If you’ve been wondering whether Substack is worth your time, you’re not alone. We’ve had this conversation with more than one client lately, and every time, we land in the same place: it’s one of the simplest, most flexible tools you can add to your content lineup right now.
Substack combines a blog, a newsletter, and—if you want it—paid subscriptions, all in one place. Though it’s not really intended to replace your website or your existing email list, it can do both. It is primarily intended to give you a new, simpler way to reach people, build a content archive, and eventually create a revenue stream that doesn’t require a big investment to get started. And unlike some tools that ask you to decide everything up front, Substack lets you start small and add features as you’re ready for them. Here’s why we keep recommending it to the entrepreneurs and ministry leaders we work with.
1. It Costs Nothing to Get Started
Substack is free to use. There’s no monthly subscription fee, no tiered pricing plan to puzzle through, and no pressure to commit to a paid setup before you know if the platform is a fit. If you do decide to turn on paid subscriptions down the road, Substack takes a 10% cut of that revenue plus standard payment processing fees, but that only applies once you’re actually earning something. Free publishing stays free, for as long as you want it to.
2. It Brings Your Blog, Newsletter, and Podcast Under One Roof
Every post you publish on Substack goes out two ways at once: as an email straight to your subscribers’ inboxes, and as a page on the web that anyone can find. It also supports podcasts, video, and short-form posts called Notes, so it can function as a lightweight content hub instead of just another newsletter tool. If you’ve been juggling separate platforms for your blog and your email list, this alone can simplify your workflow.
3. It Comes With Built-In “Discovery” or Referrals
This is the piece most email platforms simply don’t offer. Substack’s Notes feed and its recommendation feature let other writers introduce your publication to their own readers, which means new people can find you without any extra advertising spend. It’s a genuinely free, word-of-mouth way to grow, an easy and cost-free add-on to whatever else you’re doing for visibility.
4. You Own Your List, No Matter What
Unlike a lot of social platforms, your subscriber list on Substack belongs to you. You can export it and take it with you any time, which means you’re never locked in. This ownership matters if you’re building something long-term and want the freedom to change tools later without losing the audience you’ve grown.
5. It’s an Easy On-Ramp to Recurring Revenue
If there were one single feature or benefit to Substack that gets us excited, it’s this one. For years, one of our challenges as developers was determining the best budget-friendly option for our ministry and nonprofit clients to build out a membership or course on their online platform. Building inside WordPress, even with the best plugins, adds so much bulk and overhead to the website, and routine maintenance and ongoing expenses tend to skyrocket. Asking our budget-conscious clients to invest in Kajabi, Teachable, or Thinkific isn’t always an easy discussion either.
Enter Substack. It’s a far simpler and less expensive way to set up a membership or mini-course than building one into your WordPress site or investing in a larger platform like Kajabi. If you already have a topic you teach, coach, or consult on, you can offer a taste of it for free and then link readers to a paid tier for the deeper version—recurring monthly revenue, built on content you may already have started. You don’t need six settings or a complicated checkout flow—you simply mark a post as paid and assign it to a tier. Once it’s set up, it keeps working for you, bringing in new subscribers on their own schedule.
6. It Plays Well With Your Existing Email Platform
Substack isn’t an either/or decision. It’s built for long-form storytelling and public discovery, while a standard email platform like MailChimp or MailerLite is better suited for targeted marketing with segmented campaigns, automations, and anything with a specific call to action. Used together, with a clear purpose assigned to each one, they cover more ground than either could alone. Think of Substack as the place where you build relationship and trust over time, and your regular list as the place that moves people toward a specific next step.
Final Thoughts
Substack is a simple, almost-reminiscent-of-old-school-Blogger platform that doesn’t ask you to overhaul everything you’re already doing. Start simple with a clear welcome post, consistent publishing, and the occasional Note between posts as a completely reasonable place to begin. Paid subscriptions, video, and everything else can come later, as you build and once it makes sense for where you are. Remember: consistency matters more than volume, on any platform! One thoughtful post a week that readers look forward to will build more trust than frequent, rushed updates ever could.
As a bonus, you can also add your own custom domain to Substack to help your people find you. Though we don’t necessarily recommend using this platform as a website, it absolutely can serve as a placeholder until you’re ready for one. Or you can build your Substack community on a subdomain of your existing website. With a one-time, minimal fee, this extra layer of identity for your online hub is totally doable.
If you’ve been looking for a low-lift way to build a content archive and eventually add a new revenue stream, we think Substack is absolutely worth a look. And we’re always happy to help you map out how it could work alongside what you’re already doing.
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