GTM Sauce

B2B2C · paid newsletter publishing

How Substack grows

2 tactics from 1 interview.

About Substack

What it is
Newsletter publishing platform giving writers payments, analytics and email delivery for paid subscriptions
Who it's for
Writers and creators running paid newsletters; their readers pay
Business model
take rate on writers' paid subscriptions
Pricing
Writers set their own price; optional founding member tier where readers fill in their own price

As described in the interviews, not independently verified.

Substack's 2 tactics

Substack · B2B2C · paid newsletter publishing

Offer a top tier where fans choose their own price
Many fans pay well above the regular price

Substack newsletters have a founding member tier where subscribers fill in their own price above the retail price, capturing the top ~1% of fans with higher willingness to pay.

Workedpricing
Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2023-09-06

Substack · B2B2C · paid newsletter publishing

If your retention beats your peers by a lot, raise your price
Some writers keep 90% of subscribers after a year yet never change price

Substack runs business reviews with writers covering retention, growth rate and other health metrics against peers. When paid retention is far above peers (some writers retain 90% after a year), the message is 'your health metrics are too good': the product is likely underpriced or the writer is not pushing growth hard enough. Many writers set a price long ago and never revisit it. Host's counterpart: at ~20% annual retention (median ~30%), don't raise price on existing subscribers.

Unknownpricinganalytics-attribution
Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2023-09-06

Topics

Pricing a subscription app2Price tests and price increases1Attribution and ad signal engineering1

Interviews