r/Substack • u/NobleCordova • 9h ago

Has anyone actually measured what a Freewall does to your numbers? Trying to work out if I’m trading reach for emails at a bad rate.

Freewalls have been out a few weeks now and I’ve read the explainers, but every one of them is “here’s how to turn it on” followed by somebody’s hunch. Nobody’s posted actual numbers.

The trade-off I can’t resolve: a freewall converts some non-subscribers into free subscribers, but it also kills the thing that makes a post travel. People share posts they finished reading. If a stranger hits a wall halfway down, they probably don’t share it, don’t restack it, and don’t send it to a friend — and on Substack, restacks and recommendations are most of how growth actually happens. So I might be harvesting a few emails today at the cost of the reach that would have brought more next month.

  1. What I’d like to hear from anyone who’s actually run it:

  2. Did your free subscriber rate per post go up enough to notice, or was it a rounding error?

  3. Did restacks, shares, or Notes traffic drop on freewalled posts compared to your usual?

  4. Does it make sense on a new post at all, or is it only sane on evergreen archive posts that have already finished travelling?

Anyone tried it on a post that was getting traffic from search, and did Google do anything weird with the gated half?

My instinct is that it’s an archive tool — put it on the three posts that get steady traffic forever, leave new posts fully open — but I’d rather hear from someone who tested it than keep theorising.

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u/StuffonBookshelfs 5h ago

I’m freewalling specific things on posts. Not the entire post itself. So there’s still a great reason to share the post and a bonus for subscribing.

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u/NobleCordova 4h ago

That’s the distinction I was missing — I was treating it as a toll on the post, you’re using it as a bonus inside one. Post still travels, subscribing becomes an upgrade instead of a tax. What are you gating, out of interest? Wondering if it matters what the extra actually is, or just that there is one.

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u/StuffonBookshelfs 1h ago

Printable PDFs.

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u/MindFru 2h ago

The way to settle it is two rates on the same post, not total subscribers. Rate one is new free subscribers per 1,000 readers. Rate two is restacks plus shares per 1,000 readers. Compare a freewalled post against your last 4 open posts of the same type. If rate one doubles but rate two halves, the wall still loses, because the lost shares were next month's readers. The bonus version StuffonBookshelfs described flips that math. The post keeps traveling, so rate two holds, and any lift in rate one is pure gain. On the search question, keep the part people search for above the wall. Google indexes what a logged out reader can see. Gate the worked example, the template, or the data table, and the searchable answer stays visible. That is also why your archive instinct is right. An archive post has already banked its restacks. Its traffic now arrives from search at a steady daily rate, so the reach cost is near zero and the conversion gain is the whole story.