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Substack has done a pretty good job convincing writers that email newsletters are sexy again.
They’ve built a great publishing platform, added podcast hosting & a video feed, rolled out chat, recommendations, crossposts and, most importantly, Notes, and given thousands of writers a way to charge directly for their work.
But the current model is painfully binary.
You’re either free, or you’re on a monthly/annual subscription. That’s it.
And the problem is the world has subscription fatigue. I do.
Readers already pay for Netflix, Spotify, the gym, their yoga app, and maybe even their dog’s organic meal plan. Add ten different newsletters to that? Nobody’s subscribing to infinity.
The internet isn’t built on one revenue model. It’s built on a messy cocktail of subscriptions, ads, one-offs, sponsors, tips, and everything in between.
So what else could Substack be doing?
Let’s break down four realistic Substack monetization options, with their upsides and downsides.
I have 4 options to go through.
1. One-Time Tips
One suggestions I’ve heard dozens of times is tips.
Imagine finishing an issue you loved and clicking a little “Buy me a coffee” button right under it. No pressure to subscribe, just a quick thank-you payment.
This is obviously pretty easy to implement and work out. And the upsides are clear:
Upsides:
- Low barrier. A casual fan doesn’t have to commit. They just drop $2–5 because they liked a piece.
- Great for virality. When something blows up, tips scale with it.
- Goodwill. Readers feel generous, writers feel appreciated. Win-win.
So why not do it? Because the downsides are pretty huge too.
Downsides:
- Cannibalization. Why subscribe for $8/month if you can throw the occasional $5 tip and still get content? Tips could siphon off subscribers.
- Unstable. Hard to plan a career around sporadic donations.
The subscription fatigue angle: Tips do look extra attractive to readers who are sick of subscriptions. That’s exactly why Substack should think carefully about this.
2. Pay-Per-Article
Another great option I think about quite a bit is pay-per-article.
Not everyone wants to marry your newsletter. Sometimes they just want one story. Pay $1.99, read the piece, done. The music industries thrived on this model before streaming became mainstream. $0.99 for a song. Good deal. Could work for writing as well.
Upsides:
- Lower entry point. Readers who won’t commit to $10/month might happily pay once.
- Great for evergreen content. Guides, deep dives, or viral essays can keep earning forever.
- Conversion funnel. A one-off buyer today might be a subscriber tomorrow.
Downsides:
- Cannibalization again. Substack’s whole model is “become a subscriber.” Single purchases could train readers to cherry-pick instead.
- Payment fatigue. Nobody wants to punch in their card details for every article. (That is easy to fix though.)
- Pricing paradox. Charge too little, it’s meaningless. Charge too much, nobody clicks. And big names will charge a lot. Small creators can’t.
The subscription fatigue angle: this is arguably the strongest idea. More so than tips in my opinion, because with tips, people still can read everything for free if they want. Pay-per-article keeps stuff behind paywall. You either buy one article or subscribe (maybe with a little discount if you already paid for a single article before).
Readers who are maxed out on subscriptions can still spring for a $3 article they really want. But Substack would need to balance this carefully so it doesn’t gut the subscription pipeline too much.
3. Integrated Ads
Yes, the dirty word. Ads.
People have really strong opinions about ads. I just ran a Note question about ads on Substack and the replies show how strong opinions are on this topic.
And I get it.
Nobody really likes ads. Of course, we don’t. Why would we? But for monetization purposes, ads are one of the strongest models out there.
Also, ads could be done way better than Google AdSense if Substack wanted to.
What if Substack partnered with a few big-name advertisers and gave writers the option to run tasteful, targeted ads? Opt in or opt out. Quality ads. Strong partnerships. Could work, in my eyes,
Upsides:
- Big revenue pool. Done right, ads can make serious money for both writers and Substack (and the ad partners, obviously).
- Optional. Writers who hate ads could ignore it. Turn them off. Done.
- Convenience. Writers wouldn’t need to chase sponsors themselves.
Downsides:
- Brand dilution. Substack’s “reader-supported” purity gets a bit muddied which is a big deal.
- Trust issues. Who decides which ads are acceptable? Crypto scams, miracle supplements, AI snake oil. This needs a whole team of people to work on and review.
- Reader opinion. Some people will quit on principle the second ads appear.
Still, ads done tastefully could give writers another income stream without demanding more subscriptions from exhausted readers.
4. A Sponsor Network
Beehiiv and ConvertKit already run sponsor marketplaces.
Essentially this means, writers join, get matched with brands, and slot blurbs into their newsletters. No cold emails, no chasing invoices. It’s somewhat similar to ads, but more based on direct brand partnerships with single creators, than on ad networks with the entire Substack ecosystem.
Upsides:
- Easy money. Can be great for writers and it’s scalable for Substack.
- Predictable income. Sponsors pay flat fees, not fickle CPM rates.
- Big leverage. Substack has the audience scale to attract quality advertisers.
Downsides:
- Homogenization. We could end up with many writers promoting the same five SaaS companies in every newsletter.
- Credibility risk. Forced sponsor blurbs aren’t that trustworthy. But I mean the entire social media and influencer sphere runs on this principle.
- Revenue split. Substack will skim its cut, naturally.
But again, this plays directly to subscription fatigue. If readers can’t or won’t pay another $10/month, sponsors can foot the bill.
Full-Time Substackers
Why think about this anyway, Burk?
Well, the truth is, getting paid subscribers is hard. It’s easier on Substack than on any other platform I’ve ever seen. But it’s still tough.
And the math worrisome.
Let’s assume, you charge $8 per month for your newsletter. Which is not much for a writer, but a good chunk for most readers. Substack takes 10% of this, Stripe takes another ~2%, leaving you about $7.04 net per subscriber per month.
Now, let’s aim modest: $50,000 per year might get many people around the world quite far as a full-time income.
But, let’s be honest, 50K doesn’t cut it in most Western countries once you add taxes, rent, housing costs, car prices, food, insurance, etc.
At $7.04 net per subscriber, you’d need roughly 7,100 paying subscribers per year to reach $50K.
That’s about 592 people paying you, every single month, without churn.
Here’s how it breaks down at different price points:
So unless you’re sitting on a massive free list and converting at elite levels, writing full-time on paid subscriptions alone is a fantasy for most people.
Which is exactly why Substack needs more monetization tools.
Tips, one-off sales, ads, and sponsors may not be perfect, but they diversify the income pie. We don’t need that. But it would be cool to have a real chance of making a living as a writer.
And let’s be real, most writers to these things (ads, sponsors, etc.) anyway, just via third parties. Substack could get a chunk of this third party revenue.
The Bottom Line
Substack’s greatest innovation wasn’t email. It was making direct payment to writers mainstream again. And we all love that.
But subscriptions can’t carry the whole weight of the platform forever. And they definitely don’t help us all becoming full-time writers.
Tips, one-offs, ads, sponsors, all have flaws. They also all address the elephant in the inbox: readers are drowning in subscriptions.
And I can’t see this continuing forever.
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