Surprising! I’ve Analyzed 75K Substack Newsletters and Here’s What You Need to Know
What they reveal about paid subscriptions and how often you should publish
Substack has more than 35 million active subscriptions, including more than 3 million paid subscriptions. Thousands of writers get paid and the top 10 authors on Substack collectively make $25 million per year.*
Intrigued by these usage statistics, I got my hands dirty and analyzed publicly available data from 75K Substack newsletters and created a free comprehensive report.
The report gives answers to questions such as:
How many newsletters are actively publishing new issues and how many of them are just staying inactive?
How frequently do creators publish new issues?
What are the subscriber ranges?
What is the usage rate of Substack Notes and Substack Recommendations?
How many newsletters offer a paid subscription?
What are the average paid subscription prices?
What are the social media channels most preferred by different categories?
👀Here are 5 key findings and my interpretation of them
There are way more insights in the report. For the full analysis, you can sign up to access the report for free.
1 Running a newsletter is a solo business
Do you know that 95% of Substack newsletters are run by one creator?
This shows that running a newsletter is a solo business.
It makes sense because:
→ It is simple to start a newsletter
→ There is almost zero entry cost
→ No advanced technical know-how is required
But being a one-person team can be overwhelming and comes with its own set of tough challenges. It is NOT easy to:
→ maintain your self-discipline and consistency
→ stay motivated
→ figuring things out alone
→ make every business decision by yourself
So, the next time you’re wrestling with any of these challenges, just remember you're part of 95%.
You're not alone in being alone.
2 Almost half of the newsletters are inactive.
Here’s another standout finding:
45% of Substack newsletters—equivalent to 34K newsletters—are inactive!
But there’s a silver lining in this data:
If you publish your newsletter consistently, you’re already ahead of nearly half the creators out there!
Most people start a newsletter with good intentions but it’s a long-term game. It’s a momentum work. Once you lose it, it’s inevitable to give up altogether.
Moreover, it takes time to make money out of a newsletter. Creators who start with the expectation of fast growth and high revenue might also give up at some point, which leads to a high number of inactive newsletters.
For me, seeing this struggle reflected in real data was both eye-opening and validating.
P.S. Data for the report is pulled on May 10th. Newsletters that published their latest issue within the past six weeks (between April 1st and May 10th) are classified as “Active.”
3 Average Paid Subscription Prices
Of the 75K newsletters analyzed, 35.7% offer a paid subscription.
This means there are 27K paid newsletters and 48K free newsletters.
Among active paid newsletters, the average subscription prices are:
Avg. Monthly Price: $10
Avg. Yearly Price: $96
Avg. Founding Price: $310
Moreover, it doesn’t fluctuate a lot among small and big newsletters, as you can see in the table below:
It is a difficult job to decide how much to charge from paid members.
Based on our observations, we see many creators tend to charge $5 or even less.
However, this data shows average prices that dominate the Substack landscape, which are probably higher than you think.
Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of “How much should I charge?”. It depends on your newsletter niche, how unique your premium content is, and the trust you have built. But this data might be a good reference point for you.
Moreover, it shows that many creators adopt the standard subscription model of offering two months free with annual plans.
4 Now might be the perfect time to hop on the Substack Notes train
Substack Notes was introduced in Apr’23 and became available for all readers and writers on Substack.
It enables writers to post short-form content and drive discovery across Substack.
I got curious about how many newsletters tried Substack Notes.
Here is the result:
71% of active newsletters posted at least one Note on Substack Notes.
This ratio is higher among paid newsletters at 79% and relatively lower among free ones at 63%.
This data shows that the majority of creators have already discovered Substack Notes, but there is an untapped potential for both free and paid newsletters that haven’t given it a try yet.
In my recent interviews with newsletter operators, I heard a lot about how effective Substack Notes is in growing and engaging with their subscribers and they share their strategies.
What they have shared also reveals Substack Notes also requires consistent publishing and engagement.
So, if you can allocate some time to it, this is a strong in-platform growth engine you should consider leveraging.
5 Social media preference changes according to newsletter topics
Creators share social media links on their Substack profile pages.
For my analysis, I found that 96K links were shared.
Among these 96K links:
X is the most preferred social media channel and makes up 33% of shared links.
Instagram is the second most shared channel at 25%, followed by LinkedIn (12%), Facebook (10%) and YouTube (8%).
Moreover, social media links shared by creators vary depending on the newsletter topic.
For example, 15% of food newsletters share their TikTok accounts, compared to only 6% of all links shared.
On the other hand, 44% of art newsletters include an Instagram link, while it is only 25% of all links shared by creators.
In the report, I also included a more detailed table showing social media preferences by newsletter topics. It might be a good guideline to choose the most relevant channels to grow your subscriber base.
Additional Findings from the Report
87% of the newsletters are in English.
82% have less than 10K subscribers.
There are 173 active newsletters with 100K and more subscribers.
The more frequent the publishing schedule, the higher the paid subscription ratio is.
Paid subscription ratio is highest among active newsletters with a ‘multiple times a week’ (71%) and ‘daily’ (72%) publishing schedule.
69% of all newsletters use ‘Substack recommendation feature’ and recommend at least 1 other Substack newsletter.
⤵️Download the report for FREE
started Newsletter Circle in 2023 and since then, she has interviewed over 60 newsletter operators about how they built their newsletter businesses from scratch.After studying successful creators for two years, she saw a need to see the bigger picture of the newsletter landscape.
I hope you find this report useful and that it sparks new ideas and opportunities for you.
Link to Report: “2024 Understanding Substack Landscape Report”
You can also subscribe to Newsletter Circle to get weekly interviews with newsletter operators and more insights about paid subscription strategies.
Ciler’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciler-demiralp/
Sources:*: Substack, Backlinko
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P.P.S. As a mom of two, I’m super busy in this season of the year. How about you? I’m super happy about this report. It’s a huge time saver.
 | A guest post by
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That‘s insightful! Surprise that so many people became inactive now as Substack is growing (my Twitter became inactive since being X).
That's a cool analysis! Thanks for sharing!