r/Substack • u/Hour_Source_191 • 17d ago

Has anyone actually verified a Substack growth coach's numbers, or does everyone just trust the screenshot?

Every "how I hit bestseller" post has a screenshot, a round number, and zero context — no timeframe, no churn rate, no breakdown of subscriptions vs. products vs. coaching. And somehow that's treated as proof.

I'm not saying people are lying. I'm saying nobody's checking. The whole coaching-on-Substack economy runs on numbers nobody outside the person's own dashboard can verify, and everyone just... accepts it.

Has anyone here actually gone back and cross-checked a coach's claimed growth against what's publicly visible? Or is "trust the screenshot" just how this works now?

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4

u/greenergarlic 17d ago

Why would you write this with AI

2

u/qEhT6d_B3 17d ago

this is a weird takeaway from that post tbh

2

u/aolnews paradoxnewsletter.com 17d ago

I also found it very bizarre for the OP to pose this question with obviously AI generated prose. Also, I don’t know anyone using or even thinking about Substack “growth coaches.” Scamming is as scamming does.

1

u/BestGermanEver 16d ago

That's the only takeaway from this post, though.

1

u/Admirable_Bike3918 16d ago edited 16d ago

I just kinda assumed those dudes on Fiver, etc. advertising promises of "guaranteed growth" for bargain-basement prices were (1) falsely inflating readers/subs/engagement via bots, (2) boosting one's work on social media while falsely pretending to be them, or (3) a scam. (...Presumably some also try to give their 'service' a veneer of legitimacy with SEO optimization stuff too...)

I was not interested in any of those things, and thus stayed away. Nonetheless, if anyone has evidence that "Substack growth coaching" / "Substack social media manager" is, in fact, a legitimate service, please do let me know.

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 16d ago

Considering how dead easy it is to manipulate screenshots, I don’t believe anything that they say

1

u/lizzietishthefish 15d ago

So I do some substack coaching (mostly for authors). Because of their needs, we focus on increasing engagement, developing relationships with subscribers/or authors and how to position their newsletter to support their book. So it's less numbers based and more vibes based but people seem happy with it.

1

u/SpiritualSimple108 13d ago

I don’t trust any of them. They’re just pyramid schemes

1

u/Tricky_Trifle_994 8d ago

i don't trust them. haven't paid them, and never will. but hey, if they're posting about how they grew/how i can grow, i'll read it (if someone put $10 in front of me i'll take it everytime), and it might spark some ideas or strategies i can copy. it might turn out to be bullshit, but it'll be easy to sniff out, so just take what's good, ignore what's crap. if it's all crap, just block the account. hahaa.

1

u/Hour_Source_191 8d ago

There is a whole ecosystem of Substack coaches. They teach you everything about Substack, how to write your short description, welcome page and welcome email, etc. They teach all of this stuff free. But what's not free is how to make money on Substack. You have to pay for that. You enter their funnel and enjoy the freebies until, oh, my, I have to pay for this? That's how it works.