As a writer, there are several platforms that allow you to launch a personal brand and earn money from your content. Medium and Substack are two of the most popular writing platforms for bloggers, but how do they differ?
Both Medium and Substack allow you to build an audience and monetize your blog posts. However, there is a fundamental difference between the two platforms, as they use significantly different business models.
If you’ve been wondering whether to choose Substack or Medium, this article is for you. Today, I will be comparing the two writing platforms and showing you how they measure up.
Let’s get into it.
Substack vs Medium: The Basics
What Is Substack
Before deciding on Medium or Substack, it’s critical to understand what these two companies are about.
Substack is a platform designed to help content creators monetize their audiences through paid email newsletter subscriptions. Furthermore, it provides writers with an online platform where they can publish their content.
Looking to explore more Substack like platforms? read this post.
What is Medium
Medium is a blogging platform and social network, designed to give writers a place to let their voices be heard. Bloggers can use Medium as their sole blogging platform or as a supplement to a WordPress blog.
Writing on Medium can be lucrative, as there are a few ways writers can monetize their content. Furthermore, it allows writers to build an audience and establish themselves in their respective niches.
Medium vs Substack: The Business Model
Substack
I mentioned that Medium and Substack have significantly different business models, so let’s explore that.
Substack’s business model primarily involves paid newsletter subscriptions.
You can publish content on your Substack blog and make it free, but that’s meant primarily as a “teaser.” It’s intended to be a way to get people familiarized with your content, so they realize the value of subscribing.
Even though you don’t have to charge for a premium subscription, and you can just publish content for free, that’s not Substack’s primary business model.
Substack takes a commission on your premium subscriptions – that’s how it makes money. It wants you to start a premium newsletter.
It’s always free to publish content on Substack – providing you are publishing free content and not hiding it behind a paywall. You will never have to pay Substack for the privileges of hosting a free blog on the Substack site.
However, once you set up a premium subscription, Substack will take a 10% commission on all of your income. That is in addition to the payment processing fees charged by Stripe, Substack’s payment processor, though you only pay those fees when you earn money.
The good part is that you can choose what to charge your subscribers. The lowest you can charge is $5 (most premium subscriptions cost $5 or $7).
In the crypto and finance industries, subscriptions tend to cost a bit more. You can charge more than $5-10 ($15 or even as high as $75), but you need to be a real expert or write in a very specific niche to charge that much.
You can set up a few different subscription options, such as a monthly subscription or a yearly subscription, and give a discount to those who sign up for a yearly subscription.
Also Read: Substack vs MailChimp
You can also offer a premium “Founding Member” subscription option, which can be a lot more expensive but give subscribers access to special perks. For example, if you’ve authored a book, you can send your founding members a signed copy of your book, with your autograph or other gifts.
Another idea is to write a custom post specifically for each founding member. The choice is yours – you get flexibility in what you charge and the perks you offer to founding members.
Alternatively, you can let your fans decide how much they want to pay for the annual “Founding Member” subscription. That way, people who love your work can support you with what they can afford to spend.
Medium
Medium, like Substack, lets you publish content for free online.
However, here’s the crucial difference. While your blog on Substack is only secondary to your email newsletter and a way for people to “try out” your content before subscribing, your blog is the main feature on Medium.
Sure, Medium allows you to build an email list, but that’s not the main purpose of Medium. It’s a secondary aspect.
Building your Medium blog and gathering an online audience will be your main focus on Medium, not getting email subscribers.
So, how does Medium make money? What is its business model?
It’s simple, really. By default, the content you write on Medium is free for anyone to read.
However, you can opt to hide your content behind Medium’s paywall. Medium has something called the Medium Partner Program, and writers can join once they’re eligible.
Becoming eligible isn’t difficult, but you won’t be able to join as a brand-new writer. You must have at least one blog post published, and you also need at least 100 followers.
Also Read: Substack vs Patreon
In any case, once you join the Medium Partner Program, you’ll start earning money when people read your content.
Medium will mark your content as “Premium” content. All Medium members (readers) can read up to five premium articles per month for free.
However, once they’ve used up their five free premium articles, they’ll need to become a premium member by paying $5/month or $50/year to read more premium content. If a premium member reads your content, Medium will pay you.
You don’t have to join the Partner Program if you don’t want to. There are other reasons to publish a blog and other ways to monetize your Medium content.
For example, you might want to supplement your main blog with your Medium blog just to build your personal brand and boost visibility and brand awareness. You can link to your main blog from your Medium posts, driving extra traffic.
Or, you can include affiliate links in your Medium posts. There’s nothing stopping you from doing that, though overdoing it can have a negative impact on your engagement rates on Medium.
In any case, Medium is all about publishing content on the web and building a blog. You can monetize it by only making it available to premium Medium members.
Substack, on the other hand, puts more of a focus on building email newsletter subscriptions.
Substack vs Medium: Discovery Features
Substack
Substack has some discovery features. On the Discover page, readers can browse featured authors and blogs in several categories, including
- Food
- Culture
- Science
- Crypto
- Fiction
- And many others
Despite that, Substack doesn’t come close to Medium in terms of discoverability. Substack isn’t set up to be a social platform/online magazine the same way Medium is.
For example, in each category, Substack will list the top 25 paid authors by default. Readers can instead view all authors in that category by clicking on the “All” option, but that option is not entirely obvious at first glance.
Medium
Medium has better discoverability features than Substack. It’s designed to help people find interesting content in topics they are interested in from a wide range of authors, not just the top content creators.
The site is set up like a social blogging network. You will have an easier time getting found on Medium than on Substack – there’s no doubt about that.
Medium vs Substack: SEO
Substack
Substack isn’t that well-optimized for SEO. With a Domain Authority score of 83, Substack itself has a lot of SEO power.
At the same time, your Substack blog will be on a subdomain, like this: yourdomain.substack.com. That’s unless you opt for a custom domain – more on that later.
Subdomains just won’t rank as well as the main domain. They won’t have the same SEO power.
Medium
With a Domain Authority of 95, Medium has a strong SEO profile. The best part is that when you publish blog posts on Medium, you can have them published on the main Medium domain, like this: Medium.com/yourblog/blogpost.
What does that mean for you? It means that the content you publish on Medium has a high chance of getting ranked on Google for your target keywords.
If you are a new blogger with your own domain, your blog won’t have an SEO profile nearly as powerful as Medium.
You can publish your Medium blog on a Medium subdomain (yourblog.medium.com) or on a custom domain if you’d like. However, consider the SEO ranking power you’d get from keeping your posts on the main Medium domain before doing that.
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Substack vs Medium: Custom Domains
Susbtack
As mentioned, Substack allows you to publish your blog on a custom domain instead of a Substack subdomain. You’ll still benefit from Substack hosting, though you’ll obviously need to purchase your domain separately.
A custom domain would look like this: yourblog.com (as opposed to yourblog.substack.com).
Having your own branded domain can help you boost your authority. It’s great for branding, but it comes at a cost: Substack will charge you a one-time fee of $50 per publication for using a custom domain.
Once you pay the $50 fee, you can remove and add custom domains for free.
Medium
Medium gives you an additional option other than a custom domain and a subdomain: writing on the main Medium domain, as I discussed above.
While Medium used to charge $75 for using a custom domain in the past, that is no longer the case – it’s now free for Medium members only.
Medium vs Substack: Email Marketing
Susbstack
Substack is built around email marketing. You can publish blog posts online, but that’s a secondary feature.
Medium
Medium now allows you to collect email subscribers on Medium. Your followers can opt into your mailing list, after which you can send them emails with links to your new Medium blog posts.
It gets better – that list is exportable. The email list you build on Medium belongs to you – you can export the list and upload it to another platform if you wish; you’re not limited to sending them Medium content.
At the same time, email marketing is a secondary feature of Medium. Its main business model revolves around blogging, not email marketing.
Substack vs Medium: How Often Do You Have To Write?
Substack
Email newsletters are the bread and butter of Substack, so to speak. To succeed on Substack, you should be creating new content frequently, so you can keep your email subscribers engaged with new content.
Writing a blog post once in a while just isn’t going to cut it. That’s not what Substack is for – it’s for building long-term, meaningful relationships with subscribers.
Medium
Medium is more flexible. You do have to write one blog post every six months to keep your account active for the Medium Partner Program.
Other than that, however, you alone decide how often you’d like to write. Generally, the more content you put out, the more money and exposure you will get, as you’ll be more likely to get more readers and followers.
However, that’s not necessarily the case. For example, one of your blog posts can go viral or get ranked on the first page of Google for your target keyword.
If that happens, you may end up earning recurring income from that single blog post, even if you don’t write new content frequently.
Again, writing frequently will help you build your brand, gain new followers, and earn more money. Despite that, Substack’s model relies more on publishing a steady stream of content than Medium’s business model.
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Medium vs Substack: How Much Can You Earn?
Substack
It’s easy to calculate how much money you can make on Substack.
Start by deciding how much you will charge subscribers per month. Then, multiply that by the number of subscribers you already have or the number of subscribers you can expect to have if you play your cards right.
For example, if your goal is to get 1,000 subscribers, and you are charging $5/month for your monthly subscription, your income will be $5,000/month, minus Substack’s commission and Stripe’s fees. That’s pretty good!
Of course, you would have to figure in any discounts you give to annual subscribers and the additional money you can make from your “Founding Member” subscriptions. However, overall, it’s easy to set goals, decide how much you want to earn, and start working towards your income goal.
Substack even has a handy earnings calculator on this page.
Simply enter the number of subscribers you expect to have and the amount you will charge per month.
The calculator is useful because it automatically deducts the commission that Substack charges as well as Stripe’s payment processing fees. In other words, the amount you see there is what you can expect to reach your bank account.
Medium
It’s a lot harder to set goals and calculate your potential earnings on Medium. First, you’re not earning per subscriber or follower; you’re getting paid for premium readership.
Not only that, however, but there is also no set earning amount for each view. Many Medium writers claim they earn around $15 per 1,000 views, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.
According to blogger Zulie Writes, articles that get more views earn more per view than articles that get fewer views. So, if your views are spread around many articles instead of all coming from one article, you will end up earning less for the same amount of views.
It gets even more complicated. Other factors that come into play include:
- How much time people spend reading your stories (as opposed to how many views you got in total – quality vs quantity)
- How many free members read your story (using their five free articles per month) but become premium members within 30 days
- The percentage of the monthly reading time a premium member spends on your content
- How many premium members you refer (you can earn money from referrals as well)
In any case, it’s impossible to calculate how much you will earn on Medium. Earnings vary widely; some writers only make $100/month, while others make thousands.
Medium’s exact earnings calculations are not public. Perhaps this is intentional on Medium’s part; perhaps it wants writers to keep churning out content and contributing to the site, focusing on quality rather than on a monetary goal.
For writers, however, Substack makes it easier to set income goals and achieve those goals.
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Substack vs Medium: Starting From Scratch vs Having An Existing Audience
Substack
Substack is definitely better for people who have an existing fan base, audience, or email list. Remember, Substack isn’t optimized as well for discovery.
Therefore, using Substack to build an audience from scratch just isn’t a good strategy. Sure, it can work, but you won’t be able to rely on drawing subscribers from Substack’s reader base (though you may get some).
Instead, it would be smarter to use a custom domain for your Substack blog and focus on SEO, social media marketing, and so on if you are starting from scratch.
If you have an existing audience, however, Substack is awesome. You can import blog posts from WordPress, Medium, and many other platforms.
Furthermore, you can import your entire email list. There is no limit to the size of an email list you can import, as long as the list is legitimate, and you have obtained the consent of your subscribers to send them content.
Substack is, however, better if you want to start a podcast. That’s because you can host a podcast on Substack and distribute it not only via email but to major platform apps, like Stitcher and Spotify, as well.
Also Read: Subscribestar vs Patreon
Medium
If you want to get more exposure or build an audience from scratch, Medium is by far the superior choice. Medium has excellent discovery features that can help you build an audience from Medium’s reader base alone.
Medium even sends emails to members with curated content. You can reach new people every day.
That’s beside the potential organic traffic you can get from having your Medium posts rank in the search engines.
Keep in mind that Medium is very competitive, especially these days, as more writers have signed up. There are a lot of writers vying for the attention of readers, so you will have to put in the work to build your audience.
Substack vs Medium: Pros & Cons
Substack Pros
- It’s easy to calculate how much you can earn.
- It’s awesome if you have an existing audience.
- You can write content you know your existing audience will like.
- You can start a podcast.
Substack Cons
- If you don’t have an existing audience, it’s hard to build one.
- It’s more of a newsletter platform than a blogging platform.
- It has poor discovery features.
- It charges for using a custom domain.
- It takes a 10% commission on your earnings.
Medium Pros
- You can build an audience from scratch.
- You can create an email list.
- It’s easy to get organic traffic from Google.
- You can publish on the main Medium domain.
- Using a custom domain is free.
Medium Cons
- It’s very competitive.
- It’s hard to set income goals or calculate how much you will earn.
- You can’t control your earnings.
- You can’t host and distribute a podcast.
Pricing
Substack
Substack is always free for publishing free content. If you add paid subscriptions, Substack will deduct a 10% commission on your earnings, but you will never have to pay anything upfront.
You can see updated Substack pricing here.
You’ll also have to pay a payment processing fee to Stripe.
For readers, premium subscriptions cost anywhere from $5-75, but typically fall into the $5-10 range.
Check Out: Ko-fi vs Patreon
Medium
Medium is always free for writers. For readers, some articles are free, but it costs $5/month or $50/year for unlimited access to premium content.
See updated pricing here.
Similarities & Differences
| Substack | Medium | |
| Publish Free Content | ✓ | ✓ |
| Collect Email Subscribers | ✓ | ✓ |
| Charge For Premium Subscriptions | ✓ | ✗ |
| Get Paid For Views & Readership Time | ✗ | ✓ |
| Get Paid Via Stripe | ✓ | ✓ |
| Host & Distribute A Podcast | ✓ | ✗ |
Wrapping It Up: What’s The Difference, Substack Or Medium?
For writers and bloggers, Medium is the superior platform.
It allows you to build an audience, drive traffic to your blog, build an email list, earn money from writing, and perhaps even go viral.
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