How to Start a Paid Substack Newsletter and Reach 100 Subscribers

Substack is free to start and takes 10% of paid subscription revenue plus Stripe’s processing fee (2.9% + $0.30). You can publish a post the same day you sign up. The real decision isn’t the platform — it’s where you put the paywall, and most new writers put it too early.

What does Substack cost a new writer?

Nothing to start. No monthly hosting fee, no email send fee, no theme purchase. Substack’s cut is 10% of gross paid revenue, and Stripe takes roughly 3%. On a $8/month subscription, that’s about $6.90 in your pocket per paid reader per month.

Compare that with a self-hosted stack: email platform at $30-100/month, domain, and payment processing. Substack wins until you have real revenue, then the 10% starts to feel expensive. Break-even math: at $3,000/month revenue, the 10% is $300 — comparable to running Ghost plus ConvertKit yourself, with far more work.

Step 1: Pick a topic narrow enough to be referred to

“Writing about tech” is not a beat. “What AI coding tools actually cost enterprise teams” is. The test: can a reader describe your newsletter to a colleague in one sentence? If not, pick again.

You also need a posting rhythm you can sustain. Weekly is the standard, and weekly is harder than it sounds after week nine. Biweekly is honest for most people starting alongside a day job.

Step 2: Turn on payments, but keep a large free tier

In Settings > Payments, connect Stripe. Then resist the urge to make everything paid. The conventional and still correct structure:

• 100% of posts free for the first 6-8 weeks
• After that, paid posts every 2-3 weeks, free posts in between
• Never paywall the archive of your earliest posts

Paid conversion on Substack typically lands between 2% and 8% of free subscribers. A 5% rate is a good outcome for a niche publication with a clear value promise. Getting to 100 free subscribers before turning on the paywall is the threshold where conversion numbers stop being noise.

Step 3: Price at a number you’d defend out loud

Common price points on Substack: $5, $8, $10, $12 monthly, with annual at roughly 2 months free (around $80/year for an $8 monthly). Pick monthly in the middle of the range and annual at a 17-20% discount.

Cheap isn’t automatically better. A $5 newsletter can attract readers who churn on the first skipped week. $8-10 filters for intent and gives you room to add a paid tier later without a painful migration.

Step 4: Write the welcome email and the About page first

Both do more work than any single post. The About page converts visitors; the welcome email converts subscribers into readers. Substack sends a default welcome — replace it. Three sentences: who you are, what arrives and when, and one link to your best post.

You can edit it under Settings > Emails, and new subscribers get the new version only. Test by signing up with a second email.

Step 5: Get the first 100 subscribers without ads

Substack’s own recommendation network is the highest-yield lever available. Turn it on under Settings > Recommendations, add 5-10 publications in adjacent niches, and ask two to reciprocate. This alone can drive 20-40 subscribers a month once it settles.

The rest comes from places you already have standing: replying to a thread in a community you actually belong to, one post a month cross-posted to a relevant subreddit with real substance, and an email signature. Paid ads before 500 subscribers tend to buy the wrong readers.

What about Notes and the Substack app?

Notes work for writers who enjoy it. It’s a feed, and feeds reward volume. If you’ll post two Notes a day, it’s a real growth channel; if you’ll do it twice a month, skip it and put the energy into posts.

When is Substack the wrong choice?

If you need full design control, a paywall on a corporate site, or to keep your email list portable, Substack is a compromise. Your subscriber list exports as CSV, but the relationship lives on their platform and recommendation graph. Publishing companies and people with an existing WordPress audience often do better building on a platform they control, especially once revenue passes a few thousand a month.

Quick Summary

• Substack is free to start; it takes 10% of paid revenue on top of Stripe fees.
• Publish free for the first 6-8 weeks, then introduce paid posts every 2-3 weeks.
• Typical paid conversion runs 2-8% of free subscribers.
• $8/month with an annual option around $80 is a safe starting price.
• Recommendations and Notes are the two growth levers that cost nothing.