You’re Tracking the Wrong Substack Metrics, Here’s What Actually Matters

The difference between growth on paper and growth that actually gets you paid

Too many Substack writers obsess over the wrong numbers.

Every morning, you open your Substack dashboard and check one thing; how many new free subscribers did I get overnight?

It feels good. It looks like progress. But deep down, you know something is off.

I know, because for over a year, I did exactly this. I bought into the line that ‘growth’ was simply about collecting free subscribers. Then one morning, I realized my conversion rate was 0.5%, and I hadn’t added a Paid subscriber in weeks. Free subscribers were going up, but the number of Paid, the ones that actually led to revenue, weren’t moving.

All that changed when I got intentional about tracking metrics that tie to the outcomes I want. Since that day back in August when I decided I had to improve my 0.5% conversion rate, it’s gone up every month, and is now at 1.15%. My revenue has increased by 135% in that same time frame.

The crazy part? My subscribers have only gone up 11% in the same time period.

I was trying to improve the wrong metric. I was chasing the metric that was the easiest to grow instead of the one that was the most valuable.

Odds are you are doing the same. So today, let’s fix that.

Let’s walk through how Substack’s metrics actually work: What they mean, how they connect, and which ones deserve your attention if you actually want to make money here.

But before we dive into metrics-mastery, a quick note:
Today we’re talking only about the metrics tied to your posts; your publication itself.
We’ll talk about Notes in a separate deep dive later (because they behave differently and deserve their own strategy).

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The Basics

Substack’s metrics fall into three buckets, and each bucket tells you a different part of your story. If you understand these buckets, you’ll know exactly where to focus your energy instead of burning out:

Awareness — Followers, free Subscribers, and Views.
This is how people find you. Followers usually come from Notes; Subscribers are the ones curious enough to hear more; Views show you how many eyeballs actually hit your posts.

Engagement — Likes, Comments and Restacks.
These are little signals of trust.

A Like says, “I’m with you.”
A comment says, “You made me think.”
A Restack says, “I want my readers to see this, too.”
(Pro tip: Substack’s algorithm seems to favor Restacks the most.)

Monetary — Conversion rate, Retention rate, and number of Paid subscribers.
Conversion tells you how many readers are taking that leap from free to Paid.
Retention tells you how many stay when it’s time to renew.
Together, these are the two numbers that tell you if your Substack is a business, or a hobby.

There’s a few others floating around, but tracking these metrics will be enough to get you started.

How Metrics Are Linked and Affect Each Other

The metrics buckets are linked to reader behavior. Awareness leads to Engagement which leads to Money.

This helps visualize the flow. Awareness comes first. Once someone is aware of you, then they can Follow you and begin to interact with you. That leads to Engagement, deeper levels of engagement could include subscribing, commenting on and liking content.

Increased engagement and interaction leads to understanding, which leads to trust. That leads to free subscribers converting to Paid (if possible), and Paid subscribers have a higher likelihood of advocating and promoting the creators they subscribe to.

This is the flow you should follow if you want to make money from your Substack. And even if you don’t want to make money from your Substack now, that could change in the future. It’s one thing to say you don’t want to monetize when you have 50 subscribers, but when you get to 500 subscribers, your opinion may change.

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Which Substack Metrics Should You Measure?

I started this post by putting the types of Substack metrics into buckets. This was intentional, because I wanted to organize the metrics by function, because you will want to measure them that way.

You will also want to prioritize the buckets. My priority for Backstage Pass is:

1 - Monetary (Conversion and Retention Rates)

2 - Awareness (free Subscribers and Views)

3 - Engagement (Comments, Likes and Restacks)

In general, I want to convert the free Subscribers I have into Paid, and I want to maintain a level of Awareness with the general userbase on Substack. So I measure my free Subscribers, the percentage of these free Subscribers who convert into Paid, and my number of Views.

That’s pretty much the only metrics I look at. Why don’t I spend much time on Engagement metrics? Because I spend a lot of time proactively engaging with other users and my readers via Notes, their posts and my own. So the engagement takes care of itself.

Truth be told, I spend more time with my current readers than attempting to acquire new readers. And I try to spend the most time with my Paid subscribers. I try to help them first, which leads to a higher Retention Rate, and also leads to them being more likely to promote me to their audiences. Additionally, it helps me understand how I can better serve my Paid subscribers, which also positively impacts my Retention Rate.

This is exactly what I teach and model for my Paid subscribers in every Paid post at Backstage Pass. We dig into what’s working, what’s changing, and how to turn those metrics into money, without burning out or guessing. If you’re ready to start treating your Substack like a business, come join us.

As you can see, all of these actions are related: Engaging with other users leads to converting Followers into free subscribers. Engaging with free Subscribers leads to converting them into Paid subscribers. Engaging with Paid subscribers leads to them re-upping and leads to them giving me valuable feedback on how I can better serve them.

The Substack Platform Rewards Relationships

Regardless of the metrics you track or the reasons, it’s worth understanding that Substack rewards relationships. The users who are willing to put in the effort to directly engage with other users will convert those users into both readers and Paid subscribers.

Those who aren’t willing to build relationships with their audience, will find a much harder time growing on Substack. That’s just reality. You have to put in the work to interact with people where they are: Reading Notes or reading their posts on their Substacks.

If you stay locked on your Substack waiting for strangers to come engage with you…well that’s a recipe for much slower growth. My advice is to dive into Notes, meet new friends and find new publications to subscribe to. If you are tactical, and strategic, you can grow your bank account, social circle and happiness all at the same time.

Mack

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Backstage Pass teaches you how to better connect with your customers, readers, clients, or donors. The lessons shared here draw on my experience over the last 20 years building customer engagement strategies for companies like Adobe, Dell, Club Med, Ingersoll-Rand, and countless others. I give you real-world research, examples and tactics that show you how to create customer engagement efforts that drive real business growth.

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