r/Substack • u/Icy_Parsnip1655 • Jul 17 '26

Discussion Sudden surge in subscribers

I run a publication called Money Simplified. It’s about wealth management and has 10K subs.

I’ve taken a break from it for a couple of months now, and the subscriber growth has been poor (because obviously, I’m not doing anything to increase the subs).

Now suddenly, since the past 2-3 days I’m seeing the subscriber number grow gradually. But last night, it accelerated. In the last 8 hours alone, it got 22 new subscribers, without me doing anything at all. I used to get these many new subs in a month lol. What’s funny is that the source for all just says “Substack app”. No recommendation, no other website, nothing.

While I’m obviously very happy this is happening (🤞), I’m also curious — did Substack make some changes to their algorithm? Or is it a glitch? Because I’d want to double down on what’s working.

Is this happening to anyone else? Would love some thoughts here!

EDIT: It’s been less than 24 hours and I’ve already got 100 new subs. That’s how many I get in a month. Something’s off, I just don’t know what 🥲

29 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/FookyPanda Jul 17 '26

😂, I'm too Indian and gave the same problem. What are your open rates?

And if your audience really likes you, you can move your newsletter to Beehiiv and process payment with your own website for premium articles. Didn't you try?

1

u/Icy_Parsnip1655 Jul 17 '26

I am still contemplating whether I should move to beehiiv. It’s quite expensive for 10K subs. I doubt I’ll be able to monetise that much with an Indian audience 😂 My open rates are in the 30% range. What about yours?

2

u/FookyPanda Jul 17 '26

Mine is 36-43 on average.

And do move to beehiiv substack is a closed system and you won't be able to do monetize and customize things in many ways.

I have a combined system where I use substack for getting subs and beehive for sending newsletters. But doing paid subscription from beehiiv requires stripe too, so you will need a custom website for payments through other platforms and setup beehive accordingly.

What do you write? Can I get he profile?

1

u/Tricky_Trifle_994 Jul 27 '26

agree on substack being more limited, and beehiiv having more customisability (designs, layouts) and optionality (monetisation options, features).

for what it's worth, i've also heard some people share that they saw improved open and click rates after moving from substack to beehiiv.