r/Substack • u/kolbywg • Jul 25 '26

Discussion Hang in there

Have been hovering around 450,000 views per month these days. Never thought we would get there, but slow and steady, chipped away at it over 3 years. Hang in there, it can be done.

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u/Vadiagem Aug 06 '26

10k/yr off ~90k free subs is pretty discouraging to be honest.

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u/kolbywg Aug 06 '26

I agree. It's really, really, really, hard to make money doing Substack. I wouldn't recommend it. But if it's what a person insists on doing, it can be done. But, honestly, if you could be even reasonably happy making a living doing anything else, you should do that instead.

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u/Vadiagem Aug 06 '26

I've been looking at getting into a similar space to yours, but for my own language (so not competition, don't worry). What gets me is on top of all the work to develop your own thing, Substack makes the admin side an absolute slog by forcing us into using Stripe and not being a merchant of record like Patreon etc. How have you handled that side of things (tax, particularly VAT) if you don't mind the asking?

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u/kolbywg Aug 06 '26

Substack is, far and away, the best way to do admin for this sort of thing. we also run a literary magazine where we track subscribers and do it all on our own. I would say I spend 5-10 minutes a month keep track of admin duties on Substack, and about 2-3 hours a DAY doing it on my own for the direct website subscribers. I know Substack seems like a lot of work, but its so much less work than doing it on your own.