Medium vs Substack:Which is better?
which writing platform is better for you?
Substack: A blog publishing platform with built-in newsletter, podcast, and chat functions.
Medium: A social blogging platform with an extensive internal audience.
When starting a writing career online, how do you decide between Substack and Medium?
Even though both platforms make it simple to get started, there are some significant distinctions between them.
In general, Medium can be a wonderful option if you just want to write and like the concept of accessing Medium’s built-in audience (rather than establishing your own separate audience). Substack is a better option if you want to build your own audience and monetise through subscriptions.
You can make money writing on Substack.com and Medium.com, however the two sites are significantly different from one another. What distinguishes Substack from Medium, and which will help you earn the most money?
Overview of Substack
Substack is more recent than Medium in terms of website age. Christ Best, Jairaj Sethi, and Hamish McKenzie established Substack in 2017 with the intention of providing people with an alternative to conventional blogging platforms.The entire premise of Substack is that email marketing can be used to generate income. You can fast earn money if you can attract plenty of subscribers to your email newsletter.
Additionally, Substack profits more from your success. As a result, your objectives coincide with those of the platform. Using your Substack newsletter, you could even encourage users to visit social media sites.
PROS:
- Usefulness: This platform is really simple to use. You may easily include photographs and audio files in addition to writing your message using drag and drop features. You can generate a professional newsletter in no more than a few minutes.
- Experience: To write a newsletter, you don’t need any prior experience. Only those who read your newsletter are the ones you need to care about persuading. They are free to sign up and then cancel at any time. Your newsletter can make you a sizable sum of money if readers are interested in it.
- Flexibility: You are free to write about anything. It doesn’t matter as long as the reader finds it appealing! Writing topics include magic, technology, business, and many others.
CONS:
- You Need an Audience: Starting from scratch to establish an email list might be time-consuming. You won’t earn any money if there isn’t a market for your job
- Fees:There are numerous fees that you must pay. For instance, Substack keeps 10% of your money, Stripe may take 3% each credit card transaction, and Substack may add $0.30 to each transaction. After that, you must pay income taxes. This quickly adds up.
- Lowest Subscription Cost: The minimum monthly charge to view your newsletter is $5, which can be a substantial barrier for readers.
Overview of Medium
Ev Williams launched Medium in 2012. This blogging platform has grown to be one of the most popular choices for new enterprises and content marketing. The Medium Partner Program is made to assist content producers with digital marketing by taking care of content administration and rewarding authors for time spent reading high-quality content.
Numerous businesses have started using the platform to produce articles as a result of the platform’s recent strong growth. Even their whole current blogs have been transferred by several websites to Medium. Is this the appropriate platform for you, then?
PROS:
- Audience:There are many readers on the platform. Every month, more than 100 million people read the content on Medium. As a result, this is a fantastic opportunity for you to increase your audience and expose your material to a global audience.
- Accessibility:Utilizing the platform is quite simple. Making an account just takes a few minutes. After that, you can draft and post a new article. Publishing on Medium is simply as simple as publishing on WordPress.
- SEO:If you post on Medium, SEO is not a concern for you. Once you post your work, the platform will handle all of this for you. You would have to do the SEO on your own if you choose to maintain the content on your own website.
- Images and Media:You can choose to include pictures and videos with your published work. This might enable you to improve the appeal of your content.
- Money:Popular authors can earn three, four, or even five figures a month through the partner program. CONS:
- Little to no customers:It does not necessarily follow that visitors to Medium will also visit your website. You do not own the traffic that goes to your post on Medium. Some of these visitors might go to your website, but the majority are not likely to go to your own website.
- Competiton:It could be difficult for you to distinguish yourself from the other authors on Medium because there are already a lot of people who publish there. Your revenues may suffer if readers merely skim over your content for a short while.
- Partner Program:The partner program regularly changes it terms.
Main Difference Between Medium and Substack:
- If you are looking to build your brand through SEO, then Medium is the better option. Even though Substack has gotten better with the option to add a custom domain, Medium is still significantly better than Substack.
- The two platforms’ business models are totally dissimilar. If you use Medium, you will be compensated based on how long readers actually spend reading your material. If you use Substack and have access to a subscription-based business model, Substack will charge a fee of 10%. What you’re charged with is under your control.
- The better choice for this is to become a Medium writer if you’re seeking for a means to enhance your blogging presence. Your web visibility will increase because of its significantly increased domain authority. You also get access to other tools that you can use to promote your blog and increase traffic.
- As many businesses have their own blogs on Medium, it’s also a terrific place to network with other authors and business people, especially those in the startup and personal development industries. Joining the Medium Partner Program and beginning to receive payment for your work just takes a few minutes.
Finding the best platform for you should be possible if you consider these distinctions.
Conclusion
After evaluating both platforms It’s time for my verdict, Why not……Both! Here’s why.
Both Medium and Substack have advantages and disadvantages that the other does not. You need to adjust your writing strategy in light of these advantages and disadvantages in order to make the most of both for optimal productivity.
Since Medium’s algorithm is better at bringing content in front of new readers, for instance, I intend to publish more educational content (like this essay) on Medium in order to reach a larger audience. And since Substack is more conducive to building audience loyalty, I plan on publishing more personal stories
It’s also no secret that by publishing more extensively across more platforms, you boost your chances of connecting with more readers. Over the past few months, I’ve come to the realization that I want to develop both my writing ethos and my consistency as a writer.
To put it simply, I want to make my writing more accessible to as many individuals as I can. How else would you expand your presence, I suppose? The days of debating whether or not to press the publish button are long gone. Let’s welcome the new era.
Disclaimer: This is merely my opinion; after reading the aforementioned essay, you are free to form your own judgment.
I am MUSA AYAZ. I write about poetry, tech, business and self-improvement, and interesting trending topics to revolutionize writing in a way you have never seen before.
Runner up on Promptly Written Poetry Competition (2023).
Follow me: Medium.com/@musaayaz
E-mail me: [email protected] for work.
My previous article: https://readmedium.com/why-failure-is-essential-to-success-1c4e36e54925?sk=1ff837bb1621b68d2fabc1763c3bb788
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