Substack Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 9.4 out of 10

Score

9.4 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Substack are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Easy to use and user-friendly interface: Many users have praised Substack for its easy-to-use and clean interface, making it convenient for writers to navigate and manage their subscriptions effectively. The platform provides a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of managing subscriptions.

Seamless integration of content with operations: Several reviewers have highlighted Substack's seamless integration between content creation, subscription management, and payment design. This feature allows writers to monetize their work efficiently and effortlessly by providing them with an integrated system that streamlines the process of managing subscriptions and payments.

Ability to own content: Users appreciate that Substack allows them to maintain full control and ownership over their published content. This valuable feature provides a sense of security for writers who want to protect their intellectual property, ensuring that they retain complete ownership of their work without any restrictions or limitations imposed by the platform.

Reviews

6 Reviews

Substack - Perfect platform to create newsletter

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 20, 2022

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.<div>

</div><div>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.</div>

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

Substack is well suited for people who want to run a newsletter. Like it's really good to share updates on your product, or your learnings. It is not suitable to write a series of blogs on particular topic as you can't create a series. Every blog is separate, you can obviously link those but if you want to create a new series, then there is no place on the substack which user can see as album where they can see the relevant blogs in that album.

Verified User

Employee in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

July 14, 2022

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

Substack is great for writers/content creators just getting started with wanting to monetize their ideas/content/writing, etc. The percentage-based fee that Substack gets is small if you have a small following. As your following grows, however, you might prefer a flat-rate platform like Ghost. If you're small, you're also not that likely to need a robust integration with Google Analytics. You're probably okay with just eyeballing your open rate. For putting publishing into the hands of the people, though, Substack is great.

Verified User

Engineer in Professional Services (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Substack a must have newsletter platform...!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

July 13, 2022

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

Likelihood to Recommend

Once you're happy with your newsletter, you just need to hit publish and it will get sent out to all your subscribers. How easy it is amazing so it's a simple way to reach a large community and you can send it out to free or paid subscribers. I don't find it less usable it's well suited.

Verified User

Team Lead in Engineering (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Wish I could make a success of it

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 12, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I think that it is a great idea but I don’t think that they offer enough integration with other platforms, or provide enough ideas about how to market your substack or make it stand out in a crowded niche

Pros

Self publishing
Database management
Good interface

Cons

It can feel like you’re shouting in to the mist
Would be good if there was more integration with blog CMS
Needs more support helping people getting a paying database

Likelihood to Recommend

It’s a fantastic way to monetise your content but you either need a very small dedicated audience or a huge one in order to make any money from it.

Verified User

Manager (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

DTC Writing with Priority Towards Content Ownership, UI Lacking

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 11, 2022

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think Substack is better for people who want to set up a personal-facing branded website vs people who just want to post random musings every so often. Monetization is better there than any other collective publishing platform as well as organic reach via email. Substack also allows you to build direct relationships with your readers via emails and own them 100% which is great long-term if you use it to pivot to another site or another form of writing/content creation.

Substack would be less helpful for someone wanting to write as a part of a group, not individually, or someone who's unwilling to put their personal brand behind their content. It's less optimized for SEO (which other platforms allow you to do) and can be harder to curate content based on your interests (you really have to go in knowing what you want vs finding it on the fly).

Carter Owen

Consumer Strategy Analyst at frog (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Robb Auspitz Review of Substack

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 11, 2022

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

It's well-suited for a creative writer who is comfortable writing essays or short fiction. It's especially well-suited for writers who are focused on writing essays based on personal experiences. I'm not sure it has the tools at this point for someone who wants to serialize a novel or long-form non-fiction book. I'd like to see better multi-media tools for writers/content creators who are fluent in written and audio-visual methods of communicating.

Robb Auspitz

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

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

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Robb Auspitz Review of Substack

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 11, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

Robb Auspitz

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

Vetted Review

1 year of experience