Where Substack is Headed in 2026

It may be a lot more chaotic than you realize

Over the next 2 years, I expect Substack will experience a growth surge that will create one of the best opportunities for creators to make money online that we have ever seen.

It won’t last forever, in fact the true growth window will last less than a year. But if you are positioned properly and can take full advantage of the growth surge when it arrives, you will be sitting pretty.

Why Is Growth Coming?

In July, Substack secured a new funding round of $100M. The dollar amount alone is impressive, but it was staked by a pretty solid group of investors. This news alone told me that it was time to double-down on Substack. Which I did, in August I basically tore apart my current Substack strategy and pivoted to focus strictly on helping creators on Substack make a sustainable income.

Honestly, it was one of the smartest business decisions I’ve ever made. If the funding alone wasn’t enough, now we have direct confirmation from Substack that growth is coming.

Last month, Hamish McKenzie said something remarkable that got surprisingly little attention. He said:

“I don’t see anything in the laws of physics that should prevent Substack from getting to more than 50 million paid subscriptions.”

Substack currently has around 5 million Paid subscribers. So Substack’s co-founder just said that the platform is headed for a tenfold growth surge. That’s what happened.

He’s also signaling what data Substack is seeing behind the scenes. The same data that investors no doubt saw before they signed off on last summer’s $100M funding round. That data is telling them that growth is coming.

Think about that 10X number for a minute. What would Substack look like over the next few years if Substack saw a tenfold increase in subscribers?

It would change everything. Some things would be great, others terrible. Either way, the coming 2 years will present massive opportunities for creators who are positioned to take advantage of them.

What Changes Are Coming This Year?

Ads are coming. We can debate in what form, but what is a near certainty is that brand-bought/sponsored content is coming to Substack soon.

This is just a reality of Substack receiving $100M in funding. Investors will want a return on that funding. This doesn’t mean that our feeds are about to become swamped with ads, although that is a possibility. My hope is that Substack may instead offer to help facilitate sponsorship options for creators. Or if ads do arrive, perhaps they will first be in the form of opt-in for creators with a revenue-share option.

The fact that we are now a few months removed from Substack closing its funding and we haven’t seen any ads yet is an indicator that Substack is being very thoughtful about how they integrate advertising into the platform. This is a very good sign.

The User Experience Will Change, Drastically

Unfortunately, growth isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. Growth will mean a flood of new users will be arriving here soon. And those users will be coming from other social platforms. And they will behave the same way here that they do on those other platforms now.

Expect a surge in troll behavior. A lot more arguments, a lot more bickering.

Over time, this may become too much for some, and they may decide to start spending less time here, or leave altogether. My advice is to become aggressive in policing your user experience as much as possible. Avoid topics you don’t want to see, block any trolls on sight.

Expect to see Substack continue to court ‘influencers’ from other sites. In fact, I could see a scenario where there becomes a sort of bidding war over top creators, with exclusivity requirements.

Keep an eye on Beehiiv in 2026. The odds are it will land another funding round. The general consensus is the funding round will be less than Substack’s $100M round. But if Beehiiv’s next round surpasses $100M, that is a strong indicator of the strength of the space that both Substack and Beehiiv are operating in. It could also alter Substack’s future plans if Beehiiv has more cash and can be more aggressive in how it positions itself compared to Substack.

How Should You Position Yourself Heading Into 2026?

Here’s what I feel will happen: I believe that soon, Substack will enter a window of very rapid growth, and that window will last for sometime between a few months to a year. I also believe we will enter that growth window sometime in 2026.

In general, it takes 6-12 months of writing on Substack before you can reach a point where you have landed on your content positioning and have a good grasp of the platform and how to build relationships and engagement here.

So if have already been writing on Substack for at least 6 months, you should be in perfect shape to take advantage of Substack’s growth window when it arrives.

If you currently aren’t writing on Substack, now is the perfect time to get started, so you will be up and running by the time the growth window does arrive.

When Substack starts growing quickly, it will be a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ scenario. You will very likely see your own personal growth here increase rapidly as well. You should expect your growth to move in tandem with the platform’s.

Which is why I want you to be in a position to take advantage of this coming growth.

This is why I doubled down on my content, conversion and engagement strategies earlier this year. Because it became obvious to me that we were headed to a pretty significant growth surge on Substack. Then the team landed that $100M funding round, and that was the final indicator I needed to go all-in on Substack.

At least for now. All platforms evolve, and there’s no promise that Substack’s growth opportunities today will also be here for the foreseeable future. Even if growth slows later, the gains you build during a surge tend to stick. Momentum compounds.

But we are on the cusp of a special moment in this platform’s lifespan. I am going to do all I can to take advantage of the growth opportunities that are about to become available, and I recommend strongly that you do the same. On that note, I will continue to share all I am building and learning with my Paid subscribers. Upgrade now so you can grow with us!

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