Substack Pricing (2026): What the 10% Fee Actually Costs You

Yes. Substack is completely free for writers — there is no monthly subscription fee. You pay nothing to send newsletters to any number of free subscribers. Substack only takes a fee when you earn paid subscription revenue: 10% of what your readers pay, plus Stripe's 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction on each payment processed.

Substack takes 10% of your paid subscription revenue as a platform fee. On top of that, Stripe processes each payment and charges 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction. So if a reader pays you $10/mo, you receive roughly $6.81 after both fees — Substack keeps $1 and Stripe takes approximately $0.59.

No. Substack charges nothing if you only send free newsletters. There are no contact limits, no email send caps, and no platform fee for free content. The 10% fee only kicks in when readers pay for your paid subscription tier. You can run a free newsletter indefinitely on Substack at zero cost.

At $1,000/mo in reader revenue, Substack takes $100 (10% fee) and Stripe takes approximately $30–40 in processing fees depending on transaction volume and size. You'd net roughly $860–870/mo. On Beehiiv Max ($99/mo flat), you'd keep $900+ after only Stripe fees — a modest difference at this revenue level that grows significantly as revenue scales up.

Yes. Substack lets you set any subscription price you choose — monthly, annual, or founding member tiers. There's no minimum or maximum. Most successful Substack writers charge between $5–$10/mo or $50–$100/year. Annual subscriptions tend to reduce churn and are processed as a single transaction, which reduces per-transaction Stripe fees relative to monthly billing.

Substack does not currently offer custom domains on the free plan. Your newsletter lives at yourname.substack.com. This is a meaningful limitation for creators building a brand-first publication, as the Substack brand appears prominently in your URL and emails. Ghost and Beehiiv's paid plans both offer custom sending domains and URLs.

Substack's model wins at low revenue levels — below roughly $400–500/mo in reader revenue, Substack's 10% cut is less than what you'd pay on Beehiiv Scale ($39/mo) or Kit's Creator plan ($25/mo). Above $1,000/mo in paid subscription revenue, a flat-fee platform like Beehiiv almost always costs less. The crossover point is usually $400–600/mo in monthly reader revenue.

Yes. Substack allows you to export your subscriber list as a CSV file, including email addresses for both free and paid subscribers. Paid subscriber payment relationships are managed through Stripe, so migrating paid subscriptions requires communicating with readers directly and setting up billing on the new platform. The email list itself is fully portable.