What is Substack now?

🚀 It’s time to register for the Going Solo: Newsletter Edition’s second cohort. The six-week virtual workshop kicks off April 10 and runs through May 15. Not sure it’s for you? Join instructors Blair Hickman and Ryan Kellett on Tuesday, April 1 at 4 ET/1 PT for an informal information session to find out more about what we teach and how this all works. Bonus: If you attend the information session, you’ll be eligible for a 10 percent discount on tuition.

Substack may be right for you. But make sure you know what it’s really built for

When I launched Project C almost a year ago, starting on Substack felt like a no-brainer. It was free, easy to use, and where a lot of journalist-turned-creators were building direct-to-audience platforms. I’m still grateful for it. Substack helped turn Project C from an idea in my head into something real, and fast. Its interface was intuitive, and its recommendations engine jump-started subscriber growth.

It’s also become the go-to launchpad for big-name journalists striking out on their own—Paul Krugman, Jim Acosta, Taylor Lorenz, Matt Yglesias. The allure is real.

But in December, I decided to leave Substack for beehiiv.

Why? Three big reasons:

• More control over design

• Better segmentation and automation tools

• And most importantly: true ownership of my audience

(Full disclosure: I’m on the unpaid advisory board for beehiiv’s Media Collective.)

Here’s what changed my thinking. On Substack, I got daily emails celebrating each new subscriber — many driven by the platform’s recommendations engine. That system works for top-of-funnel growth. But what I never got were alerts about unsubscribes. And that missing data made me uneasy.

Because here’s what the system actually looks like:

When someone subscribes to a newsletter like Chris Cillizza’s amazing So What in the example below, they’re automatically opted into several more via a recommendation screen. The boxes are pre-checked. The call to action is to “Continue.” The “Skip” button? Hard to spot.

Nothing evil here, but it creates an experience where users suddenly find themselves subscribed to multiple newsletters they didn’t actively choose. And the result is what you’d expect: inbox overload → frustration → mass unsubscribes. I’ve done it myself.

Substack doesn’t show creators the full churn data, which makes it easy to misread growth — and even overestimate revenue potential. Taylor Lorenz has called this out, too. What looks like steady growth might really be a leaky bucket.

That’s one reason I moved to beehiiv. I wanted transparency, more reliable metrics and the ability to actually manage the full relationship with my audience. Since the move, I’ve seen more consistent, durable growth – and lower churn.

Substack still works for a lot of people. But it’s also shifting. As Charlotte Klein recently wrote in New York magazine, Substack has evolved from a newsletter platform into something else: “a platform for live videos and podcasts, a burgeoning social-media network, and a starter pack for fledgling newsrooms.”

Joan Westenberg goes further, characterizing Substack as a budding monopoly and one that isn’t, as advertised, free for writers. Substack takes 10 percent of any subscription revenue in perpetuity, whether you have 10 or 10,000 paying subscribers. Other platforms, like Ghost, let writers keep 100 percent of their revenue.

That evolution matters. When someone follows you on Substack, you don’t get access to their email address. You can’t communicate directly. And when you leave, you can export your subscribers — but not your followers. In my case, my follower list was three times the size of my email list and I couldn’t take it with me.

If you’re building your own thing as a journalist, know your goals — and know your platform. If you want to build on top of a social network with viral potential, Substack might be the right fit. But if you care about audience ownership, data transparency and long-term control, explore your options.

Start here: Lex Roman’s comparison of the top newsletter platforms.

the latest

• “Is legacy media dead?,” asks Parker Malloy in a piece for dame Magazine that argues “independent journalism has become the last refuge of the Fourth Estate.”

• A recent study from Media Matters for America, finds the right dominates the online media ecosystem.

• This Guardian headline says it all: “How a New Zealander working from her mum’s kitchen started a news service read by Madonna”

• A great read from Annemarie Dooling about her past as an OG influencer (aka travel blogger) is full of pearls of wisdom that stand the test of time: “Other creators are your collaborations, not your competition.”

• Why is understanding what credible creator journalism looks like important? Because, as 404 Media points out, AI slop is overwhelming our internet reality.

• Speaking of slop, this piece by Keenan Chen for Slate is a wild read about a one-time real estate agent turned right-wing misinformation agent who is #winning the YouTube algorithm.

  

know things

• The maturation of the creator economy continues apace with the launch of a YouTube creator upfronts, writes Alex Weprin for The Hollywood Reporter.

• The dividing line between podcasters and social media creators is disappearing, writes Dan Granger in AdWeek.

do something cool

• Beehiiv is hosting its first Local Newsletter Summit on April 3. Sessions led by, among others, 6AM City co-founder Ryan Heafy, Charlotte Agenda’s Ted Williams and The Newsletter Club’s Michael Kauffman will fill out a full day of programming. The focus is very much how-to and it’s virtual + free.

• The Newsletter Conference is coming right up on May 2. Tickets start at $750 😱 for the one-day conference and chance to hear from/network with folks like Dan Oshinksy (Inbox Collective), Ben Smith (Semafor), Jacob Donnelly (A Media Operator) and more.

Reminder: Sign up for the Going Solo free info session coming up on Tuesday, April 1!