Substack if you want to build an audience you actually own. Medium if you want to write into an existing readership without managing any of it yourself. The right choice depends on one thing: do you want a business, or do you just want to write?
If you've Googled "substack vs medium" while staring at a blank document — you're not alone.
Both platforms exist to help people publish words on the internet. That's roughly where the similarity ends.
What Substack actually is
Substack is a newsletter platform. You write, people subscribe, and emails land directly in inboxes. There's no feed, no algorithm deciding who sees your work, and no platform loyalty required from your readers — they just need an email address, which everyone has.
Is Substack free? Yes. Creating a newsletter costs nothing. Substack takes a 10% cut only if you turn on paid subscriptions. If you never charge anyone, you never pay anything.
The trade-off: Substack has almost no built-in discovery. You start at zero subscribers and build from there, mostly through your own promotion. But what you're building is a list of people who specifically chose to hear from you — not readers the algorithm temporarily lent you.
What Medium actually is
Medium is a publishing platform with a built-in audience. Articles sit on the site, get picked up by Medium's editors and recommendation engine, and can reach readers who've never heard of you.
The Medium Partner Program pays writers based on how much time paying Medium members spend reading their work — a passive earning model that rewards a strong back catalogue.
The catch: you're building on rented land. Medium's algorithm decides who sees your work. Medium's policies decide what can be published. And your readers are Medium's subscribers first, yours second.
How the two platforms compare
| Substack | Medium | |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | You build your own audience | Platform surfaces your work |
| Audience ownership | Full — email list is exportable | Rented — readers stay on Medium |
| Monetisation | Paid subscriptions (you set the price) | Partner Program (reading-time based) |
| Income stability | Predictable once subscribers are paying | Variable — algorithm-dependent |
| Platform cost | Free (10% on paid subs only) | Free to publish; $5/mo to read all |
| Community | Notes, recommendations, cross-promos | Publications, tags, editorial curation |
Substack vs Medium vs WordPress
If you want total control — your own domain, your own design, your own rules — neither platform gives you that. WordPress does. But WordPress also means managing hosting, plugins, and email deliverability yourself. Most people are better served by starting on Substack or Medium and worrying about custom infrastructure later, if at all.
How to make money on Substack
You turn on paid subscriptions, set a monthly or annual price, and readers who want more access pay for it. Substack handles all the billing. The model works best when you publish consistently and give paid subscribers something worth the cost — a longer essay, a back catalogue, early access, a community thread.
It's a subscription business, not passive income. Some writers do very well. Most make a modest amount that grows in step with their consistency.
What writers who've used both actually say
Writers who've worked extensively on both platforms share a consistent picture.
Anshul Kumar spent years publishing 600+ stories on Medium — earning roughly $15,000 through the Partner Program — before shifting focus to Substack. His conclusion: Medium rewards volume and algorithm-friendliness; Substack rewards depth and direct relationships. Medium's per-read payouts have also fallen sharply in recent years, while Substack income, once built, stays predictable.
Writer Linda Caroll, in her direct comparison on Substack, describes a telling case: one writer spent six years building 80,000 Medium followers — then spent a single year on Substack and came away with 20,000 subscribers, 1,000 of them paying. The Medium numbers looked bigger. The Substack ones were worth more.
The Write Build Scale newsletter documents a frustration many Medium veterans recognise: the algorithm has changed dozens of times since 2018, and traffic that feels reliable can disappear overnight with a policy shift. On Substack, algorithm changes are irrelevant — emails land in inboxes regardless.
A common strategy that's emerged from the writing community: publish free or teaser content on Medium for discoverability, then route interested readers to Substack for the deeper work. Medium as top-of-funnel, Substack as the relationship. Matt Giaro covers this hybrid approach in detail — it's where many writers who want both reach and ownership have landed.
Who is each platform best for
Substack is the better fit if you…
- Have a specific niche, topic, or perspective you return to consistently
- Want predictable income from a direct subscription model
- Already have an existing audience to seed with — an email list, social following, or community
- Want to own your reader relationships, not borrow them from a platform
- Are willing to promote your own work to grow
Medium is the better fit if you…
- Want to write occasionally without managing a subscriber list
- Are still finding your voice and value built-in discoverability
- Write on broad-interest topics that can find readers organically
- Want passive income from a back catalogue without active subscriber management
- Are primarily interested in writing, not platform-building
The one question that actually decides this
Do you want to write for readers, or build an audience?
Medium is genuinely good for the first thing. If you want to publish essays and have some people find them — without building something with a business model — Medium is low-friction and has real discoverability.
Substack is for the second. If you're writing to build a relationship with a specific group of readers over time — and ideally make money from it — Substack is the structure that makes that possible.
Neither platform is better in the abstract. They're just aimed at different ambitions.
Pick the one that matches yours. Then stop Googling and start writing.