Substack, once hailed as a groundbreaking newsletter platform, is witnessing a notable exodus of writers, drawn away by lesser-known rivals that promise greater autonomy and more favorable pricing models. Last month, the high-profile publication The Ankler made headlines by leaving Substack for a platform offering enhanced control over its site. This move highlights a growing dissatisfaction among content creators, who critique Substack’s increasing focus on social features and its financially restrictive pricing structure.
The platform’s challenges are not entirely new. In 2024, Substack faced backlash for its decision to host controversial newsletters linked to hate speech. However, the current wave of departures seems driven more by business concerns than ethical ones, as writers seek better financial and operational terms.
Sean Highkin, the creator behind the NBA-centric The Rose Garden Report, shared with The Verge that he has seen a significant boost in revenue since transitioning from Substack to Ghost last April. “Initially, Substack gave me a major promotional push, which was fantastic for growth,” Highkin explained. “But once I was no longer their ‘new talent,’ the momentum stalled.” Highkin now pays $2,052 annually using Ghost combined with an Outpost add-on, a stark contrast to the $4,968 he was shelling out on Substack. Since switching, his subscriber count has increased by 22% since late 2024.
This narrative echoes through other creators’ experiences, such as Matt Brown of Extra Points, boasting 71,000 subscribers. After departing Substack in 2021, Brown eventually found a home on Beehiiv, where he enjoys substantial savings. “At my current size, Substack would cost me upwards of $25,000 annually,” Brown explains, “whereas Beehiiv charges around $3,000.”
Meanwhile, The Ankler, a prominent voice in entertainment industry news, has shifted to Passport. This new platform, a collaboration between WordPress.com owner Automattic and Stratechery founder Ben Thompson, offers a more cohesive media experience. Janice Min and Richard Rushfield of The Ankler describe this shift as “a defining moment” in their evolution into a fully integrated media entity.
As writers seek alternatives, the sentiment shared by many is succinctly captured by one user’s parting words: “I didn’t want to be on a platform that had been steadily — and not so stealthily — enshittified.”
Min echoes this in a statement to Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter, saying The Ankler “needed more flexibility and control across products, revenue, and audience relationships than the platform [Substack] allows.” But The Ankler is far from the only prominent publication or newsletter that has switched to a Substack alternative in recent months. Last October, Culture Study creator Anne Helen Petersen moved from Substack to Patreon, saying: “I didn’t want to be on a platform that had been steadily — and not so stealthily — enshittified.” Status also reports that The Bulwark, Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo, and Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me have “quietly explored” moving to another platform.
Substack launched in 2017 as a platform that allows writers to create their own newsletters and manage paying subscribers. Unlike some of its biggest rivals, Substack takes a 10 percent cut of total subscription revenue. That tax may not seem substantial at first, but it quickly adds up as creators gain subscribers and begin charging more for their subscriptions. A calculator on Substack’s own website estimates that for a newsletter charging $10 per month with 400 subscribers, the total monthly cost — including the platform’s 10 percent cut and credit card processing fees — would add up to $636. That cost jumps to $15,900 per month with 10,000 subscribers and skyrockets to $79,500 per month for 50,000 members — nearly $1 million per year.
Many Substack rivals charge a flat monthly fee, rather than a commission. Ghost, an open-source platform for blogs and newsletters, starts at $15 per month with 1,000 members for website creation, email newsletter capabilities, and a custom domain. Beehiiv, a creator platform with tools for launching a newsletter, website, and podcast, is free for up to 2,500 subscribers with limited access to certain features, like a built-in ad network, while its other plans vary in price based on subscriber count. A person with 10,000 subscribers, for example, will pay $96 per month for Beehiiv’s “Scale” plan. There’s also Kit, a newsletter platform that offers a tiered pricing model similar to Beehiiv, costing $116 per month with 10,000 subscribers on its “Creator” plan.
The pricing on Substack isn’t the only pain point for creators, as critics argue that it also locks writers and their subscribers into a closed ecosystem. For one, Substack has limited integrations with third-party apps, leaving writers with the platform’s set of built-in tools that might not have everything they need. It has added several new features over the years, including tools for podcasts, videos, and social networking-style features like DMs. But it generated controversy earlier this year with its new TV app and an integration with the prediction market Polymarket.
Creators must also contend with the platform’s limited customization options that can make it difficult to stand out in a sea of other newsletters. Substack sticks its branding at the bottom of newsletters, too, while “.substack.com” even appears in a creator’s website address if they don’t purchase a custom domain.
Meanwhile, rival services like Beehiiv and Ghost offer deeper customization options. In an interview with The Verge, Beehiiv founder Tyler Denk likens the platform to Shopify, rather than Amazon, as it gives creators the tools and infrastructure to build an audience without plastering their brand on its members’ websites. “We don’t want to take credit for the work of our content creators,” Denk tells The Verge. “Shopify is empowering and building millions of these retailers’ own websites and businesses, and you actually would have no idea that you’re on a Shopify website, which is kind of the point.”
Substack also invests heavily in building out its own discovery and recommendation features, and while that may help some creators build an audience, it adds more pressure to participate in writing tweet-style “Notes” to show up in a user’s algorithmic feed. Users who “follow” a writer through the Notes feature aren’t actually subscribing to their newsletter, either. This might benefit Substack’s engagement, but it’s only a plus for writers if they get a new subscriber out of it.
That’s because Substack owners can only export subscribers — not followers — when they leave the platform. Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie pushes back on claims that the platform is a “walled garden,” saying “no walled garden would let you export your mailing list, content, and even payment relationships at any moment.” But he also admits that this portability doesn’t extend to followers, saying Notes “is a growth engine that helps you get subscribers, which you can then export.”
Additionally, Substack started allowing creators to enable in-app payments on its iOS app, but Apple handles these transactions — not the publication — and charges a 30 percent commission. Creators who leave Substack can’t take their Apple-based billing information with them.
“We’ve always believed that creators should own their relationship with their audience, including the freedom to leave if they choose,” Hanne Winarsky, Substack’s head of New Media, says in an emailed statement. “At the same time, there are also many examples of publishers and writers who have returned to Substack after experimenting elsewhere, including SemiAnalysis, Glenn Greenwald, and Joe Posnanski, to name a few.” Substack is working to expand its platform in other markets, too, with paid subscriptions to UK figures like Charli XCX, Jamie Oliver, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer surpassing 500,000.
Platformer creator Casey Newton, who left Substack in 2024, says that while the publication is saving money on Ghost, “the more important thing is that we have a home on the open web that we control, and whatever anti-creator changes Substack is forced to make in the future to live up to its valuation we won’t be affected by.”
Some high-profile departures may not spell the end of Substack, but it could signal a shift that positions the platform as a jumping-off point for publications, rather than a permanent home. Even still, the rise of rival platforms may make it more difficult to land new Substack publications that don’t want to be reduced to just that: Substacks.
