TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Substack

Score8.8 out of 10

12 Reviews and Ratings

Get a Demo

What is Substack?

Substack is a subscription-based newsletter publishing platform.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about Substack.
View all reviews

DTC Writing with Priority Towards Content Ownership, UI Lacking

Incentivized
Carter OwenView profile
Consumer Strategy Analyst at frog (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Substack personally to run a blog. I switched from Medium over a year ago and wanted to explore the ways I could monetize on the platform. The primary business problem it addresses was my inability to publish my Medium articles as part of a freestanding blog/portfolio separate from my account and the scope of my use was fairly simple (personal publishing and subscribing to a few newsletters here and there).

Pros

  • Content organization/discovery - really easy to search.
  • Newsletter/email integration - by far better at previewing and delivering content than any other site.

Cons

  • Visual UI/UX - stories are displayed very clunky, image previews aren't used well.
  • Promotion in-article - makes it hard to subscribe or donate while reading a piece. You have to finish it to see the option to, which most readers don't.

Most Important Features

  • Email newsletter integration
  • UI/UX
  • Social media integration

Return on Investment

  • Positive - greatest long-term potential in rev sharing and ownership.
  • Positive - expanded reach and network effects across multiple platforms.
  • Negative - another site to learn and content to duplicate w/o immediate payoff (training/staffing/education costs).

Alternatives Considered

Medium and Blogger

Other Software Used

Medium, Blogger

Robb Auspitz Review of Substack

Incentivized
Robb Auspitz
Owner in Marketing at Groovy Hemp Company LLC (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Substack to create promotional and educational content. I use a mini-blog format to write infomercials that explain various topics relating to the Hemp/CBD industry and Groovy Hemp Company. The problems addressed include branding and improving my store's searchability. The scope is very broad. A distinct brand identity sets my store apart from a very crowded field. A successful SEO campaign has been proven to drive a lot more sales than social media that is not 100% focused on video.

Pros

  • Because it has a very high Domain Authority ranking relevant backlinks in a published article will help make my store more searchable.
  • Substack is very easy to work in. The toolset they provide may not be as extensive as other platforms but it is certainly enough to create a meaningful, interesting post.
  • Substack is very focused on creating a community of writers that support each other. They run an ongoing email campaign that reinforces their focus on building a community of writers.

Cons

  • More clarity on why I would use Substack as a podcasting platform. I understand that it's a new thing for them but I'm not sure about making the switch until I see more hard, technical information. And yes, I am being picky about it.
  • They could provide a few more formatting tools for the writer even though what they currently provide does a good job.
  • Support for more extensive video tools. I understand that YouTube and TikTok dominate that arena but there's always room for more competition.

Most Important Features

  • Real strength in creating relevant written content that tell your company's story in an informal, entertaining and educational manner.
  • The ability to help your site's SEO without being obvious about it.
  • It is very easy to use and Substack has excellent support tools.

Return on Investment

  • I'm definitely seeing improved traffic from improved search engine position and publishing on Substack has helped.
  • By publishing on Substack I'm able to start to establish a brand identity that helps me separate Groovy Hemp Company from the pack.
  • There is no negative impact. Your only expenditure is time and energy. Currently, Substack is free. Hopefully, that lasts for a while.

Alternatives Considered

WordPress and Blogger

Other Software Used

Canva, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe PhotoShop

Substack is far from sub-par! A great option for newer creators and marketers

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Professional Services (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's been an awful ordeal in previous years to try and keep up with all the content I want to push out to my followers. Forget trying to monetize anything or accept financial support in an integrated way. It has changed my workflow so much and made it much more efficient to use Substack for content distribution. Also, as a reader who likes to keep up with the latest in my industry, Substack collates my subscriptions for me, all in one place, so I can stay on top of my favorite writers without going down the social media rabbit hole.

Pros

  • integration of content with operations, like subscriptions & payment
  • design! clean and simple
  • curation of subscriptions I read

Cons

  • editor is on the primitive side - it's wysiwyg, but missing some embed options
  • integrate with google analytics
  • percentage cut that Substack takes can become a burden as your revenue grows. Problems scaling.

Most Important Features

  • Integration with payment/Stripe
  • custom domain - adds professionality
  • free to start - I used the free version for 9 months

Return on Investment

  • Takes much much less time to produce content that you can charge for. This wasn't doable before, or you'd have to build it yourself
  • Substack has made it much easier for me to stay on top of ex-customer communications. I get repeat business more easily now.
  • Substack's speed & ease mean I can offload content writing & distribution to others

Alternatives Considered

Medium and Mailchimp

Other Software Used

Zendesk Support Suite, Jira Software, Intercom, Airtable, Asana, ClickUp, Stripe

Substack - Perfect platform to create newsletter

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Research & Development (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our company, we use Substack to write blogs and newletters to our investors / donors / other people interested in AI domain. We talk about how we collect data, principles of making a good codebase for Machine Learning etc.

I use Substack to write newsletter on the latest happenings in the world of technology. I'm a researcher who loves to research about new breakthroughs, new technologies, learn them. I run a community of people who want to learn about new techs and things happening in startup space.

Pros

  • Newsletter
  • Analytics
  • Integration with Twitter
  • Recommendation

Cons

  • It's really difficult when multiple people are editing the blog at same time. Some things change or get overwritten due to which have to reload the page multiple times. Would like to see an experience just like in Google docs.

Most Important Features

  • Newsletter
  • Sharing updates easily
  • Analytics
  • Tracking important KPIs

Return on Investment

  • Easy monetization
  • Marketing

Alternatives Considered

Medium and Blogger

Other Software Used

Microsoft Visual Studio Code, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Slack

Substack a must have newsletter platform...!

Incentivized
Verified User
Team Lead in Engineering (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Substack is a great platform if you want to write and distribute newsletters with a large community so basically, content sharing things can be done so easily. Since it has a large number of users or readers so there are good chances that your newsletters will reach out to most of the folks. You may distribute either free or paying.

Pros

  • Quick and easy signup
  • User friendly UI
  • You can own your contents
  • No limit on free subscribers
  • Fee is nominal

Cons

  • Customisation
  • Can add more features
  • Add custom urls

Most Important Features

  • Privacy
  • Creative
  • Simple and effective

Return on Investment

  • Full on ROI
  • No Regret/Negative impact
  • Business Grew

Other Software Used

Databricks Lakehouse Platform (Unified Analytics Platform), AiTrillion, Airbyte