News & Media · pricing
Substack pricing
Substack publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Freemium
- Tiers
- 2
- Free tier
- Yes
Substack plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
| Pro | $12/month | 4 | +$12/month, 4 more features |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Free
FreeThe entry tier. It covers unlimited newsletters, basic design, archive access, email delivery.
Pro
$12/monthOver Free, this tier adds:
- Custom domain
- Advanced analytics
- Member chat
- Priority support
Where Substack stops being free
Free, Free
- Unlimited newsletters
- Basic design
- Archive access
- Email delivery
Pro, $12/month
The first thing you pay for:
- Custom domain
- Advanced analytics
- Member chat
- Priority support
What the product covers
The full Substack feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Core
- Newsletter publishing
- Subscriber management
- Paid subscriptions
- Email analytics
- Post scheduling
- Archive creation
- Free/paid tier split
- Comments & discussion
Integrations
- Apple News
- Spotify
- Stripe
- RSS
Platform
- Web support
- Mobile support
People bring Substack in for newsletter distribution, reader monetization, community building, subscriber management. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Substack are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in News & Media
Too few news & media tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substack (this page) | Free | freemium | - | |
| Buttondown | Free, then $9/month | - | - | vs Substack |
| Beehiiv | Free | subscription | - | vs Substack |
| Apple News | Free | freemium | - | vs Substack |
| Artifact | Free | free | - | vs Substack |
| Brightspot | On request | quote | - | vs Substack |
| Agility PR Solutions | On request | subscription | - | vs Substack |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Substack badges page.
Before you pay for Substack
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and $12/month, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
Substack runs on web, mobile, and is published by Substack Inc of San Francisco, CA. The full record is on the Substack review, and the rest of the category is under best news & media tools.
Substack pricing questions
- How much does Substack cost?
- Substack publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Free up to $12/month for Pro. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does Substack have a free plan?
- Yes. The Free tier costs nothing and covers unlimited newsletters, basic design, archive access. Paying starts at $12/month for Pro.
- What is the difference between Free and Pro on Substack?
- Pro costs $12/month against Free, and adds custom domain, advanced analytics, member chat, priority support.
- Which news & media tools can I use without paying?
- 4 of the 8 news & media tools listed alongside Substack have a free tier: Buttondown, Beehiiv, Apple News, Artifact.
- What am I actually paying for with Substack?
- The record lists 15 features across 3 areas: core, integrations, platform. In practice it is brought in for newsletter distribution, reader monetization, community building.
- Does Substack charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Substack prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Substack against before paying?
- The closest news & media tools in this directory are Buttondown, Beehiiv, Apple News, Artifact. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Substack covering price, platforms and features.