How to Monetize Your Substack and Launch a Paid Tier
Let's make some money on Substack!
Most writers on Substack ask, “Can I actually make money here?”
The better question is:
“Am I willing to build a revenue plan?”
Substack is not a lottery ticket.
It’s not vibes.
It’s not “post consistently and hope.”
It’s a business model, if you decide to treat it like one.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the exact framework I used to 10X my revenue in six months. Not because I’m special. But because I stopped winging it and started designing it.
First, we’ll build your revenue plan.
Then, I’ll show you how to structure a Paid tier that supports it.
If you’re willing to think intentionally, you can make money here.
Let’s dig in!
How to Make Money on Substack
Before we talk tactics, we need to talk math.
How much do you actually want to make?
Not “a little extra.”
Not “whatever happens.”
Pick a number. And give it a deadline.
Then give it a reason.
“I want to make $500 a month” is vague.
“I want to make $500 a month by July to cover groceries so my salary can go toward savings” is powerful.
Money without meaning doesn’t motivate.
Money attached to something real does.
Now we turn that number into a plan.
There are three primary revenue channels on Substack:
Paid subscribers. This may be the easiest one for most of you, since it’s built into Substack and you can launch a Paid tier (more on this after the paywall) and offer Paid subscriptions in just a few minutes. The downside is that it can take a while to make serious money from Paid subscriptions, and if they are your only revenue channel, even longer. Keep in mind that your Annual subscriptions you will get the entire amount upfront, the monthlies will be paid monthly. So you will need to focus on managing churn for both types of subscribers, but moreso for monthlies.
Digital products. This is probably the second most popular revenue channel on Substack. Substack doesn’t have this as native functionality (yet), so you will need to find another place to facilitate the sell of your digital products. Gumroad and Stan Store are popular options. I believe Skool is another, but that’s more for Courses ( Christine Mortensen correct me if I am wrong). Finn Tropy is an example of someone who does a great job of selling digital products on Gumroad. What products can you sell? PDFs, templates, courses are all options. These give you additional flexibility in generating revenue, but the problem is you are counting on people to leave Substack and go to another site to complete purchase. You will always have some level of leakage when you ask someone to buy from you on another site.
Sponsorships. This channel is a bit different in that you are recruiting potential sponsors to work with you. So you will need to convince sponsors based on certain metrics like your number of subscribers, your views, your open rate, and other engagement metrics. Nika Kotláriková is someone who is already doing a lot with sponsorships. Substack is currently piloting a program that would help facilitate sponsorships for creators, here’s how you can prepare for this:
There are some other options such as tip-jars, Buy Me a Coffee, etc, but those really aren’t a sustainable source of revenue for most of us.
Now here’s where most people stop.
They say, “Okay, I’ll try some paid subscribers.”
That’s not a plan.
A plan sounds like this:
“I want to make $5,000 in 12 months.”
Break that down.
How much comes from Paid?
How much from digital products?
How much from sponsors?
For example:
$2,500 from Paid
$2,000 from digital products
$500 from sponsorships
Now it’s concrete.
Now you can reverse engineer.
If you’re adding 2 Paid subscribers a month, don’t assume you’ll suddenly add 100.
But could you go from 2 to 6?
Probably.
If you’re selling $25/month in products, could you get to $150 with one new offer?
Possibly.
When you break your revenue goal into channels, it forces realism.
And realism builds momentum.
Substack is not about hoping people upgrade.
It’s about designing revenue intentionally.
Clarity creates confidence.
Confidence creates action.
Action creates income.
The Secret Lever You Can Pull
Now let’s have some fun! So returning to the previous example of wanting to make $5,000 over the next 12 months. Let’s say you have worked out which revenue channels and which amounts you will need to hit $5,000 revenue:
Paid subscriptions will account for $2,500 (roughly 40 monthly subscribers at $5 each).
Digital products will account for $2,000 (roughly $175 a month)
Sponsorships will account for $500. Two sold for $250 each.
So there’s our plan, the revenue channels we will use to hit $5,000.
Here’s the secret lever you can pull: 10X the amount of revenue you need. Instead of shooting for $5,000 over the next 12 months, see if you can hit $50,000!
“What??? Mack I could barely figure out how to hit $5,000, there’s no way I can reach $50,000!”
How do you know? Repeat the exercise you just did to break down how you could earn $5,000, and do it over for $50,000.
Why? Because picking a larger amount will force you to expand your thinking about how you could make money on Substack. If you needed to raise $50,000 this year, how would you do it?
What will likely happen is, trying to hit a much larger dollar amount will lead you to connect some dots and coming up with some additional revenue options that you weren’t considering when you ‘only’ needed to come up with $5,000.
I did this same thing. Last August, I was creating a plan for how I could raise $100,000 in a year. I picked that number cause it was crazy big, and I started fleshing out how I could hit that revenue goal.
God pushed me to shoot for $500,000. What???? That’s insane, I can’t hit $500,000???
I started thinking about how this could logically work. At the time, I had 1,200 free subscribers and 6 Paid subscribers. Up until this point I had been thinking about how I could grow faster by getting more free subscribers.
Then I realized…I’m only getting 6 paid subscribers for every 1,200 free subscribers. I would need tens of thousands of free subscribers to make any serious revenue.
But then I thought wait a minute…what if I switched my focus and stopped looking to grow free subscribers, and instead built a strategy to improve my conversion rate? That’s when it hit me: I had 1,200 free subscribers now, if I converted 10% of my current subscribers, I could get the first level Bestseller Badge without adding any more subscribers!
By focusing on improving my conversion rate, it suddenly unlocked my ability to make far more revenue than I would have. Since focusing on improving my conversion rate, my revenue has increased tenfold over the last 6 months.
But I didn’t think to shift my focus, until I pushed myself to shoot for a much higher revenue goal.
We often set goals for ourselves that are simply too small. We need to dream bigger and we need to expect bigger. Push yourself and try to 10X your revenue goals and see what you come up with!
How to Build a Paid Tier For Your Substack
Now let’s shift gears and focus on how you can set up a Paid tier. I know this is a topic that many of you are interested in.
When should you set up your Paid tier? When’s the best time? How much should you charge? Let’s talk about it…