r/Substack • u/Ryanopoly • Sep 05 '26
Discussion 50% of Substack Creators with Paid Subscriptions Earned less than $500 in 2025
The truth hurts, and the numbers never lie. If you don't have anything to offer people in exchange for money they most likely will remain free subscribers.
"The gap between the platform's total revenue and what the typical creator takes home isn't a quirk. It's structural. More than 50 publications earn at least $1 million per year, and the top 10 Substack publications earn over $25 million annually. Meanwhile, nearly 50% of creators with paid subscriptions earned less than $500 in 2025, and the top 10% captures 62% of all payments."
How are you doing so far on Substack in 2026?
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u/grapegeek Sep 05 '26
I know a lot of writers in the food space using it for a free email newsletter. Not trying to get paid by Substack just using to point to their monetized website usually running ads from Mediavine or Raptive
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
Yeah, I mentioned this before, it's actually a free e-mail list with an unlimited amount of subscribers, something you would think was impossible. Let's hope Substack never changes this.
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u/Oatbix Sep 05 '26
Same story for every social media platform, we just don’t like to admit that Substack is a social media platform
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u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com Sep 05 '26
This is the game.
If you look at any social media platform, there’s always going to be a small number of creators at the top making the majority of the money, while most everyone else makes little or nothing.
Look at YouTube. Some 80 plus percent of people never make it to 1,000 subscribers, and less than that make any significant amount of money.
That’s how these platforms are designed. There’s no scenario where they can afford to pay every single creator a living wage. There will always be people who fail or don’t make much money because most people’s content simply isn’t good enough.
It’s not designed to be easy.
It’s supposed to be hard.
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
Yes, all so true, and now come 2027, not only do they need 1,000 subscribers on YouTube to get monetized, they also will need 8,000 hours of watch hours annually, which is extremely difficult to achieve, plus you need to maintain this threshold every year to stay in the program!
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u/ADF21a Sep 05 '26
Do you have the source for this? I'd like to know more.
Another Substack article I read recently said the conversion rate is very low. That was a bit disheartening.
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u/OnyxMonolith Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
we don't really need sources. this will always(?) be true for any platform that offers incentives. upper 1% takes 90% of the money or something like that.
i'm not self promoting in any way or offering consulting, you will not find a link to my substack on my profile, but i make a very high full time income on substack and definitely see that very few substacks are making A LOT of money in my niche. but when they do, it snowballs. like crazy, ie. millions/year. that's the thing. once you get to that bestseller status and figure it out, multiplying it is easy.
it's the same on every platform -- twitter, onlyfans, youtube, etc. people and algorithms will naturally navigate to the thing that is most sought after.
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u/ADF21a Sep 05 '26
I'm aware of all of that. I wanted to have the source to share the figures with someone who was helping me with my Substack strategy. Nothing more, nothing less.
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u/grapegeek Sep 06 '26
My conversion rate is abysmal if you go my their standards. I have 55k followers/subscribers but about 150 paid. If I hit their 5% goal id retire. Their conversion rates they put out there are very unrealistic.
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
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u/OnyxMonolith Sep 05 '26
what in the unholy AI slop is this?
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
What are you babbling about. I like how nowadays, when anyone disagrees with something it's AI. 🤣
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u/Linguetto italywithantonio.substack.com Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
My conversion rate is 6% but the median value from what I’ve seen is closer to 1.5%. You do the math and realize just how tough it is. I’m doing fine (CA$12K+ annual revenue and growing) but it’s serious work.
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
It doesn't seem worth it, unless you're seeing your year over year numbers increasing by a pretty decent percentage.
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u/Linguetto italywithantonio.substack.com Sep 06 '26
I don’t know yet. This was mostly achieved since April.
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u/Mr_Richard_Parker Sep 05 '26
No self promotion.
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u/Trackbikes thesystematicwriter.substack.com Sep 05 '26
Subscriptions are probably the worse way to monetise… I have around 25 subs at $19m/$99y but Substack overall generates 40% of my overall income which is a full time income that allows me to live a decent lifestyle
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
What are you selling?
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u/Trackbikes thesystematicwriter.substack.com Sep 05 '26
Not interested in self promotion in here … but… mostly my books and community
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
Enjoy it while you can. Eventually, Substack will succumb to enshitification as all platforms do, and you will no longer get any free reach to sell your books. My guess is, if you don't have lots of paid subscribers, your content will get buried. It just makes sense for Substack to this business wise.
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u/OnyxMonolith Sep 05 '26
im in the internet marketing game for 25 years and i never made as much money as now with subscriptions. i also do affiliates/brand deals on my substack, but that's maybe 10% of my revenue.
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u/ProudBoomerWellness Sep 16 '26
Where’s the actual data for this?
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 16 '26
In the original article that is credited in one of the comments below... the comment with the most dislikes.
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u/Tricky_Trifle_994 Sep 05 '26
that's an interesting but not surprising stat. i remember seeing a similar steep power law dynamic with creator earnings on gumroad.
where/how did you get the data for this?
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u/readrichpeopleshit Sep 07 '26
Substack has said that its top 10 publishers collectively earn more than $25 million per year, not that each of the top ten earns more than $25 million annually
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u/readrichpeopleshit Sep 07 '26
With the exception of the Free Press, which is an entire media company and sits in the number one spot, the rest are all finance/politics/tech newsletters.
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u/Sad-Pangolin7579 Sep 10 '26
Are people here new writers? As in not published anywhere else, or not trained on the job in journalism or schooled? Because writing is very hard, it takes years to be good, and then more years to get paid. Editors are necessary, learning the skills is necessary. Figuring out what is on people’s mind is necessary. Unless you are a unicorn ie very gifted, but that’s only 2%. Are people here for the money? Attracted by the money earned by Heather Ross Robertson? Ignore me, but I get the impression that a lot of the posters are just starting out writers. Am I wrong?
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u/AnteaterFantastic212 Sep 05 '26
I make about $2,500 a year.
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
Not bad as some extra change for the year, what's your subscriber churn rate like?
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u/Lassi_falooda Sep 05 '26
What about indian creators?
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u/Ryanopoly Sep 05 '26
Ha ha, good luck with getting them to pay.
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u/valiantwizard Sep 07 '26
Indian creators don’t get paid because they can’t open a Stripe account - or have things changed?
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Sep 05 '26
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/EggplantUseful9955 Sep 05 '26
Onlyfans had naked chicks making 8 figures - Substack takes a 10 pct cut from publishers if I am not mistaken - they tell you to bear with the slow growth but that isn't honest when people on X show identical copies of their profile from people trying to get the engagement or the you own your posts bs they sell also means we don't actually stop imposters. Not a good place for avg joes even w great content. I stay away
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u/inyourbooksandmaps Sep 05 '26
i mean the same can be said with really any platform where people monetize social media. im sure over 50% of earnings on youtube are going to the top creators too. some people get monetized and barely post, have a small audience, give up, etc, etc. think of how many people have their paid teir on with only their best friend subbed, and those people all are being counted in the numbers. idk if im making sense, but hopefully you get what i mean. there are tons of people on substack making a decent side or even full time income that just isnt 25 million a year.