Substack

Substack is a publishing platform where a writer can start a newsletter and charge for it. The platform handles the website, the email delivery, the payment, and the subscriber list, and it takes a cut of subscription revenue rather than charging a monthly fee. The model is the reason it grew. A writer does not pay for software before earning anything: publishing is free and the platform's revenue comes from the subscriptions it processes. Paid and free subscribers can be on the same list, and a post can be public, free to subscribers, or paid-only. The tradeoff is control and portability. The audience lives on Substack's network, the design is largely fixed, and the platform's recommendations surface other writers to your subscribers. Writers who want a custom domain, their own design, and an exportable list sometimes move to self-hosted publishing software.