How to Use Substack: The Beginner's Guide (First Publication, First Post, Notes, and the Paid Switch)

CodexFuse Team · 2026-10-28T21:36:16.214Z · 15 min read

Learning how to use Substack is simpler than setting up a blog from scratch, because Substack combines three jobs into one free account: it hosts your publication, emails each post to your subscribers, and handles paid subscriptions when you are ready for them. You do not need a website, an email tool, or a payment setup to publish your first post. This guide walks through the whole beginner arc in order: create your publication, write your first post, grow with Notes and Recommendations, and switch on paid subscriptions only when readers ask for more. If you already run a self-hosted site, our WordPress beginner guide covers the other path, so you can compare the two honestly before you commit.

Substack is built for writers first. The editor is deliberately plain, there are no plugins to configure, and every post you publish becomes both a web page and an email at the same time. That simplicity is the point — and it is also the limit, as the comparison section near the end explains.

What Is Substack and How Does It Work?

Substack is a newsletter and publishing platform where every post you write is published as a web page on your publication and emailed to your subscribers at the same time, and readers can subscribe for free or pay for extra content. Its built-in network — the app, Notes, and Recommendations — helps new readers discover your publication without you buying ads or building an audience somewhere else first.

The basic loop works like this:

1. Create a free account and name your publication.
2. Write a post in the plain editor and choose who receives it.
3. Publish, and Substack emails it to subscribers and posts it on your publication page.
4. Grow through Recommendations, Notes, and your own network.
5. Turn on paid subscriptions later, once readers want more than the free posts.

Publishing is free for any number of subscribers. Substack only takes money when you do: it keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue, and Stripe charges its card-processing fees on top, as the cost section below works out in full.

How Do I Set Up My Substack Publication?

Setting up a publication takes under an hour, and the choices that matter most are the name, the subdomain, and the one-line description — because those three are what a stranger sees before deciding to subscribe. Start at substack.com, sign up with an email address, and create your publication when prompted.

Pick a name readers understand at a glance. A name that says what you write about beats a clever name nobody can parse, and using your own name as the subdomain is the safer default: Substack's own guidance notes that readers search for a writer's name plus Substack more often than for a publication title. Your address will be yourname.substack.com, and you can change the subdomain later under Settings, so do not let naming block your launch.

Write the About page before you publish anything. It is your pitch to visitors who have not subscribed yet, so say who the publication is for, what readers get, and how often you publish. Then edit the welcome email new subscribers receive, under Settings and Emails, so the first message they get from you sets expectations instead of arriving as a blank default. Use a strong, unique password for the account and store it in a password manager — our guide to how long should a password be explains the length that actually protects an account like this.

If you already have readers elsewhere, import them early. Under Subscribers and Add subscribers you can upload a .csv, .xlsx, or .ods file; Substack skips duplicates and invalid addresses, but you must confirm the people on the list opted in. Importing a bought or scraped list is a fast way to damage your sender reputation, so only bring readers who asked to hear from you.

How Do I Write and Publish My First Post?

Your first post should explain what the publication is, who it is for, and what readers will get each week, because it doubles as the sample every new visitor judges you by. Open the editor from your dashboard, write a clear headline, and keep paragraphs short: people read newsletters in an inbox, not on a designed page, so short paragraphs and a clear subject line matter more than formatting.

The editor covers headings, images, embeds, buttons, polls, and a paywall marker — enough for a newsletter, with nothing to configure. Before you publish, Substack asks three questions. First, who gets it: everyone, paid subscribers only, or founding members only. Second, how it is delivered: by email and on the web, or only one of the two. Third, when: now, or scheduled for a date and time.

For a paid post, you can place the paywall partway through so free readers see a preview, and you can offer a free trial on that paywall. Keep your first posts free, though. Two or three free posts published before launch day give new subscribers something to read immediately, and they give you proof of what the publication actually is before anyone is asked to pay.

If you cover more than one topic, create Sections under Settings. Each section is its own newsletter at yourname.substack.com/s/section-name, and subscribers choose which ones they receive. You can also attach a podcast to a section and publish it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast apps from the same dashboard.

How Do I Get My First Subscribers on Substack?

Your first subscribers will almost certainly be people who already know you, so start with your own network before you chase Substack's discovery tools. Send a personal email to friends and colleagues, post the launch on the social accounts you already use, and add your Substack link to your bios. A personal note converts far better than a mass announcement, because the first hundred subscribers come from trust, not algorithms.

Substack Recommendations

Recommendations are the strongest growth tool inside Substack. In your publication's navigation, open Recommendations, add publications you genuinely respect, and write a short note saying why you recommend each one. Your picks appear to new subscribers right after they sign up, on your homepage, and in digest emails, and the writers you recommend are prompted to recommend you back. The Recommendations tab also shows how many free subscriptions each recommendation has sent you, so you can see which partnerships are actually working.

Substack Notes

Notes are short posts — text, links, images, or quotes — that appear in the Substack app's Home feed for your subscribers and the wider network. Unlike posts, Notes are not emailed, so you can publish them as often as you like, including restacks of other writers' posts. Treat Notes as the daily conversation around your publication and posts as the weekly substance: a Note can point at a new post, share one idea from it, or start a discussion that becomes your next post.

Turn on the subscriber referral program under Settings and Growth as well. Paid publications start with default rewards of complimentary paid subscriptions at 2, 10, and 25 referrals, while free publications set their own rewards. Outside Substack, the strongest signal is links: get your publication linked from other sites, guest posts, and your social profiles, and embed the sign-up form on any website you already run.

When Should I Turn On Paid Subscriptions?

Turn on paid subscriptions only once you have readers who would miss your posts, because a paywall on a publication nobody reads yet just hides your best work. Until then, leave Pledges on: they are on by default for free publications and let readers promise to pay a suggested price, with no charge until you actually enable payments. Pledges are a useful signal — a growing pledge count tells you readers are ready before you commit.

When the time comes, the steps are: go to Settings and Payments, click Connect with Stripe, and complete Stripe's identity and bank details. Then set a monthly price (minimum $5) and a yearly price (minimum $30), optionally add a founding member plan priced above the yearly one, and toggle Enable payments. Readers only see paid options after that toggle, and price changes apply only to new subscribers, so existing readers keep the price they joined at.

Payments land in your bank through Stripe, usually within about 48 hours of each transaction. One setting deserves attention before you switch on: Boost, in Settings, lets Substack show automatic discounts and offers — by default a 20% discount to engaged free readers — which lowers what each converted reader pays. Check whether Boost is on before you judge your first month's earnings.

What Does Substack Actually Cost?

Starting a Substack, publishing, and emailing any number of free subscribers costs nothing. Costs begin only when readers pay you, and three charges apply to each payment: Substack's 10% platform fee, Stripe's card-processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30, and Stripe's 0.7% Billing fee for recurring payments. A custom domain is the only optional extra, at a one-time $50.

The table below works out what a writer keeps at two common monthly prices, using those October 2026 fee rates. The fixed $0.30 per payment is why very low prices hurt: it eats a much larger share of a $5 payment than of a $15 one.

The yearly row shows the trade-off clearly: a yearly plan costs you only one $0.30 fixed fee instead of twelve, but it pays out less per reader over the year than twelve monthly payments from a reader who stays. Monthly earns more per loyal reader; yearly locks a reader in for twelve months. Neither is wrong — pick monthly if your content rewards staying, and yearly if you want cash up front and fewer cancellations to manage.

Readers can also subscribe inside the iPhone app, where Apple's fee applies and in-app prices are adjusted upward by default to cover it. Fees and minimums change over time, so check Substack's help center before you set prices rather than trusting any guide's figures, including this one's.

Substack vs Ghost vs WordPress: Which One Fits?

Substack is the right choice when the newsletter itself is the product and you want the built-in network to help find readers. It is the wrong choice when you need a full website, a store, plugins, or full control over design and revenue — and knowing which side you are on saves you a painful migration later.

The break-even logic is simple: Substack's 10% is cheaper than a flat fee while your paid revenue is small, and more expensive once it grows past the point where 10% exceeds a flat monthly price. Ghost suits publishers who already have an audience and want to keep every dollar of subscription revenue. WordPress suits anyone who needs a real website — pages, a store, memberships, or custom functionality — and our guide to using WordPress walks through that setup. Many writers end up running both: a newsletter on Substack for reach, and a blog on their own domain for search traffic they fully own.

Should I Use a Substack Custom Domain?

A custom domain is worth it once your publication has an identity readers recognize, and not before. Connecting one costs a one-time $50 under Settings and Domain, and it must be a subdomain such as www.yourdomain.com, pointed with a CNAME record to Substack's custom-domain target. Without a custom domain, your posts build substack.com's authority in search rather than your own, which is fine while you are small and a real cost once you are established.

Two honest caveats come with it. First, emails still come from your substack.com address even after you connect a custom domain, so the domain changes what readers see on the web, not what lands in their inbox. Second, a custom domain does not fix Substack's search limits on its own — if search traffic on your own domain is the goal, a self-hosted blog is still the stronger tool, and our best cheap web hosting guide ranks hosts by what you pay over three years, not just month one. Before you buy a name for the domain, check what it costs with a domain price checker so the renewal price does not surprise you later.

What Is a Realistic First-4-Weeks Plan?

Most beginners fail on Substack by publishing once and waiting. The plan below is the minimum that gives the platform something to work with: setup in week one, a small body of posts by week two, growth tools switched on in week three, and a review in week four before any paid decision.

What Mistakes Do Substack Beginners Make?

The most common beginner mistake is ignoring Notes, because Notes are the platform's daily discovery feed and posts alone grow slowly. The second is launching with a single post and nothing else for visitors to read. The third is turning on paid subscriptions before anyone has asked for more, which hides your work behind a wall nobody is pressing against. The fourth is importing a list of people who never opted in, which hurts deliverability for every real subscriber. The fifth is never exporting the list: Substack lets you export your full subscriber list and your posts at any time, and a monthly export is the habit that makes your audience genuinely yours, whatever happens to the platform.

One more trap is worth naming plainly. Substack is a newsletter platform, not a website builder, a store, or a course platform: you cannot sell one-time products, courses, or downloads through it directly. If selling products is the goal, pick a platform built for that instead of bending Substack into a shape it was never designed for.

Sources

Fee, price-minimum, custom-domain, import, and growth figures in this guide were checked against the following pages during writing in October 2026: the Outrank step-by-step Substack guide (updated October 19, 2026), which documents the current menu paths, the $5 monthly and $30 yearly minimums, the 10% platform fee, Stripe's 2.9% plus $0.30 and 0.7% Billing fees, the one-time $50 custom domain, and the referral rewards; Substack's own support guide "How can I publish on Substack?" (updated August 17, 2026), which documents profiles versus publications, the publisher dashboard, subscriber export, pledges, and Recommendations; and Substack's features page, which confirms the 10% share applies only to paid subscriptions, custom-domain support, CSV subscriber import, and full data export. The take-home figures in the cost table are the author's own calculations from those published fee rates, and fees should be re-checked in Substack's help center before setting prices.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Substack free to use?

Yes. Creating a publication, publishing posts, and emailing any number of free subscribers costs nothing. You only pay when readers pay you: Substack keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue and Stripe charges its processing fees, and a custom domain is an optional one-time $50.

How do I start a Substack from scratch?

Sign up at substack.com, create a publication with a name, subdomain, and one-line description, write your About page and welcome email, then publish a first post that explains what readers will get and how often. Add two or three more free posts before you announce the launch, so new visitors find a publication rather than a single post.

Can I leave Substack and take my subscribers with me?

Yes. You can export your full subscriber list, including email addresses and subscription status, and your posts as CSV and HTML, at any time. Export monthly so your audience stays yours even if you later move to another platform.

What is the difference between Substack Notes and posts?

Posts are the newsletter itself: they are emailed to subscribers and published as web pages. Notes are short social posts in the Substack app's Home feed; they are not emailed, so you can publish them as often as you like to start conversations, share ideas, and point readers toward your posts.

Should I choose Substack or WordPress for my newsletter?

Choose Substack if the newsletter is the product and you want its built-in network to help find readers. Choose WordPress if you need a full website with pages, a store, plugins, or full design control, and accept that finding readers is then entirely your job. Many writers run both: Substack for reach and a self-hosted blog for search traffic they own.