What Is Substack? Honest Guide for Course Creators
Substack is a platform for publishing newsletters and building a paid subscriber base. Writers, journalists, and creators use it to send content directly to readers' inboxes (either for free or behind a paid subscription) without relying on social media algorithms or advertising revenue.
That's the simple answer. But if you're a course creator or educator trying to figure out whether Substack belongs in your business, the more useful question is: what can it do, what can't it do, and how does it fit into the kind of multi-product creator business most educators are building?
This guide answers all three.
How Substack Works
Substack gives you three things out of the box:
A newsletter. You write and publish posts (text, images, embeds), and Substack sends them to your subscriber list by email. Posts also live on a public web page at your Substack URL, so they're discoverable via search and shareable as links.
A subscriber list you own. Every subscriber's email address is yours to export at any time. This is meaningfully different from a social media following; you can take your list to any platform you choose, at any time.
A built-in monetization mechanism. You can offer paid subscriptions (monthly, annual, or a "Founding Member" tier) and Substack handles the checkout, payment processing, and access gating automatically. Substack takes 10% of subscription revenue; everything else goes to you minus Stripe's processing fees.
Beyond newsletters, Substack also supports podcasts, video posts, and a "Notes" feature (a short-form social feed similar to Twitter). Community features exist in basic form (readers can comment on posts, and there's a discussion tab), but these are closer to a comment section than a proper community platform.
What Substack Costs
Substack is free to start. There are no monthly fees, no setup costs, and no limits on subscriber count on the free tier.
When you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack takes 10% of your subscription revenue. Stripe's standard payment processing fees (around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction) also apply.
The math at scale:
At low volumes, the 10% fee is a reasonable trade for not paying a monthly platform cost. Once you're generating consistent subscription revenue, a flat-fee alternative (Ghost, Beehiiv, Kit, or FreshLearn) almost always costs less. The switching cost is real, but most creators who do the math switch eventually.
What Substack Is Good At
Getting started quickly. Substack has the lowest friction of any newsletter platform. Sign up, write a post, share the link: you're live. No technical setup, no domain configuration, no design decisions required. For someone who just wants to start writing and building an audience, this is genuinely valuable.
Built-in discoverability. Substack's Recommendations feature lets other writers recommend your newsletter to their subscribers, and vice versa. In 2024, recommendations drove over 50% of all new Substack subscriptions. If you're starting from zero, this is a real distribution advantage that platforms like Ghost (which has no built-in reader network) don't offer.
Ownership and portability. Your subscriber list is always exportable as a CSV. Substack doesn't hold your audience hostage. This is worth stating clearly because it's better practice than many platforms.
Simple paid newsletter mechanics. For a creator whose primary product is a paid newsletter (and nothing else), Substack's built-in subscription management, content gating, and checkout are genuinely convenient. You don't need to integrate a payment processor or configure access rules.
Credibility signal. Substack has become associated with quality writing and independent journalism. For writers in media, finance, politics, or cultural commentary, publishing on Substack carries a credibility signal that a self-hosted Ghost newsletter or a basic Mailchimp list doesn't.
What Substack Is Not Good At (For Course Creators)
Here's where the honest assessment matters. Substack is built for writers who want to monetize their writing. It is not built for course creators who want to build a multi-product education business. The gaps are significant.
No email marketing tools
Substack explicitly states it's not a traditional email marketing tool. You can't create segmented signup forms, run lead magnet funnels, trigger sequences based on subscriber behavior, or send targeted campaigns to different audience segments. You get one signup form and one basic welcome email.
For a course creator who wants to send a post-purchase onboarding sequence, a re-engagement campaign for inactive subscribers, or a launch sequence timed to a new course release — Substack simply can't do it. You'd need a separate email tool running in parallel, which adds cost and complexity.
No integrations
Substack has no public API and no native integrations with external tools. You can't connect it to Zapier, your CRM, your course platform, or your analytics stack. This matters more than it sounds: if you run a social media lead generation strategy (a common tactic where followers comment a keyword to receive a lead magnet), you can't automate that flow through Substack. Every lead has to be manually added.
Paid subscriptions only. No product sales
Substack's monetization is limited to subscription revenue. You can't sell a course, an ebook, a template, or a one-time product through Substack directly. For educators whose business includes multiple product types at different price points, Substack handles one revenue stream and requires external tools for everything else.
Basic community features
Substack's community tab links to comment sections on individual posts. There's no central discussion space, no ability for members to initiate conversations with each other, and no moderation tools worth mentioning. As community strategist Carrie Melissa Jones has noted, when members can't start their own conversations, the creator carries the entire burden of initiating engagement, which doesn't scale.
Limited design and branding
All Substack publications share the same basic visual template. You can adjust colors and fonts within tight constraints, but you can't build a distinct branded experience. For creators whose brand identity is a meaningful part of their value proposition, this is a genuine limitation.
How Substack Fits Into a Course Creator Business
Understanding Substack's limitations doesn't mean avoiding it. It means using it for what it's actually good at and building around its gaps.
The most practical model for course creators:
Use Substack as a top-of-funnel audience builder. Publish free content consistently. Use Substack's Recommendations network to grow your subscriber base. Direct readers to your email list on a platform you control (Kit, FreshLearn, Mailchimp) where you can run proper funnels and segmentation.
Use Substack's paid tier selectively. A paid Substack newsletter can work as a standalone product; a $9/month "insider access" tier that sits alongside your courses. But don't depend on it as your primary revenue source without understanding the 10% cut and the lack of marketing automation.
Host your courses and products elsewhere. Substack cannot deliver a structured course, manage student progress, issue completion certificates, or handle digital download delivery with DRM. Your courses, digital products, and memberships belong on a platform built for them, and your email marketing for those products belongs on a tool with proper segmentation and automation.
The clearest example of this model working well: Khe Hy's RadReads newsletter on Substack grew to 50,000+ subscribers. He then launched his cohort-based course "Supercharge Your Productivity" on a separate LMS and generated $500K in revenue, with courses making up roughly 90% of that. Substack built the audience; a dedicated course platform monetized it.
From Substack Audience to Course Business: A Practical Path
If you have an existing Substack audience and want to start monetizing beyond paid subscriptions, here's a sequence that works:
Step 1: Move your list to a proper email platform
Export your Substack subscriber list as a CSV and import it into an email platform that supports automation and segmentation: Kit, MailerLite, or FreshLearn's email campaigns if you're planning to sell courses. You can continue publishing on Substack; this step just ensures you have a more capable email tool running alongside it.
Step 2: Survey your audience before building anything
Before creating a course or digital product, ask your subscribers what they need. A simple one-question email ("What's the biggest challenge you're facing with [your topic]?") generates more useful product intelligence than any amount of research. The specific language your subscribers use in their replies is also the exact language your sales page copy should mirror.
Step 3: Validate with a live workshop before building a full course
Run a paid live workshop on your most requested topic. Charge $47–$147. If 20 people pay to attend a live session, you've validated that your audience will pay for structured learning from you, and you've generated content you can later repurpose into a self-paced course. Validation before creation is the single most important risk reduction step in course creation.
Step 4: Build a focused first product
Start with something specific and achievable: a mini-course (60–90 minutes, $97–$197) or a comprehensive workbook ($27–$47) rather than a flagship course. This gets your first product out quickly, generates testimonials, and lets you learn from real buyers before investing 60+ hours in a full curriculum.
Step 5: Set up your sales and delivery infrastructure
You need three things: a sales page, a checkout, and a delivery mechanism. If you're selling a course, FreshLearn handles all three natively with 0% transaction fees, including video hosting, drip scheduling, quizzes, completion certificates, and community. If you're selling a simpler digital product (an ebook, a template pack), FreshLearn's digital downloads or Gumroad both work.
Step 6: Promote to your Substack audience with an email sequence
A simple 5-email launch sequence to your existing subscribers consistently outperforms any other promotional channel for first-time course launches. The sequence doesn't need to be sophisticated:
- Email 1: The problem your course solves (teach something useful, don't pitch)
- Email 2: A student result or your own story with the material
- Email 3: What's inside: specific modules, outcomes, what students leave with
- Email 4: Launch day: clear CTA, price, what they get
- Email 5: Last chance (if you're using a launch deadline)
Your Substack subscribers already trust your writing. A well-sequenced launch email series converts that trust into sales more reliably than any paid advertising.
Substack vs. Alternatives: Which Should You Use?
For a full breakdown of how these platforms compare, see our guide on Substack alternatives for course creators.
FAQ
1. Is Substack free to use?
Yes. Substack is free for both writers and readers. Writers only pay when they turn on paid subscriptions — Substack takes 10% of subscription revenue plus Stripe's standard payment processing fees (~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).
2. Can I sell courses on Substack?
No. Substack supports paid newsletter subscriptions only. You can't sell one-time products, courses, digital downloads, or memberships through Substack directly. For course sales, you need a dedicated platform — FreshLearn, Teachable, or Kajabi are the most relevant options for educators.
3. Can I export my Substack subscriber list?
Yes. Substack lets you export your full subscriber list as a CSV at any time, including email addresses and subscription status. This is one of Substack's genuinely good policies — your audience data is portable and yours.
4. What's the difference between Substack and a regular email newsletter tool?
A regular email marketing tool (Kit, Mailchimp, FreshLearn) gives you segmentation, automation, behavior-triggered sequences, multiple signup forms, and integrations with other platforms. Substack gives you simpler, faster newsletter publishing with a built-in discovery network and paid subscription management — but none of the marketing automation that professional creators need as their businesses grow.
5. How many subscribers do you need to make money on Substack?
The widely cited conversion rate is 2–5% of free subscribers converting to paid. At $10/month average subscription price, 1,000 free subscribers and a 3% conversion rate equals 30 paid subscribers, or $300/month before Substack's 10% cut. Meaningful newsletter income on Substack alone typically requires 5,000+ engaged free subscribers. Selling courses or digital products to a smaller list almost always generates more revenue faster.
6. Should I use Substack or Ghost?
Substack if you're starting from zero and want the built-in Recommendations network to help grow your audience. Ghost if you want full ownership, 0% fees, and complete design control, and are comfortable with a bit more technical setup. Ghost has no built-in reader discovery mechanism, which makes starting from scratch harder. For course creators who want email marketing and courses on one platform, neither Substack nor Ghost is the right primary choice; see the comparison table above.
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