What Do People Pay for on Substack?
If you're up for trying Substack, writing is not enough.
What do people pay for on Substack?
The million-dollar question, right?
I looked into 20 Substack bestsellers.
Most of them with 10k+ paying subscribers!
Yes, that’s possible on Substack!
And yes, you’ve calculated correctly: those are the 7-figure newsletters!
I wanted to know what sets them apart.
I’ve identified five types of offers:
Writing
Creating content — videos, courses, infographics, presentations, tools, etc.
Building a community — chats, challenges, collaborations, etc.
Access to a product you have — mostly digital products
Access to a service you provide — 1:1 calls about coaching, consulting, etc.
19 out of 20 bestsellers use more than one type of offer!
And there was just one who was using only writing as an offer. That’s Noa Smith with his newsletter Noahpinion. But you’ll see that his writing is so distinctive that it’s almost addictive. He also heavily promotes his newsletter on X and other social media.
All of the others use more than just writing as an offer.
You can read my full analysis here:
So no!
Writing is not enough.
You’ll need to go beyond to make real money on Substack.
Thanks for reading!
Yana
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