Substack Pricing Review 2025: What It Costs to Run a Newsletter

Substack is a platform where writers, journalists, and creators publish newsletters and build paid audiences. It launched in 2017 and has grown fast—by March 2025, there were 5 million paid subscriptions across the platform. But here’s what most people get wrong: they think it’s free. It is, kind of. Until you start making money.

This review walks through the real costs—the obvious ones and the ones that sneak up on you. If you’re thinking about starting a newsletter or wondering why your earnings look smaller than expected, this breaks it down.

Substack Pricing Overview

Substack doesn’t charge monthly fees like other platforms. Instead, it takes a cut of what you earn. No subscribers paying you? No cost. Start charging for subscriptions? They take their piece.

The platform fee is 10% of your revenue, plus payment processing through Stripe. When you add everything up—Stripe’s transaction fees, recurring billing charges—you’re looking at roughly 13% total. So if your newsletter brings in $10,000 a month, about $1,300 goes to fees.

Substack Monthly Pricing

There’s no monthly bill with Substack. Not in the traditional sense. You’re not picking a plan or upgrading tiers as you grow. Publishing is free—always—no matter how many people subscribe or how often you post.

The revenue share only kicks in when someone actually pays for your newsletter. Then it’s 10% to Substack, 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction to Stripe, and another 0.5% billing fee (0.7% if you signed up after July 2024). For a $5/month subscriber, you net about $4.39. That’s roughly 88 cents going to fees.

At small scale, this feels fine. At larger scale—say you’re pulling in $5,000 a month—you’re paying $650 in fees.

Substack Monthly Plans

Substack doesn’t do tiered plans. Everyone gets the same thing. A brand-new writer has access to the exact same tools as someone making six figures. No feature gates, no “unlock this at the Pro level” nonsense.

Free Publishing Model

You can publish for free, build a massive list, and never pay anything if you keep it all free for readers. The email editor, analytics, subscriber tools, podcast hosting—it’s all there from day one. No catch.

This is different from most email platforms that lock automation or advanced features behind paid tiers. Substack gives you everything upfront. You own your content, you own your list, and you can leave whenever you want.

The trade-off? It’s simpler than full marketing platforms. You won’t find the kind of automation and segmentation that Sender offers. But if you just want to write and send, it’s hard to beat free.

Paid Subscription Model

Turn on paid subscriptions and Substack takes 10%, plus Stripe handles the payment processing at 2.9% + $0.30 per charge, plus the recurring billing fee. You set the price—most people start at $5/month, though you can charge whatever makes sense.

Common pricing is somewhere between $5-15 monthly, with annual plans discounted about 17%—like $50/year for a $5/month option. Some creators offer “founding member” tiers at $100-500/year for super fans.

Here’s where it gets expensive: if you’re earning $5,000 a month from 1,000 subscribers paying $5 each, you’re paying about $650 in total fees. That’s $4,350 in your pocket. Thirteen percent doesn’t sound like much until you multiply it out.

Revenue Share Comparison

The higher you earn, the more painful that percentage becomes. If you’re making serious money, flat-rate platforms start to make a lot more financial sense.

Substack Pro Model

Substack Pro is invite-only. They reach out to high-profile writers and offer them advances to start publishing on the platform. These aren’t small amounts—some creators reportedly got advances in the millions.

The fee structure is different for Pro users, though the exact terms aren’t public. Usually Substack recoups the advance first, then the standard 10% applies. This caused some controversy because regular creators don’t get the same deal.

For most people reading this, Pro isn’t an option. You’re working with the standard revenue share, which is fine—just know that the playing field isn’t completely level.

Substack Pay-as-you-go Plan

Substack doesn’t really have a pay-as-you-go model like traditional email tools. But in a way, the revenue share is pay-as-you-go. No revenue? No cost. It’s already built in.

This works great when you’re small or just testing things out. No monthly bill hanging over you. But once you’re consistently making over $1,000/month, that 13% cut usually costs more than a flat subscription would.

The sweet spot for Substack’s model is either very small (mostly free) or very large (where you value the simplicity over the cost). The middle range—earning $2,000-10,000 monthly—is where other platforms often make more sense financially.

Substack Transactional Emails Pricing

Substack doesn’t charge separately for transactional emails. Welcome messages, payment confirmations, password resets—they’re all included. This keeps things simple, but it also shows where Substack’s focus is: content, not complex email workflows.

If you need sophisticated transactional email—order confirmations, shipping updates, multi-step sequences—Substack doesn’t really do that. It handles the basics for subscription management, and that’s about it.

Platforms like Sender include both marketing and transactional email capability in one place. If you’re running an ecommerce business or selling products beyond newsletter subscriptions, you’ll probably need to bolt on another service. That adds complexity and cost, which kind of defeats Substack’s simplicity pitch.

Substack SMS Pricing

Substack doesn’t have SMS. At all. If you want to text your subscribers, you’ll need to use something else—Twilio, SimpleTexting, whatever. That means separate accounts, separate billing, technical setup.

This is a real limitation if you’re in a niche where SMS matters. Local news, event reminders, time-sensitive updates—these often benefit from text messaging. Substack’s email-only approach just doesn’t cover it.

If SMS is part of your strategy, you’re either running two platforms or choosing something like Sender that bundles email and text messaging together. Depends on how much you value having everything in one place.

Bottom Line

Substack is free to start, which is its biggest selling point. No risk, no upfront cost. But once you’re earning, that 13% adds up fast. If you’re making over $1,000/month, you’re probably paying more than you would with a flat-rate platform.

The model works best for beginners who want simplicity and established creators who value the built-in audience and don’t mind paying for convenience. The middle ground—where you’re earning decent money but not enough to ignore the fees—is where Substack gets expensive.

No SMS, limited automation, and no advanced segmentation mean it’s not really a full marketing platform. It’s a publishing platform that lets you charge for subscriptions. Know what you’re getting into before you build your entire business on it.