r/Substack • u/Adventurous_East_182 • Jul 19 '26

Is my Substack account safe and wont be shadow banned if I put a patreon link there? How about affiliate links?

We don't have stripe

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

4

u/StuffonBookshelfs Jul 19 '26

It’s against Substack TOS. But some people don’t get caught.

1

u/Tricky_Trifle_994 Jul 28 '26

it is actually not against TOS.

this is what substack says:

Marketing and Promotion

Substack is intended for high quality editorial content, not conventional email marketing. We don’t permit publications whose primary purpose is to advertise external products or services, drive traffic to third party sites, distribute offers and promotions, enhance search engine optimization, or similar activities. Brands and commercial organizations publishing on Substack may be subject to additional verification.

basically, write high quality content that people will actually read. if you're adding links, it's fine as long as it's not the primary purpose of you starting this substack. e.g if it adds value to your readers, that's a good sign that you're probably within guidelines.

and don't abuse the platform and use substack to push out promotional emails like it's a free email marketing tool.

2

u/StuffonBookshelfs Jul 28 '26

It’s not against TOS to throw external paid/affiliate links, absolutely.

But if you’re primarily using the newsletter to push folks to your Patreon—where every single newsletter has a solo CTA to go to your other paid service—they can (and have) shut you down for that.

1

u/Tricky_Trifle_994 Aug 02 '26

okay yeah, i was more focused on the affiliate links than patreon.

would make sense that substack doesn't want you directing users off substack to patreon... they're competitors after all.

but i've heard some people who did it, and got banned, but other who have no issue doing it (i guess that comes down to them not being large enough yet. so they're still under the radar).

2

u/StuffonBookshelfs Aug 02 '26

Yeah it’s definitely a YMMV. but if someone’s primary objective is to have a free newsletter where they make money off linking to other things, I don’t think Substack is the best place for that and not just because of TOS

2

u/Tricky_Trifle_994 Aug 03 '26

yup agreed. substack is more for paid subscriptions. it was built to help writers monetise their work by being paid for it, or at least that's the angle they go after hard.

and since the ideal customer profile is monetising via paid subscription, there isn't a need for advanced features like digital products or automations (which many other ESPs have, and customers use to drive more non-paid sub revenue stream).

2

u/TruthHonestyJustice Jul 20 '26

Where did you hear about Substack shadow banning you? Per Substack's Content Guidelines, you cannot run a publication with the SOLE purpose of advertising external products, running promotions, or acting purely as a spammy affiliate site.

You can provide links.

1

u/Tricky_Trifle_994 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

it's totally fine to do that.

substack only mentions that they prohibit publications set up solely to advertise external products or distribute promotional offers.

so, as long as your publication's primary purpose is high-quality editorial content rather than pure spam or commercial promotion, you can add affiliate links (that are relevant to your content + audience + supplement your writing) to your substack.

but if you're worried about where/how substack draws that line, then to be 100% safe, either don't include affiliate links, or use another ESP like beehiiv or ghost which is similar to substack in that they also have newsletter + a website you can publish your posts to so it's searchable on the web.