15 Best Substack Alternatives For Newsletter And Blogging

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Substack alternatives are gaining popularity for many newsletter creators. You may want to switch your Notion newsletter to a platform that better suits your needs. But where do you start? In this blog post, we'll compare different Substack alternatives to help you choose the right fit for your publishing goals.

On that note, have you heard about Feather's send emails from Notion? This simple tool allows you to send emails directly from Notion, making it easier to manage your subscriber list and quickly send out your latest newsletter.

What Is Substack?

Substack is mainly a newsletter tool, but they are trying to become a place to publish all kinds of content like:

Blog

Podcast

Chat with subscribers

Twitter "clone" called Notes

Since the platform was created in 2017, it has significantly impacted media by popularizing paid newsletters. Substack is one of the main reasons newsletters are becoming so popular again, as it makes monetizing content easy.

Empowering Independent Writers

Substack's platform's primary focus is to empower writers and provide them with the tools they need to succeed. The platform offers various features catering to independent content creators' needs, from monetization opportunities to audience ownership. Substack allows writers to take charge of their creative journey and build a sustainable career.

Building a Sustainable Writing Business

Marketed as a place for independent writing, Substack allows writers to start a paid newsletter/blog business, build community, and make money from subscriptions. They claim that zero tech knowledge is required and aim to care for everything except the hard part (the writing itself). They promise true independence where the writer keeps the copyright to all their content.

Simple Setup and Content Management

How it works is fairly simple, so it now boasts more than 35 million active subscriptions— three million of which are paid. Writers can import existing content they wrote on other platforms, such as:

Mailchimp

WordPress

Tinyletter

Medium

Tumblr

Custom-built sites or new sites from scratch

Once live, the creator chooses which posts are free and which are gated behind the Substack paywall.

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Substack Best Features And Functionalities

The platform is beginner-friendly and easy to use, making it accessible to anyone who wants to start their own newsletter without advanced technical knowledge. This simplicity is vital for attracting bloggers and writers with little experience with complex software platforms, allowing them to dive right in and start creating content effortlessly.

Focus on Writers and Their Needs

Substack is a solution specifically tailored to writers' needs, offering precisely the features they need without unnecessary complications. As a result, creators can concentrate on their writing without competing with other content types like music or videos.

This clear focus ensures that the audience knows exactly what to expect from the platform, attracting readers who are genuinely interested in written content.

Building Community and Engagement

For those looking to build a community around their newsletter, Substack provides the tools necessary to foster engagement through comments and discussions on the platform. This feature allows creators to:

Connect with their audience

Receive feedback

Enhance the overall reader experience

Simple Monetization Options

Several creators have praised Substack's monetization model for its simplicity and convenience. By seamlessly integrating monetization options into the platform, creators can quickly start a paid newsletter without additional steps or complicated setups. This streamlined approach ensures that creators can focus on delivering quality content while effortlessly monetizing their work.

Predictable Revenue with Substack Subscriptions

One of the most significant benefits of working with a subscription or membership-based model on a platform like Substack is the potential for predictable revenue. By developing a recurring revenue stream through paid subscriptions, creators can establish a sustainable and consistent income, providing financial stability while pursuing their passion for writing.

Why Look For Substack Alternatives?

While a popular platform for newsletter creators, Substack has several limitations that prompt people to seek Substack alternatives.

Scalability Challenge

Substack is predominantly a one-person show, and scaling a business effectively on the platform can be pretty challenging. Many writers struggle to expand their reach and audience on Substack without a team or productization.

Low Revenue Potential

Substack primarily focuses on low-ticket subscriptions, which can hinder a creator's earnings potential. With an average monthly subscription fee of $7, creators need hundreds or even thousands of subscribers to achieve a substantial income.

Content Treadmill

Maintaining a consistent stream of content on Substack can be demanding and exhausting over the long term. Creators must churn out new content regularly to retain subscribers, creating a perpetual content production cycle.

High Revenue Cut

While Substack is seemingly free to use, it takes a significant 10% cut from subscription revenues. This fee can eat creators' profits, especially as their newsletters grow and they gain more subscribers.

Limited Email Features

Advanced email features and analytics are crucial for growing and nurturing an email list. Substack's email analytics are relatively basic compared to professional email marketing platforms, lacking:

A/B testing

Automation

In-depth analytics

Reputation Concerns

Substack faced criticism recently for not banning the use of certain controversial symbols, sparking concerns about its content moderation policies. These issues may reflect poorly on a publication's brand, driving creators to explore alternative platforms.

Feather: An Alternative to Substack

To address these limitations and explore better options for running newsletters and blogs, creators can consider platforms like Feather. Feather offers an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that enables users to publish content seamlessly through Notion.

By leveraging Feather's capabilities, creators can overcome the challenges posed by Substack and unlock new possibilities for content distribution and monetization. Take your newsletter and blog to the next level with Feather—create a new account today and send emails from Notion or transition from Notion to your blog in minutes!

What Should You Look for In Substack Alternatives?

When seeking Substack alternatives, it can be challenging to differentiate various platforms. Certain key elements can make the decision-making process more manageable. Here are some essential characteristics to consider when exploring alternatives to Substack:

Ease of Use

Finding an alternative to Substack that is user-friendly and doesn't require a steep learning curve is crucial. The last thing you want is to spend more time figuring out how to use the platform than creating engaging content for your subscribers.

Relevant Templates

Access to templates that align with your content marketing strategy can streamline your newsletter creation process. Templates can help you maintain a consistent brand identity and visual appeal, enhancing your newsletter's overall professional look.

Custom Themes

Custom themes can infuse your brand into your exclusive content. The more you can make your newsletter reflect your unique style and personality, the more engaging it will be for your subscribers.

Flexible Pricing

Different subscription tiers can be beneficial for creators with varying budgets. As your audience grows, having the option to scale your subscription costs can help you maximize your overall profitability.

Monetization Options

Successful Substack alternatives should offer multiple ways to monetize your content, including paid subscriptions. Monetization options are vital for creators looking to generate revenue from their newsletters.

Integration with Other Platforms

Look for a newsletter platform that seamlessly integrates with your existing tools. Whether it's your preferred writing tool or your website, having an efficient integration process can save you time and effort in managing your newsletter.

Ease of Migration

When transitioning from Substack to an alternative platform, ensure the migration process is straightforward. Look for a service that allows you to import your existing subscriber list effortlessly, ensuring a smooth transition for you and your readers.

Customer Support

Effective customer support can make all the difference in managing your newsletter effectively. Look for a platform that provides quick and helpful support, ensuring you have assistance when needed.

1. Feather

Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that allows you to publish content through Notion. It requires no coding or design skills, making it ideal for companies to manage CRM and website blog management through Notion. Feather enables you to write on Notion and automatically publish content to an SEO-friendly blog. It allows you to send newsletters directly to your Notion email subscribers.

Run your blog and newsletter with Feather today. Create a new account and send emails from Notion, or go from Notion to your blog in minutes!

2. Medium

Medium is another platform that offers features similar to those of Substack. It's a blogging and writing platform that allows users to share stories, and it has a large community of readers and writers. Medium is known for its clean, easy-to-use interface and its emphasis on quality content. It encourages readers to discover stories, thinking, and expertise on any topic.

A Platform for Reaching a Wide Audience

Medium is an ideal platform for writers and journalists looking to reach an engaged audience. It easily qualifies as one of Substack’s top competitors, as it has a loyal built-in community of readers. The readership is focused online or on the app, not in email newsletters.

Membership and Paywall

Medium's membership program and paywall options allow writers to monetize their content. There’s no cost to publish on Medium for any members/subscribers you may have. Medium makes its money by charging people to read your stories and other people’s stories, at $5/month or $50/year.

3. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an email marketing and automation platform designed for creators such as:

Bloggers

Journalists

Podcasters

It helps users build an email list, automate email sequences, and segment audiences for targeted marketing. Like other Substack alternatives, ConvertKit offers functionality such as opt-in forms, landing pages, and email comms.

Automation and Growth for Creators

One of Convertkit's main focuses is automating the process of connecting with new potential subscribers and nurturing them into customers. It also has a visual automation builder allowing you to create complex workflow without coding.

It includes tools for managing affiliate relationships and providing exclusive content to paying subscribers.

For new creators, ConvertKit is free for up to 300 subscribers.

For creators with growing audiences, ConvertKit costs from $15/month or $108/year, again for up to 300 subscribers. It also includes access to email sequences, automation builders, third-party integrations, and an additional team member.

4. Ghost

Ghost is the closest you can get to a 1-to-1 alternative to Substack. The platform has a simple and clean aesthetic and good UX. Creators who use Ghost can mix blogging and/or a newsletter with a subscription fee. Ghost gives you a ton of good publishing tools:

Branding

Gallery cards

An editor

Lots of SEO features

Some good tools for multi-author companies

Ghost has the same limitations as Substack, though. It's great for publishers. It needs to be stronger on real member experiences, community features, and other tools you'd need to build a unified member experience. Ghost pricing starts from $9/mo with no transaction fees

5. Beehiiv

Beehiiv was designed and launched by the team that runs Morning Brew, a business newsletter. It comes with built-in design and editing tools and a newsletter and website platform. It also has a great email platform that includes automation and customizable journeys. It also has AI tools, such as AI personalization features.

Monetization Features for Creators

It comes with monetization features for building a business around your newsletter. The coolest feature is that it can connect you to relevant ad campaigns to monetize with sponsors--but you can also sell a subscription to your readers and monetize that way.

Website and Ad Campaign Selection

The main limitations to Beehiiv are that the website feature is quite basic (just a hosted version of the newsletter), and you need to match it with an ad campaign before you can be offered one. You can't choose your own ad campaigns. All in all, it's a good newsletter platform.

6. MailerLite

MailerLite is a great solution for creatives and bloggers who want a simple tool to promote their content.

Its drag-and-drop email editor enables you to customize your messages fully.

You won’t need to have any coding knowledge to design your newsletters, while the tool also offers subscription forms to grow your audience and rich analytics to track your performance.

The platform’s automation features will be useful if you want to create custom flows and save valuable time.

Monetization and Advanced Features

Another notable feature of MailerLite is its Stripe integration, which enables you to run paid newsletters. While this feature isn’t included in the free plan, it helps content creators monetize their businesses fast and without developer skills. All in all, MailerLite’s platform is a solid alternative to what Substack offers due to its more advanced newsletter features, but you’ll need to commit to a paid plan to get the best results.

7. Revue

Revue is a free newsletter tool that everybody can use. It was acquired by the social media platform Twitter. Revue is an ideal choice for writers who want to deliver standalone newsletter subscriptions or a newsletter as a bonus to a membership plan.

The platform features an easy-to-use newsletter editor that exceeds the capabilities of the one Substack has. What’s more, sending a newsletter with Revue is free, regardless of the size of your audience. This means that even if you have a huge audience, you won’t need a large amount of money. The tool also lets you use a custom profile domain and a custom from address.

One downside of the platform is that it lacks community-building features, so may end up stuck producing content just to keep your existing list engaged. Revue charges a 5% of revenue (flat rate). Revue is a well-balanced competitor to Substack, which is more cost-effective while offering a better editor and user experience.

8. Buttondown

Buttondown is an indie newsletter software and a Substack alternative. It was created by someone running newsletters for years who wanted an “ideal” tool designed for writers, not big editorial teams.

This is what you get with Buttondown, namely a minimalist interface that lets you craft beautiful emails while taking care of tasks like:

Typos

Broken links

Low-quality images

You also get a subscription widget that makes it easy for people to subscribe to your content. The owner describes Buttondown as a tool rather than a publishing platform, giving you more control over your newsletter.

Pricing and Flexibility

The main difference between Substack and Buttondown is that the second monthly fee doesn’t go up with your newsletter’s success. It increases based on your audience size. On another note, if you have the necessary knowledge, its API will allow you to do exactly what you envision.

This isn’t possible in Substack. Buttondown is a flexible service with built-in tools for formatting, proofreading, and delivering content. Pricing starts at $9/mo.

9. Patreon

Patreon is a membership platform that allows content creators to monetize their content by running a subscription service. What sets Patreon apart from similar services is the ability to create different subscription tiers.

This gives you more flexibility and allows you to leverage your content effectively.

It also helps you incentivize your audience with bonuses (e.g., a PDF, a personal handwritten letter, etc.).

Patron allows your audience to communicate directly with you. This helps you build stronger relationships and interact better with your patrons. You have more freedom and room to experiment with how you want to run your business.

On the other hand, all this freedom might not be what you’re looking for if you want a simple solution. Patreon is free to start, and monetization plans range from 5% to 12% of your monthly revenue.

10. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is among the largest email marketing services globally and it has a suite of business tools. These tools allow users to craft sleek email campaigns, grow their audience with popups, and create automation workflows to streamline processes. Creators and publishers have a powerful drag-and-drop editor to craft their newsletters. Mailchimp lets you organize your subscribers into segments and groups, while the Merge Fields function helps you track your member plans.

Pricing and Flexibility

One definitive advantage of Mailchimp over Substack is the multivariate testing capabilities. This helps you identify what resonates with your audience and what needs further optimization. Despite all these, Mailchimp requires integration with Chargebee (or another processor) to automatically collect recurring payments for your newsletter services or subscription-based services of an eCommerce store.

This means there is no direct way of monetizing your newsletter without spending extra money or doing additional work. Mailchimp pricing starts at $20/month and includes a free plan.

11. SendFox

Sendfox is a software platform that allows users to create, send, and track email marketing campaigns. It provides a range of features, including:

Email templates

Automation

Segmentation

Analytics

Sendfox is designed for businesses of all sizes and can be used to promote products and services, grow customer relationships, and increase conversions. There’s a free version of SendFox that allows sending newsletters to 1000 contacts with SendFox-branded emails and no automation.

The Lifetime Plan costs just one payment of $49 (not recurring) and allows up to 5000 members, reduced SendFox branding, and unlimited automations. This could be the cheapest of all Substack competitors.

12. Smore

Smore is an online platform that simplifies the creation of newsletters and presentations and focuses particularly on education and training materials. It provides a variety of visually appealing templates, allowing users to build multimedia content quickly and easily. If used in an educational setting, it's recommended to purchase the education version to gain access to education-themed clip art and in-depth features.

Smore's User-Friendly Design and Content Flexibility

Smore is particularly praised for its user-friendly interface and versatility. Users can easily customize their newsletters with different background images, colors, and fonts. They can add a wide array of content to the newsletters, including:

Text

Images

Video content

Attachments

Forms

Audio

Calendar options

Once created, these newsletters can be easily shared on social media or via email through a copied link. Smore also provides analytics, allowing users to track how many views their newsletters have received.

Pricing and Plans for Different Users

Setting up an account is straightforward: you need just an email address. You can try the product for free before purchasing. Free accounts come with 5 free 'smores' (creations), while Educator accounts come with unlimited smores.

Smore Educator Basic costs $99/year

Smore Educator Pro costs $179/year

Smore Educator Premium costs $299/year

13. HubSpot

If you’re familiar with marketing, sales, and CMS software, you've probably heard of HubSpot before. HubSpot is an enjoyable Substack alternative if you’re already using HubSpot’s full-stack software for other avenues of your business. The HubSpot interface is beautifully designed and easy to use.

If you’re using HubSpot already for marketing and sales, starting your newsletter with their CMS is incredibly convenient. Not only will it keep your content all under one roof, but you’ll be able to make informed decisions based on the data from HubSpot itself. HubSpot won’t be as approachable of an alternative to SubStack as some of the other options we’ve mentioned, but their software is potent if you can harness its benefits.

14. Curated

Curated is an elegant newsletter software concept and a good Substack alternative for content curators. It comes with a Chrome extension for clipping content from around the web.

You can then work this into a newsletter, easily collaborating with other editors if you need to.

You can sell sponsorships and paid subscriptions--the platform even handles your sponsor management.

t has a great newsletter layout and lots of design choices.

The most significant limitation of Curated is that its list-building tools could be better. It's better for newsletter creation than list-building.

15. Memberful

Memberful is membership management software that lets creators manage membership programs with custom price tiers and access levels to monetize their content. It works well for:

Online course (eCourse) creators

Podcast hosts

Other content creators

Particularly relevant is their Posts feature, which replicates Substack’s ‘combined email and online’ approach. Memberful lets you publish members-only content via a newsletter and a Memberful-hosted website. You can add text and images, select which members to target, and publish or schedule the post for later.

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Choosing The Best Substack Alternative

When looking for a Substack alternative, you have numerous options to consider.

These platforms allow you to publish and distribute email newsletters to an audience while generating revenue.

Each platform offers unique features tailored to content types, publishing frequencies, and customization levels.

If you want to expand your brand beyond Substack's subscriber model, platforms like Feather can help elevate your writing into a successful business. By combining Notion's versatile capabilities with Feather's publishing features, you can unleash the full potential of your writing without the limitations of Substack.

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CRM in Notion

Send Emails from Notion and Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today with Feather

Feather is an innovative tool that offers a seamless solution for publishing blog content and newsletters through Notion without the need for coding or design skills. This service caters to companies looking to streamline their content creation and distribution processes, making it easier than ever to maintain a strong online presence.

Subfolder Blog Setup for SEO-Friendly Content

Feather provides an essential feature for companies focused on SEO: the ability to set up a subfolder blog instead of a subdomain. This distinction is crucial for improving search engine rankings, making it easier for users to find your content online. Opting for a subfolder setup (e.g., domain.com/blog) can significantly enhance your website's SEO performance and drive more traffic to your blog.

HubSpot Experience Through Notion

Feather offers businesses the convenience of managing their CRM and website blogs directly through Notion. This integration allows for a more streamlined workflow, enabling efficient content publication and easy access to customer data. By using Feather, you can experience the benefits of HubSpot without ever leaving Notion, simplifying your marketing efforts and enhancing your overall productivity.

Customization Options and Collaboration Tools

Feather goes beyond basic publishing features by offering customization options such as custom CSS for design changes and the ability to collect emails from readers. Additionally, the service facilitates collaboration among team members during the content creation and publishing process. By enabling seamless teamwork, Feather ensures that your content is top-notch and optimized for maximum engagement.

With Feather, you can set up and send newsletters directly to your email subscribers from Notion. This feature eliminates switching between different platforms, ensuring a more efficient workflow and saving time and effort. By automating the newsletter-sending process, Feather allows you to focus on creating compelling content that resonates with your audience.

Get Started with Feather Today!

Feather is a game-changer for companies looking to simplify their content creation and distribution processes. By leveraging the power of Notion, this innovative tool offers a seamless solution for managing blogs and newsletters, making it easier than ever to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your website.

Ready to take your content strategy to the next level? Sign up for Feather today and see the difference for yourself!