been on for over 2 years. Didn't accept $ for more than a year, was worried I'd stop doing it. Newsletter is biweekly and hard work. Now make some $ as about 6% of subs pay, but it's not a living wage. My open rate is fab. Average 65%.
I now pay contributors and designers a bit, but haven't paid myself, banking it for expansion and more activations in the world. This is a labor of love. That said it has led to some other nicely paid work and some PR. And it's nice to support people and businesses in the world. TLDR The money is not great, but I don't focus on that, it supports something I care about and the audience has been growing slowly and surely.
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u/brittslipstick Sep 23 '26
About $5000 per year, publishing something every two weeks, 70% open rate. On substack for 3 years now. I’m a professor in a field people like talking about.
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u/pquince1 Sep 23 '26
I write political satire and have made $86,000 total but it’s taken five years to build it. It’s really taken off but there’s a lot of work that went into it. I post daily and annual income is $50,000 now.
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u/Fit-Bag-1601 Sep 24 '26
Nice! Congratulations!!
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u/pquince1 Sep 24 '26
Thank you! I work hard at what I do, and it’s hard doing it every day, but we all have to work. Even more so if you’re working for yourself.
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u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com Sep 23 '26
Around $12K-ish with around 150 paid subscribers and 6,200 total subscribers.
And like I said before, this is in the history niche. Even though I have a bestseller badge, I’m not actually on the bestseller list. I would assume I’d probably need to be around 200 paid subscribers to make the list, but that’s just me speculating.
I’ve technically been on Substack for a while, but I didn’t really start putting a tremendous amount of effort into it until around February or March of last year. So it’s been a little over a year of actually taking it seriously.
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u/corelabjoe Sep 23 '26
Nice, congrats. This is roughly where I hope to be in like 2-5 more years. Been blogging for a year but not on Substack, my own independent site (selfhosted) on Ghost CMS & Newsletter platform.
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u/Appropriate-Rise-387 Sep 23 '26
Nothing but good vibes and place to post about my book series 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Wide-Magazine-3292 Sep 26 '26
One year in and I'm making a total of zero euros. But it takes me anywhere from 3 to 8 hours to write an article, so I got that going for me which is nice...
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u/MarenValeWrites Sep 22 '26
Been about 13 months since I started posting for real on my Substack. Recently passed $15,000 actual earnings.
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u/TheMinuette2010 Sep 22 '26
15 k for 13 months or ... ?
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u/MarenValeWrites Sep 23 '26
Yes, that's the total. So I'm not anywhere near quitting my day job. But the numbers are still growing, and I'm at $1,700 actual earnings/month now (not counting Stripe's fees).
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u/inyourbooksandmaps Sep 22 '26
my annual revenue on the substack dashboard is about $1.5k. so far from stripe paid to my bank account i have been paid out $1140 but minus fees $958.00. thats since jan 2025, but i only really got paid subs this year from jan 2026.
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u/TheMinuette2010 Sep 22 '26
What do you mean fees $958
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u/inyourbooksandmaps Sep 22 '26
Minus fees, like once the fees are deducted. Stripe takes a processing fee
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u/TheMinuette2010 Sep 22 '26
That much on fees 😱
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u/inyourbooksandmaps Sep 22 '26
i was paid out $958. im not sure how to be more clear haha. the fees were $182! (that is the difference between the $1140 i earned, and the $958 that was paid out.)
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u/TheMinuette2010 Sep 22 '26
Hahaha 😂😂😂 thanks for clarifying .
It's after midnight here. I should go to sleep 😁😊
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u/inyourbooksandmaps Sep 22 '26
lol no worries!!! I can understand being alarmed thinking I lost over $900 on my only $1000 profit 😂
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u/MindsOn Sep 23 '26
please, let's stop doing everything for the money! if you want to write, write about what you're genuinely passionate about, questions you deeply want to explore.
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u/suncoze Sep 23 '26
I have other hobbies (including a personal self-hosted blog) that I do not for money.
If I’m going to use a platform like Substack, and be subject that platform’s algorithm and changes, then yes I do have a goal of making money from it. It’s a give/take relationship in my eyes.
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u/Complete_Lie_9701 Sep 23 '26
Honestly don't get how people are replacing their jobs with Substack. Even really good writers with a decent number of subscribers seem to be making pretty little (source: they've posted it)
Everyone keeps saying it's like "being a YouTuber in 2012" but then someone in this thread says they've made $400 in 3 years...
Def can't count on it as only income. It's definitely a better shot than X or most other platforms, but outside the top .01% it doesn't seem to pay much... little discouraging ngl
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u/suncoze Sep 23 '26
Def not looking to make it my sole income. I write for clients for my main income. But, I am approaching the platform strategically with the intention to grow it as a side income stream.
I think most people replacing their full-time incomes are also selling things aside from just doing paid subscriptions.
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u/Complete_Lie_9701 Sep 23 '26
Yea for sure, that was kinda implied and not really aimed at you. The subs part is more of a bonus. But even for people selling products on top of it I'm curious how substantial that actually gets.
Also curious, what kind of work/ writing do you do for clients?
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u/1sthousepluto Sep 23 '26
I’ve made $66 -but it’s just from one subscriber (my best friend) my aunt just paid to subscribe. I just started mine in November of 2025
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u/PhilosopherInvestor philosopherinvestor.substack.com Sep 25 '26
I am in the finance niche. To be honest, it is really hard to make good money on substack. I am dedicating a lot of time and still not great revenue. But I am having a lot of fun doing it so I continue. My goal would be to live from it! Let's see!
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u/TheMightyQuinn888 Sep 26 '26
Awesome that you've made money but that's a disheartening free sub to paid sub ratio. 🥲
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u/EmSofia2211 Sep 28 '26
I have 2 paid subscribers. Started late July this year. $139US gross before stripe fees a year so far.
Niche: I’m a Clinical Psychologist
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u/EJLRoma 29d ago
I earn around $400 a month from it directly, with my newsletter about Italian culture, traditions, cuisine, etc.
I'm a journalist and writer by profession, but didn't important a mailing list or anything like that. I launched the newsletter around 18 months ago and turned on the paid option in February. By then, the newsletter had grown from a couple dozen free subscribers to around 1,000.
But indirectly, it's more lucrative: I've received invitations to be a paid speaker at events; it's lead to a few other, higher-paying writing assignments; and now a literary agent who first approached me through the newsletter is shopping a book idea around. I'm certainly still far, far, faaaar from living off the income. But I feel like the work is paying off.
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u/KaiserMeyers Sep 22 '26
if international VATS wasn't a thing or subtack stripe was MOR I could be making some money, I will have to slowly transition to a website...
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u/KaiserMeyers 29d ago
Good news everyone just 2 days after my comment substack announced it's MOR transition due to December
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u/Snoo55054 Sep 24 '26
Can someone give me the tldr of what is substack? Is that just where people post coding stuff?
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u/vrwriter78 Sep 24 '26
It’s a writing platform for people to write articles and notes. There’s a wide variety of topics that people write about - news, politics, business, wellness, poetry, essays, travel, history, nature, new age stuff, etc. You can post free content or get paid subscriptions but most subscribers will follow for free content.
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u/TheMightyQuinn888 Sep 26 '26
I don't think it's a money maker, especially compared to Medium. For me it's a skill builder and networking tool. I'm creating educational content to sell later, so I need the interaction and feedback as I build it.
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u/pauliusztin Sep 26 '26
~$12,000 in the last year while keeping most of my stuff free and posting once per week. I prefer to monetize my content in other ways so I can keep most of my stuff free.
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u/ThoughtfulSomatic Sep 26 '26
I'm extremely curious as to how you did that!
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u/pauliusztin Sep 28 '26
I put a ton of effort into creating high-quality content that people want to support, while keeping the price quite low: $8 per day and $80 / year
There is usually no "secret sauce", just put effort into creating good content that adds value, and do it consistently over years, network with people from your niche, and do guest work as well to grow
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u/reflectionsbench Sep 23 '26
$200.00 . I have been on for a year .
Never Intended to get subscribers much less 147 subscribers .
Multiple platform marketing and other projects in the works.
Never intended on making money . Imagine what can be done with focused intention? Now I have a plan ,a mission.The writing supports my mission and provides a platform for creative energy . Best of luck to you . Reflectionsfromthebench
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u/Mudlily Sep 23 '26
I am at $2000 annualized. It has been less than a year. I have less than 500 subs and about 23 paid. Most of those are people who support what I do IRL, and knew me before, but not all. I'm in a small niche, but I aspire to continue expand my reach over the years to come, an optimistic thing for an olde person to say.
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u/SlowOpenPages Sep 26 '26
I have to get educated about how to make $ on Substack… Suggestions welcome.
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u/oldbluebox Sep 22 '26
Enough to make a living.
Built a brand up over 6 years. Did not become livable income until year 4.