Substack – The Plug-and-Play Email Platform

Expert Verified by Leandro Langeani, BBA

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overall

5/5

FROM

10% of rev

"The Plug-and-Play Email Platforme"

TL;DR

Substack lets you write, grow, and monetize an email newsletter without any tech know-how. No code + built-in payments + quick set up. From zero to inbox in minutes.

Pros

  • Foolproof setup
  • Built-in monetization
  • Audience growth features

Cons

  • Limited design flexibility
  • Pretty basic automation
  • 10% rev share model

What is Substack?

Substack is an email marketing platform where creators who want to own their audience and monetize their content can do it in minutes… without dealing with plugins, hosting, and other tech headaches.

Our Verdict — Best Plug-and-Play Newsletter Tool

The Best Part:

  • It’s a toolbox. Substack does what would take 3 or more tools, within one dashboard. Publishing, list management, payments, analytics… fire.

The Worst Part:

  • Simple is simple. Most people end up hitting the ceiling here and then with Substack, be it with  automations, design customization, analytics…

Get it if you want to start publishing a professional newsletter today.

Best For

Substack is best for content creators, writers, and service providers who want the simplest way to create, grow, and monetize a newsletter.

Top Features

  • Your lemon stand. Substack handles payment processing, subscriptions, a website, and access management for you to run the whole shop.

  • Zero tech config. Don’t ever worry about SPF, DKIM, deliverability… Substack handles all the email infrastructure for you.

  • Free and paid, your call. Start free, go with a paid newsletter, or mix both and offer content upgrades for a killer conversion combo.

  • Community in the inbox. Let paid and free subscribers comment and interact with each other and with you on every one of your emails/posts.

  • What works, what doesn’t. Get clear analytics on open rates, top-performing issues, engagement, and paid conversions, to figure out what works best.

What do customers love about Substack?

  • Write-and-send experience
  • Built-in monetization
  • Beautiful web-based newsletter archive
  • Zen-like writing interface
  • Clear subscriber data and earnings
  • Newsletter growth features
  • Stripe-powered payments
  • Supportive community
  • Embedding podcasts and audio
  • Beautiful analytics dashboard

The Bottom Line

Substack lets you:

  • Start a paid newsletter in 10 minutes
  • Own your content, audience, and income
  • Skip the setup, ship your emails

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