Why Substack is a Better Medium Alternative?
You can make a huge amount of money on Substack.
Substack is a writing platform but more inclusive, unlike Medium. I started my Substack newsletter some months ago with the intention of collecting from my Medium readers and sent them stories I published through Substack.
There are some writers on Substack that are writing long-form blog posts and they are doing it full-time in the US. Making enough money from writing online takes time and effort especially when you are living in the US. Substack give you the option of getting a custom domain and much more.
I have read an article about Casey Newton leaving “The Verge” for starting a Substack newsletter. That is where you understand the application of starting your own newsletter.
Substack Vs Medium: Is both writing platform co-exist for a writer:
Medium is a way different platform compared to Substack. Medium gives you the opportunity to write stories, publish them in popular publications aka Groups, Getting distributed in relevant topics reaching thousands of people. Substack has this little disadvantage of not built-in traffic.
As a Medium writer, you could choose to use their free services to build an audience on Substack and choose to send them your future Medium stories. Other Substack alternatives are either paid or you have to pay a certain amount of money after you cross a specific email threshold.
Can both writing platforms co-exist for a writer? I think Yes. If you are primarily publishing on Medium, you can publish that article on Substack too, the same way, if you are primarily writing on Substack, you can share your work with the Medium community too.
Content generation is hard but content distribution is easy.
The Business model compared:
Medium.com's business model is very simple. They have introduced a paywall for readers and if anyone wants to read, they have to pay $5 per month. Only stories of writers who are in the Medium partner program eligible for getting paid from the read time of those Medium members. This is the business model of Medium.
Substack’s business model revolves around the 10% charges they take from every transaction that happens between a reader and a writer.
Substack could make you more money compare to Medium.
On Substack, a paid subscriber can pay you from a minimum of $5-$10 per month to read articles of a single writer. This is huge as the more paid readers you get the higher will be your MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)
A writer who has 100 paid $10 subscribers will make $1000 a month. This isn’t the endpoint here, the more effort you put into creating the best of the content for your paid readers, the more you will see a huge surge in paid subscribers.
The future: Substack Vs Medium:
Substack recently introduced a custom domain feature which means now you can use all the infrastructure of Substack with your custom domain. A custom domain is an excellent idea especially when you are comparing Substack versus Ghost.
The future of Substack can be questioned with email newsletter are dying as too many emails on my inbox will mean that few will take my attention. But, with better education, more people will choose to stop unproductive emails and will organize their newsletter subscriptions in more intelligent ways, as we did the same for social media.
Medium has a high domain-authority which makes it the best candidate for writing stories that getting ranked on search engines, learning Medium SEO is recommended for any writer.
Substack is giving everyone the opportunity to make a blog and start posting content. It is way empowering for a writer and this is why Substack is a potential alternative to Medium. Substack could change the way we see the subscription business.
Independence on Substack:
On Medium, curation and getting published in the popular publication is everything controlled by other writers or humans. If your stories didn’t get distributed or getting published in popular publications then you might not reach a wider audience.
On Substack, there is independence. When there something that has more advantages, there is a high risk associated with it too. Substack is a more inclusive platform. You build yourself traffic on Google or build a content marketing strategy on social media. Every successful Substack creators I know are actually famous writers on Twitter, Medium, or Quora.
My Medium account was suspended but they later reinstated it because the system flagged my Medium account by error. While Substack is more of an independent writing platform. Your content will always be going to be there.
Substack is heaven for emails leads, Medium is heaven for search traffic
Substack is a free platform that offers you an opportunity to use it as a free email capturing and sending bulk email for free. No such platform can offer this opportunity to you. Mailchimp which is one of the modern Tech for email marketers allows you to sent bulk emails for the first 1,000 subscribers.
Medium which has a high domain authority, no ads to make your site load slow or almost nothing besides the content and rich media (If any) you can rank your articles on almost any topic if you properly optimize your content.
Lists: Why Substack is a better Medium alternative?
- Even though both the writing platform is free to use, Substack gives you an independent way of monetization and hosting your content. You can be sure that you will publish content on Substack for years. I love to write on Medium and share my thoughts because this is literally the single platform that suits me but if you look into the long-term, as a writer, you should miss the Substack shot.
- Writing online is a privilege. If you are a writer on Medium then you should write on Substack. One writing platform (Medium) brings you more traffic, other writing platforms (Substack) give you an opportunity to get email subscribers and make permanent readers.
- The monetization on Substack could be more fruitful for you as a writer compared to Medium. You can publish 4 stories a month on Substack and will make more money compared to your writing on Medium. The money on Substack takes time, while on Medium, you join the Medium partner program and start writing insightful posts and you will be started making money in the next two or three days.
- Substack is more personalized. On Medium, you pay $5 a month to read articles of thousands of readers. This is a revolutionary thing. On Substack, you pay that much amount of money to read articles of a single reader and that too is limited as the writer may publish single-story a week. But, it is more personalized or niche-specific.
- The branding power: Substack is a winner here especially when they announced a custom domain feature. Now, you can pay a one-time fee of $50 and connect a custom domain on Substack. If you are just starting out, I would recommend definitely go for the custom domain as this will increase your chances of getting ranked on Google and get more email subscribers.
More stories we published:
- How to make $300 a month writing on Medium?
- Substack Writing: How To Make Money Writing On Substack
