10 things I learned about growing paid subscriptions on Substack

A bonus post with advice for Substack, business and life 💌

When I wrote about my Substack strategy earlier this month I only briefly mentioned paid subscriptions and how I approach them. Yet I’ve witnessed and been part of so many conversations around going paid on Substack—or not—and I certainly have thoughts about it.

In today’s post I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned about going paid, from what to post and developing a strategy to dealing with comparison.

If you’re not on Substack, or have no plans to add paid subscriptions: no fear. A lot of what I share here is applicable to lots of areas of business, especially when it comes to finding your own path and dealing with comparison.

Next month’s paid post will be a behind-the-scenes look at how I tackle large projects in my business, like my upcoming group programme Marketing without social media and we’ll have November’s mini-mastermind too.

Deciding to start offering paid subscriptions—going paid—is a complicated and emotional topic for many people writing on Substack. There’s deciding what to offer paid subscribers and how often. There’s how to sell your paid subscriptions. And there’s the topic underlying all of these questions: whether or not we actually can ask for paid subscriptions. Whether we offer enough, whether what we offer is of enough value, whether our work—whether we—are valuable enough. Especially in a world in which so much content can be accessed for free, from free newsletters to social media and You Tube channels, how do you make the decision to go paid? What can you even offer?

#1 There is no one-size fits all or magic formula

I love how much information Substack makes available to its writers, including resources on how to go paid. Like many of you reading this, I’m a sucker for reading about other people’s experiences with Substack, including going paid. But the truth is: there is no one-size fits all when it comes to writing a newsletter, to growing it and to offering paid subscriptions. What works for one person may not work for another. And equally as important, just because someone else is doing something, doesn’t mean that you have to do so as well if it doesn’t fit in with your life, your business or your values.

#2 People who gain a large (paid) following relatively quickly have generally been doing this for years

Emma Gannon frequently notes that while she’s been on Substack for a little over a year, she’s actually been writing online for close to two decades. She’s honed her skill in writing and sharing, and created her audience before coming to Substack.

I don’t think you need decades of experience and a huge pre-Substack audience in order to make money on Substack, or even just gain paid subscribers. Whenever you see people reach huge milestones relatively quickly, they often have a lot of experience behind them. They didn’t pop up out of nowhere, but in their own way, had been doing this whole writing-online-thing in some form or another for years.

That is fine—there is no part of me that begrudges these writers anything. But I know all too well from my first weeks on Substack, and conversations I have with clients, that we can often compare ourselves with these writers, expecting ourselves to do the same. Learn to see the story behind the stats (and go back to #1).

#3 Think ecosystem not monoculture

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