A New Chapter: Goodbye Substack
common reasons others have left | why I’m leaving Substack | plus what’s next
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Almost two years ago, I hastily started a Substack newsletter, ecstatic about the opportunity to earn extra income from my writing while having a free platform to host my subscribers on. But I didn’t factor in all the other costs that came with the shift, in addition to overlooking the fact that with anything that’s “free”, you are the product.
But, there’s more to it.
Note: this won’t be some takedown attempt of the platform.
Substack offers a pleasant writing experience, and has potential advancing opportunities for more than just writers.
One of Substack’s greatest benefits is to mainstream authors and [social media] influencers who desire to expand, venturing to get more personal and in-depth with their audiences through long-form writing, and audio/podcast and video -sharing options too.
But, like with everything, there are no guarantees. And although I never expected a single thrown-up post to warrant a major uptick in email subscribers or an income boost, I also didn’t expect to walk away with a major loss after over two years of time and energy investment.
I’m leaving Substack for 4 main reasons:
(perceived) platform pressure
Substack’s shift to allowing “followers” (to Notes) in lieu of free/paid email subscriptions; meaning: the platform “owns” your followers instead of you, the creator, which also means you cannot take followers with you if you choose to leave
additionally, the shift to a more social media -like user experience
the saturation of Substack
because the ability to earn an income from the platform distracted me from working on my other projects as I obsessed over making Substack work
With other former Substack authors who’ve left and shared why, their reasons vary from:
lack of ability to create email funnels and automated, pre-written emails
lack of proper segmentation of your email list (somewhat remedied with the Sections feature under Settings)
poor deliverability of emails (expanded on in footnotes)
Substack’s “insidious flow” and inflationary metrics1
its lack of content moderation/selective moderation
that Substack boosts conservative, extremist voices, including neo-Nazis234
although, I found one source arguing that this claim is false
that Substack isn’t actually profitable5 (very valid, and personally experienced)
Substack makes money when you, the creator, monetize your posts.
From what you earn, they take an arguably small cut of the profit (10% to Substack and 3% to Stripe at a total of 13% per paid subscription—a $5 [USD] monthly subscription leaves the author with $4.35).
Outside of “porn” (unspecified), no content, including Nazi rhetoric, is moderated unless, according to Substack’s Guidelines, it blatantly incites violence. However, Nazism is inherently violent. Its core belief is that humans are fundamentally unequal, and that certain groups of humans ought to be enslaved and-or eradicated.
I call bullshit, Substack.
If the Far Left incited violence, I’d equally condemn it. It’s not political and shouldn’t ruffle any feathers to view violence as abhorrent. And a respectable platform should do everything in its power to keep such rhetoric off of it.
There are plenty of searchable pieces written on these subjects (beyond what’s linked and included in my footnotes here), so I’ll expand only on my initial reasons for leaving below.
1] Substack’s user-interface was not designed for the way my brain functions best.
Let me explain.
My neurodivergent brain partnered with chronic illness and pain have made Substack an unfriendly place for me as an author on the platform, and more recently, as a reader.
Maybe others function well under constant internal or external “pressure”, but I most certainly do not.
Much like with basically all email marketing/service providers (ESP), upon opening the Substack web app as a creator, it instantly loads your email subscriber count (sans follower count), annual revenue/pledges6, etc.
Most platforms could assert the relevancy of that information being up front and center. But as someone who no longer writes scalable business content, and spent the majority of the past couple of years writing about rebuilding myself post-Autism diagnosis, the up-front metrics compute in my brain as pressure:
pressure to grow
pressure to convert more readers into paying subscribers
pressure to push readers to “like” and comment because if Substack doesn’t receive a profit from creators, or registers ample likes/hearts and “community” engagement (which offers Substack more of an opportunity to increase profits, too), creator growth through Substack promotion is abysmal
Mind you: all of these points benefit me, of course, but they benefit Substack long-term far more as Substack authors bring new readers to the platform who may or may not stay with the original creator, but may subscribe to other creators or become a direct Substack user or author, themselves.
The majority of my readers were and still are email subscribers I brought to Substack.
With my writing, the majority of readers that respond simply reply to the email they received, as they’ve known to do with me for years. But Substack doesn’t acknowledge or “reward” non-public comment responses like email replies—that would mean potential users are only staying with me and not branching out onto the platform; why recognize that?
Substack is community-based, which is nice for those with heavily engaged, highly social, vocal audiences. But especially nice for Substack’s bottom line.
Even so, based on more prominent former Substack creators’ reports, the conversion rate of subscribers acquired through Substack promotion into paying subscribers is painfully low. A Media Operator shared that they gained roughly 5,000 email subscribers directly from Substack, and only 37 of those readers converted into paying subscribers.
Yes, we all need money to survive, but feeling constant pressure to push myself and my readers to engage for my benefit isn’t how I want to operate.
When I function this way, I lose sight of myself and even why I’m writing a blog/newsletter at all.
2] Substack readers can now simply “follow” a creator’s Notes instead of subscribing to their newsletter.
Tying in with the shift of Substack’s initial Medium-Patreon mashup to more of a long-form Twitter alternative; as a Substack user, you can now choose to not give your email address directly to creators (but still must to Substack), and simply follow their posted Notes instead.7
This hurts creators.8 Especially those of us who joined Substack for the email communication hosting and network, with or without the desire to earn an income directly.
When I moved from Hey, World! to Substack, I hemorrhaged subscribers. To this day, I’m unsure if this was because of the change over to Substack—nobody who left told me why—or some other reason.
After I shifted my writing from primarily business and productivity topics (while using Convertkit prior to Hey, World!) to more personal pieces about life as a newly diagnosed neurodivergent person attempting to unmask and figure out who I was without the camouflage, I did lose a lot of readers. But that loss was hardly a dent in comparison to the loss after switching to Substack.
I brought over 2,000 email subscribers from Hey—where I was already writing about personal matters—and now have just shy of 600 email subscribers at the time of writing this, with 26 “followers”—I’ll get to this soon.
When I first noticed something seemed off, I was notified by Substack that I’d gotten approximately 12 new followers after I promoted a fresh post on Notes for the first time. But when I returned to the metrics homepage, my subscriber count didn’t budge. I thought it was a system error; like there never actually were any new subscribers (the descriptor change didn’t register at the time) and Substack just bugged out or something again. A week prior, creators received an email about a subscriber-count bug, so I chalked it up to that.
But that wasn’t the case.
I avoid the hotbed amalgamation that is Notes (i.e., Substack’s “public square” feed where the majority of Substack creators vie for user attention).
Much like all feed-like spaces, it’s incredibly overwhelming for my brain.
Now that Substack has shifted more toward being a social media platform, Notes are where the illusion of creator growth happens.
But, when the followers gained from posting to Notes don’t receive your email/blog posts, and only opt in to see what you share to Notes without ever exchanging their email address to do so, is actual growth happening? Especially if these followers never convert to paying subscribers, or even to free email subscribers? Because, isn’t that just what other social media platforms are for? And, how many do we actually need? (Especially if we don’t have new, catered-to-the-platform things to say on each.)
Meanwhile, email subscribers don’t get notified when you post to Notes unless they also opt in to follow you via the Substack web/app….
How much do people actually want to hear from creators? And how much is too much..?
More recently, when I returned to the Substack app as a reader, I found myself hating it. Among other things, I’d start reading a post, hit a paywall and immediately feel miffed.
After excitedly paying for roughly two-dozen subscriptions early on, about five of them actually felt “worth” paying for. (I’ve now reduced my paid subscriptions to just the handful I consistently enjoy reading/writers I would find a way to pay even if they didn’t post behind a paywall.)
This is not said to belittle anyone’s work. Frankly, as a Substack creator, deciding what’s worth charging readers for is stressful.
For months, I studied several writers’ essays and stories that were paid and free, documented how others differentiated the two, and also read countless free posts from other creators to decide what type of content I “should” charge for.
And, of course, every writer is different. One may choose to not utilize Substack’s paid subscription option, yet produce incredible, free posts every time. Another writer may only charge for content that might be (arguably) controversial or intimate. Some may only charge for some posts randomly—seemingly without a definitive reason—and offer others of equal “value” for free to entice more readers to pay for their paywalled content.
As a creator who needs a definitive reason to charge when there’s so much great work available that’s entirely free; I couldn’t decide what was “good enough” to comfortably charge for, and felt dissatisfied with everything I posted behind a paywall.
But I think where this particular argument hits me the hardest is that Substack isn’t what I solely wanted to do, yet it’s all I was doing. Trying to make it profitable became a full-time job. But I (keyword: I) couldn’t manage writing projects, life, my overall health as a chronically ill person, being a contributing family member and friend, and building an income-generating Substack.
Plus…
3] Substack is saturated.
Especially now, it appears that the already strong might stand a chance for growth on and through the platform. “Small fish” in the big pond like me? It feels like shouting through a megaphone into a human-vacant forest.
With authors and creators like Roxane Gay, Salman Rushdie, Emma Gannon, Chuck Palahniuk, and George Saunders, and with Substack being as vast and crowded as it’s become; what chance do smaller creators just starting out or trying to build from “little” have of capturing much of a readership through Substack?
Again, as someone who imported over 2,000 email subscribers and came out the other end with a little over a quarter left, I do feel disillusioned by my experience on Substack.
I came here to grow. My initial idea was that a public platform had to be better than a private ESP just in broader visibility alone, right?
Not the case for me.
I also came here to access more opportunities for income potential, and ended up leaving with a major loss of potential future income, and absolutely a loss of income overall.
Additionally, when I started a Substack and imported my email list, I didn’t know it would transition into a social media platform. I unknowingly did a disservice to my readers by giving Substack their email addresses.
Not to mention that, as Annalee Newitz described in her post on Substack’s scam:
…Substack is not merely an app. It’s actually a publication. Why do I say that? Because Substack’s leadership pays a secret, select group of people to write for the platform. They call this group of writers the “Substack Pro” group, and they are rewarded with “advances” that Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie calls “an upfront sum to cover their first year on the platform [that’s] more attractive to a writer than a salary, so they don’t have to stay in a job (or take one) that’s less interesting to them than being independent.” In other words, it’s enough money to quit their day jobs. They also get exposure through Substack’s now-considerable online reach.
Casey Newton of the former Substack newsletter Platformer said of his Substack Pro offer in an interview with The Verge:
I wound up not taking an advance, but it did help me financially with a couple of things. [Being a Substack Pro] paid for a designer to create the Platformer logo that we still use today; it gave me a healthcare subsidy; and more importantly, just helped me figure out how to get healthcare as a freelancer, something I had never had to do before. And probably the most important thing was, it said, “If you get sued by a litigious person, we will protect you for up to a million dollars in legal fees.” And I was like, “Wow, that is the thing that could just maybe sink me right away if I go independent.” The combination of those things made me say, “Hey, why don’t I go for this?”
I want everyone to get paid, and I’m glad these authors are getting paid or are receiving benefits for their work. But with the saturation level on Substack, in addition to competing with said leg-up-given Substack Pros; it’s difficult enough for a reader to process the overwhelming excess of newsletters and Notes subscription options, let alone for a small-fish writer to advance on the platform in an actually advantageous way.
And, even if you do everything “right”, you still should keep in mind that all the work you do to bring in new readers from outside of Substack means you’re funneling new readers to Substack’s platform in hopes that they’ll actually subscribe to your newsletter.
Then, Substack has them too. And at that point, they become a “product” for Substack, just like the rest of us.
4] What began as an opportunity to potentially earn an income with my writing transformed into my primary distraction.
I stopped writing my personal essay collection, a short story collection, and I stopped contributing to my novels. “Hacking” Substack became an obsession to a point where that’s all I was doing; buying courses and paid-subscribing to “here’s how you succeed on Substack” creators over and over. (None, mind you, disclosing if they are or began as Substack Pros.)
I couldn’t even open Substack without feeling shame for not “keeping up”, and from the constant prodding to grow-grow-grow, increase-increase-increase.
I cracked under the pressure repeatedly.
Burnout often happens when you work hard yet have little to nothing to show for it.
And I was absolutely in a chronic state of burnout.
The overall pressure of Substack between content creation, the shift toward being just another social media platform to self-promote (spam) on, the saturated “competition” for attention, and the personal and professional decline experienced while using Substack were more than enough reasons for me to leave. Then, tack on Substack’s moderation problem and the cofounder’s lackluster response to hate-speech concerns (of course!) on Notes, and not leaving felt antithetical to my values and principles.
But if you’re a creator on Substack and it’s working for you, in all seriousness, I am so happy for you! I’m simply sharing my experience, and I won’t judge you for staying. Since most publications don’t want previously published works, I’ll still be contributing traffic to Substack by leaving select posts here.
Nobody is or can be perfect.
What I’ve shared is my opinion and my experience, and it’s from an Autistic person with chronic illness and pain, ADHD, and three kids. I doubt our lives and situations look the same.
But, like me, if you are dead-set on joining Substack and you have an existing list of email addresses to import, I’d suggest thoroughly researching Substack before giving your subscribers’ emails to them (now). Again, when I started with Substack, it wasn’t what it is today. If you start one now, some email subscribers may bail on you after Substack potentially spams them.910
Well, that’s if your email ever makes it to your subscribers anyhow.11
So, what’s next for me?
I’ve returned (likely indefinitely) to my Hey, World! blog/newsletter.
I’ll continue to write about neurodivergence, chronic illness, family, identity, life lessons, and more; but I’ll prioritize writing for other online and print publications, and corralling those works into my sporadic emails.
My new newsletter focus will be on producing quality messages with brief musings, “life nuggets”, updates, and roundups of things I’m reading/watching/listening to, or things I’ve found interesting and think you might enjoy. Moving forward, I will no longer prioritize consistency for consistency’s sake.
On a non-newsletter note: I’ve also started working on a collection of short stories while contributing to a memoir in essays.
It’s certainly felt great to write again after my life-changing hiatus, which I’ll share about over on Hey, World!
I’m feeling content in knowing and finally honoring how I tick, and that my Hey email service’s never-see metrics, and no-tracking-or-spamming-of-subscribers blog is a better fit for me (and for you as a reader), and much better for how my brain and body work together.
If you’re interested in checking it out, Hey is an email and calendar service that can be used for personal and/or professional use. It offers an @hey[dot]com email address with forwarding for a flat $99 USD per year; or a custom domain for $12 USD per month. (I’ve used it since its infancy and love it, especially with their continued user-experience updates.) Its blog/newsletter feature is simple and straightforward, but for my goals, and refocusing to prioritize writing projects over newsletter-writing, it’s exactly what I need.
Hey user and journalist Ezra Klein says of Hey, “Gmail and virtually all of its competitors assume anyone should be able to email you, and then you should store and sort and search and categorize those messages. HEY assumes that only the people you want email from should be able to email you.”
In conclusion, the steps required to make Substack work bogged me down. I need to write without the distraction of monetizing my direct form of communication with readers. A newsletter is a means to connect for me, not a direct source of income; I know that now.
It’s a personal preference, and one that I hope I can stick to whenever my ADHD side finds the next new, shiny thing that everyone’s talking about intriguing. 😅
But, seriously: my hiatus offered so much more than just clarity on why Substack isn’t for me. And I’ll be sharing more about that in online and print publications, as well as on my new newsletter. I hope you join me there.
All my best,
Sara
Adam Cecil of Night Water wrote in his newsletter about his three years on Substack that, “The majority of these [Substack-pointed] subscribers came from the recommended newsletters that pop up when you subscribe to [one person’s] Substack newsletter. While these are legitimate recommendations from the publication, the way [recommendations are] included in the subscribe flow is insidious. If you’re just pressing ‘next’ through all of the information they throw at you—Share on Twitter! Subscribe to the podcast!—you might not realize you’ve signed up for another seven newsletters in one fell swoop. I’m not a fan of this implementation; I think it contributes to inflated [subscriber] numbers.”
Substack Says It Will Not Ban Nazis or Extremist Speech, The New York Times
Ex-Substacker Casey Newton of Platformer said in an interview with The Verge, “I’ve heard from so many people in the aftermath of all of this saying, ‘Casey, I want to leave, but the network, the network.’ I’m like, ‘Trust me, go check out the paid conversion that you are getting from all of these folks who are signing up for your newsletter. It’s probably not going to be that much.’ I ran the numbers … at the end of 2023, and as far as I can tell, despite adding 76,000 free subscribers to Platformer through this dark pattern on Substack in 2023, we ended up net 200 paid customers on the year. So, in other words, [our profit margin] basically stayed flat for the entire year despite adding 75 percent to our free subscriber base.”
What are Substack Pledges?, Substack Support
How does following work on Substack?, Substack Support
In an article on The Wrap called Substack Writers Concerned Over Follow Feature, Say Subs Plummeted, writer Jeanna Kadlec says, “This latest intervention is indicative of their efforts to transition to a social media hub where they can sell ad space.” The Hacker News community had a few things to say about the whole followers malarkey, too.
As a user on Reddit stated, “Yes. Substack has become a spam factory. After some research, I found Substack brags to potential newsletter authors how ‘most of author subscriptions come from within the platform’. So...they clearly are using their platform to spam even people who are NOT on Substack to try to salvage their clients. Geez. I ‘had’ planned to sign up with them to start a Substack newsletter of my own. Now it's a hard NO for me. I don’t want to be part of such a spammy organization.”
A Reddit user stated, “Signed up [to Substack] 3 days ago and just deleted my account due to the overwhelming and unnecessary amount of spam. I've used most social medias but never one that sends even 1/10th of the amount of spam emails as Substack. I never even followed anyone, literally just made an account, and every morning 99% of my new emails were Substack.”
Google’s AI summary of why so many Substack emails end up in spam folders: “Substack posts can frequently end up in spam folders because of a combination of factors including: aggressive self-promotion by writers, overly promotional subject lines, inconsistent sending patterns, a high volume of new Substack users, and email providers' algorithms that may flag new or unfamiliar senders as potential spam; essentially, the platform's nature of encouraging direct subscriber acquisition can sometimes be interpreted as spammy by email filters.” And keep in mind, when an @substack[dot]com email address associates all email addresses from the same source, even respectful, respectable writers sharing the platform are still filtered out by most spam filters.
If the left advocated violence, you would have objected it too? Almost all the violence in our country has committed and/or advocated by the left, you are either uninformed or delusional, or both.