Michael Mwenda

The Top 6 Substack Alternatives to Grow Your Newsletter How is your newsletter performing on Substack? Do you want to grow and monetize your newsletter by reaching the right target audience? While Substack has gained a reputation as a newsletter platform for entrepreneurs and content creators in recent years, growing your audience on the platform is challenging. However, Substack isn't the best platform. Similar platforms offer the same service with distinct advantages depending on your publishing goals. The goal of a newsletter is to create a sense of community, which can be achieved by publishing new content, which is quite a challenge while using Substack. This article will define Substack's advantages and disadvantages and alternative newsletter platforms. You will be able to make informed decisions about choosing the best platform that works best for your newsletter. Substack Substack burst into the limelight in 2018 and offers a platform to create newsletters and build an audience. The main advantage of Substack is that it allows a creator to brand their newsletter and charges people to access their work. Substack made it easy for creators to update their audience and create space for personal aesthetics back in the day. The downside is that in Substack, a creator must maintain high energy levels by continuously creating new content for their newsletter to stay relevant to the target audience. While it's a great way to share your work, gain followers and build an email list, a creator cannot create a community because of a lack of community support. Top Substack Alternatives The following Substack alternatives will provide more options and create more room for growth for your newsletter. 1. Ghost Ghost is an open-source code and an alternative to Substack. Ghost provides creators with tools that build membership services for newsletters on top of having a cool name. Ghost comes with the following features: Ghost allows the creation of membership-based services Automation and scheduling of newsletters Email address customization Personalized referral program Offers API access and Easy integration with other platforms. Pricing For pricing, Ghost charges $9 monthly for the lowest package of 500 members, no matter how much revenue you generate, while Substack will chuck off 10% of the revenue generated. Difference Between Ghost and Substack Whereas Substack is rigid and lacks some valuable functions, Ghost is highly customizable, has an exemplary user interface, allows the creation of custom domains and beautiful newsletter templates, and allows creators to host the platform on their servers, all for free. Another upside of Ghost, unlike other alternatives to Substack, it doesn't censor your content. What does this mean for a creator? You don't have to worry about your account getting suspended. You get to deliver your content in your preferred style that suits your audience. 2. Buttondown Buttondown focuses on speed, automation, and simple to use interface. It comes with an editorial assistant checking for typos, distorted images, broken links and a portable subscription widget to grow your audience. Pricing There are two pricing plans: Professional and straightforward. Simple Plan Free for the first 1000 subscribers $5 / 1000 subscribers/ month Reasonable budget for sending newsletters Professional Plan Offers white label branding, custom domain support, and subscriber information 24/7 support Offers a variety of professional tools Difference Between Substack and Buttondown While Substack retains 10% of the revenue generated, Buttondown maintains 0% of the subscription revenue Buttondown offers features like analytics, API, and scheduled emails to develop technically-inclined newsletters, unlike Substack Contributes funds to open-source projects 3. MailerLite If You're tech-savvy and want to spice and scale your newsletter, MailerLite is the platform of choice. It's a no-code tool popular among writers and hosts in their domain. Key features that will enable integration to your website include: Email templates for customization A landing page to collect new email addresses Classification of subscribers via segmentation and tagging Detailed reporting Email automation Difference Between Substack and Mailerlite Whereas Substack is free regarding the size of your mailing list and doesn't allow customization, MailerLite comes with a subscription and allows the control and customization of the newsletter. 4. Medium Medium is a famous free-to-use platform for writers, journalists, and bloggers to generate revenue. Medium is a social media blogging platform that lets writers create a community to grow their audience and amass followers. Medium has an easy-to-use interface, precise formatting tools, and the recently introduced newsletter feature. Through a partner program, creators make money based on an article read time. Difference Between Medium and Substack Unlike Substack, Medium is free to use, supports customization, and offers formatting tools. 5. HubSpot HubSpot is an excellent user engagement platform that offers fantastic tools that are easy to use and integrate with many platforms. HubSpot is a 'System of record' that ensures that your sales and marketing emails delivered into your CRM enable you to target and personalize the right target audience. HubSpot is a reporting system enabling you to monitor real-time activities across all your sales and marketing departments. HubSpot comes as a full-stack software package with the following features: CRM Sales Hub CMS Hub Service Hub Marketing Hub Difference Between HubSpot and Substack HubSpot offers full-fledged CRM and email customization tools, while Substack offers basic reporting analytics. 6. Patreon Patreon is a membership platform that provides tools creators use to monetize their content. Subscribers pay to access your content hence generating revenue. The good thing about Patreon is that it can host different categories of creators like musicians, artists, influencers, podcast creators, and writers. Depending on your plan, Patreon charges a commission of 5-9% of revenue generated from the subscriptions. Difference Between Patreon and Substack Whereas Patreon is a membership-based platform that supports different categories of creators, Substack offers only a simple writing platform with the ability to opt for a paid subscription. Are you still frustrated by Substack? Do you want to grow your followers as you monetize and generate content that impacts your target audience? Do you want to access the right tools at no cost? Get started for free today. Our platform will grow your target audience as well as your revenue.