Substack review

This newsletter and blogging platform is super-popular, but how easy is it to use in practice? Our Substack review reveals all.

Illustration showing Substack posts on mobile phone, which is resting on a cluttered desk
(Image: © Substack)

Our Verdict

If you want to write and distribute newsletters, either for free or to paying subscribers, then Substack makes everything super-easy. You own your content, and you don't have to pay anything until you start charging readers. Your newsletters are automatically archived as a blog for future reference, too. On the downside, there's very limited scope to customise the design of your newsletters.

For

  • Quick signup
  • Easy to use
  • Own your content
  • Unlimited free subscribers
  • Fair fees for paying subscribers

Against

  • Limited customisation
  • You don't get a custom URL

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In the 2020s, there are so many places to create and share content, it can be somewhat dizzying considering all the options. For video, there's YouTube and Vimeo, for music there's Bandcamp and Soundcloud, and for podcasts, well, the list is as long as your arm. Until recently, though, writers, journalists and bloggers were feeling a little left behind. But then the newsletter platform Substack came along... and it's no exaggeration to say it's changed the game.

Nowadays, if you regularly visit somewhere like the New York Times or The Guardian to read your favourite columnist, you may well they're left their job and launched their own Substack. So if you still want to read their articles, you now have to pay for them to be sent straight to your inbox.

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The Verdict
10

out of 10

Substack

If you want to write and distribute newsletters, either for free or to paying subscribers, then Substack makes everything super-easy. You own your content, and you don't have to pay anything until you start charging readers. Your newsletters are automatically archived as a blog for future reference, too. On the downside, there's very limited scope to customise the design of your newsletters.

Tom May

Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World, T3.com and Tech Radar. He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects.