Substack built its brand by treating writers as its actual customers, not its content suppliers. It paid respected names to launch there first, let creators keep 90 percent of revenue, turned its user base into an unpaid sales force through recommendations, and kept the product so simple that publishing and getting paid became almost the same action.
Substack is the newsletter and publishing platform that lets writers, journalists and podcasters charge readers directly for subscriptions. Launched in 2017 by Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, it grew from a niche tool for independent journalists into a platform hosting some of the most-read writers on the internet. What makes Substack worth studying is not a clever advertising campaign. It has barely run one. Instead, it grew by rethinking who its customer really was, how trust could be engineered into a product, and how a small team could get thousands of people to do its marketing for free. That is a template any business owner can learn from.
Positioning Substack as the alternative to noisy, algorithm-driven media
Substack did not position itself as another blogging tool. It positioned itself as a reaction against the attention economy, the idea that social media platforms and ad-funded publishers had corrupted the relationship between writers and readers. Its early public messaging, including posts and interviews from co-founder Hamish McKenzie, repeatedly framed email subscriptions as a return to a direct, undistracted relationship between a writer and their audience, free from algorithmic interference and advertiser pressure.
This was a positioning choice, not a feature list. Plenty of tools let people send newsletters. Substack sold an idea about media itself, and that idea gave journalists and writers a reason to move that had nothing to do with formatting options.
How to apply this to your business: Decide what larger shift your business represents, not just what it sells. Write your positioning around the problem customers are tired of, then let your product be the proof, not the pitch.
Seeding the platform with credible writers first
In its early years Substack ran a programme, often referred to as Substack Pro, offering advances and guarantees to established writers and journalists to launch newsletters on the platform, including figures who already had large, trusted audiences elsewhere. This gave Substack something new platforms usually lack: instant credibility and a visible catalogue of successful, high-quality publications for new writers to look at and aspire to.
Rather than trying to win over the mass market first, Substack focused on a small number of respected names whose presence would signal quality to everyone watching.
How to apply this to your business: Identify a handful of credible early customers or partners whose presence will make others trust you by association. Offer them a genuinely good early deal in exchange for being visible, public proof that your business works.
A pricing model that aligns Substack’s success with its writers success
Substack takes a percentage of subscription revenue rather than charging a flat fee for use of the platform, meaning it earns nothing unless a writer earns something first. Writers set their own subscription prices and keep the large majority of the revenue. This single decision shaped Substack’s entire growth story, because it meant the company only grew when its writers grew, which forced the whole business to focus obsessively on writer success rather than platform sign-ups alone.
How to apply this to your business: Where possible, design pricing so your incentives sit on the same side of the table as your customer’s. If you only profit when they succeed, you will naturally build the kind of support and product that helps them succeed.
Turning writers into the sales force through recommendations
Substack introduced a recommendations feature that lets writers publicly endorse other newsletters directly to their own subscribers, with a simple one-click way for readers to subscribe to the recommended publication too. This created a genuine network effect: every established writer on the platform became a potential distribution channel for every other writer, without Substack needing to buy a single advert.
Newer writers actively sought recommendations from established ones because the effect on subscriber growth was visible and immediate, giving everyone a reason to keep using and promoting the platform.
How to apply this to your business: Build a simple, low-friction way for your existing customers or partners to introduce you to their own audience or network. A genuine, easy referral mechanism will almost always outperform paid advertising for trust and cost.
Notes: building a social layer without abandoning email
In 2023 Substack launched Notes, a short-form, feed-based space inside the platform where writers can share quick thoughts, quotes and links, similar in format to a social media timeline. Rather than sending readers away to promote their newsletter on other platforms, Substack gave writers a reason to stay inside its own ecosystem to build audience and discovery, while still owning the actual subscriber relationship through email.
Notes let Substack compete for attention with social platforms without abandoning the email-first model that had made it different in the first place.
How to apply this to your business: If your customers need a reason to visit you more often than they buy from you, build a light, ongoing touchpoint such as a feed, a community space or a short-form update. Keep it inside your own ecosystem where you control the relationship.
Public leaderboards that gamify growth
Substack publishes bestseller and category rankings that show which publications have the most paid subscribers within a given topic, visible to anyone browsing the platform. Appearing on one of these lists became a visible marker of success that writers wanted, and something they would often share themselves as proof of credibility.
This turned growth into something semi-public and competitive, giving writers an extra incentive to promote their own newsletter harder, which in turn brought more attention and new writers to the platform.
How to apply this to your business: Find or create a form of public recognition, a ranking, badge or leaderboard, that rewards your best customers or partners for performing well. People work harder for status and visibility than most business owners expect.
An all-in-one product that removes the need for extra tools
Substack combined writing, email delivery, payments, podcast hosting, video and, later, an app and chat feature into a single product, so a writer did not need a separate payment processor, a separate email tool and a separate hosting service to run a paid publication. This simplicity was itself a marketing advantage, because it lowered the barrier for a non-technical writer to start charging for their work the same day they signed up.
How to apply this to your business: Look at how many separate steps or tools a customer needs to get value from you, and remove as many as possible. A simpler path to a first result is often more persuasive than any feature list or advert.
Educational content as a growth engine
Substack publishes guides and resources aimed at helping writers grow their subscriber numbers and revenue, covering topics such as pricing strategy, launch tactics and using recommendations effectively. This content serves a dual purpose: it genuinely helps existing writers succeed, which increases retention, while also acting as discoverable material that attracts new writers researching how to start a paid newsletter.
By teaching the skill rather than only selling the tool, Substack positioned itself as a partner in a writer’s growth rather than a neutral piece of software.
How to apply this to your business: Publish genuinely useful guidance on the problem your product solves, not just marketing about the product itself. This builds trust with prospective customers and gives existing customers a reason to see you as invested in their success.
Storytelling through writer success stories
Substack’s own team has produced interviews and features spotlighting writers who have built significant, sustainable income on the platform, using their experiences to illustrate what is possible for others. These stories work as case studies, showing a realistic path from starting a newsletter to earning a living from it, told through the voice of someone readers can relate to rather than through a company press release.
How to apply this to your business: Collect and publish real stories from your own customers describing the specific result they achieved. A detailed, honest customer story usually persuades a hesitant buyer more effectively than a general claim about your product’s benefits.
Subscriber ownership and portability as a trust signal
Substack allows writers to export their subscriber list and take it elsewhere if they choose to leave the platform, rather than locking that relationship inside Substack’s own systems. Publicly emphasising this portability reassured writers, especially those with large, valuable audiences, that they were not handing control of their livelihood to a platform that could change its rules on them later.
How to apply this to your business: If you hold valuable customer data or relationships on behalf of your users, be explicit and generous about their right to access and take that data with them. Reducing the perceived risk of commitment often increases the willingness to commit in the first place.
Retention built on direct relationships, not algorithms
Because Substack publications are delivered primarily by email, a writer’s audience reaches them directly in their inbox rather than depending on being shown by an algorithm, as happens on most social platforms. Substack has repeatedly made this distinction part of its public messaging, contrasting the reliability of an email list with the unpredictability of social media reach.
This matters commercially because it makes a writer’s subscriber base a durable asset rather than a fragile one, which increases the likelihood they stay on the platform and keep investing in growing that list.
How to apply this to your business: Prioritise building a direct channel to your customers, such as an email list or membership, rather than relying solely on channels you do not control. A direct relationship protects your business from sudden changes in someone else’s platform rules.
Frequently asked questions
What is the core idea behind Substack’s marketing strategy?
Substack grew primarily by making its writers successful and visible, then relying on those writers to promote both their own work and, indirectly, the platform itself. Its marketing has depended far more on product design, pricing alignment and word of mouth among writers than on traditional advertising.
Does Substack pay for advertising to acquire new writers or readers?
Substack has not built its growth around large-scale paid advertising campaigns. Its visible growth tactics have centred on recruiting respected writers, enabling recommendations between publications, and building features such as Notes and leaderboards that encourage organic sharing and discovery within the platform.
How does Substack make money from its writers?
Substack takes a percentage cut of the subscription revenue a writer earns through the platform, in addition to standard payment processing fees. Writers set their own subscription prices, which means Substack’s revenue grows only when a writer’s paid subscriber base grows.
Why did Substack launch Notes if it is primarily an email platform?
Notes gives writers a way to be discovered and to share short updates without needing to leave Substack for another social platform to promote their work. It adds a social, feed-based discovery layer on top of the core email subscription model rather than replacing it.
Can a small business realistically copy Substack’s approach?
The individual tactics, aligning pricing with customer success, seeding early credibility with respected names, encouraging referrals, publishing genuinely useful education, and prioritising a direct customer relationship, can all be applied at a much smaller scale. The lesson is less about the size of Substack and more about the discipline of treating customer success as the main driver of growth.
More marketing case studies
- Instagram Marketing Strategy: How They Built a Brand That Wins
- Gousto Marketing Strategy: How They Built a Brand That Wins
- Calm Marketing Strategy: How They Built a Brand That Wins
Related reading: Marketing Case Studies: How the World’s Best Brands Actually Grew and The Best Email Marketing Tools for Creators in 2026.
I go much deeper on this in the digital marketing guide.
