Substack
Summary
Email and web publishing with a focus on monetization.
Type of organisation: Privately-owned company (or group)
Market share: One of the leading products (#3-7)
Pricing: Free-10% cut of subscription revenue
Factors driving pricing: More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic)
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: Yes, sign-in compulsory
Type of organisation: Privately-owned company (or group)
Market share: One of the leading products (#3-7)
Pricing: Free-10% cut of subscription revenue
Factors driving pricing: More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic)
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: Yes, sign-in compulsory
Pros
Transparent pricing model
Releases new features regularly
Clear data policies
Cons
Lacks accessibility statement
Does not share diversity data
Full Product Data Collection
Data collected January-February 2020
| Product name | Substack |
| Product URL | https://substack.com/ |
| Parent organisation | N/A |
| Workflow category | Publishing & distribution |
| Date product founded | 2017 |
| Product description | Email and web publishing with a focus on monetization. |
| What type of company or organisation is the product owned by? | Privately-owned company (or group) |
| Is the company profit-making? | Cannot determine |
| How is this product funded? | Subscriptions, VC investment |
| What market share does the tool have? | One of the leading products (#3-7) |
| Is there an Open Source alternative in this product space? | No, not with the same combination of publishing tools and monetization. |
| When did the company last release new features? | Feb-2020. New commenting functionality |
| Have they shared details of the product roadmap? | No |
| Is there talk of the product raising further investment? | No |
| Is there talk of the product being acquired? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy business issues or challenges in the last 12 months? | No |
| Is there a pricing model listed on the website? | Yes |
| How clear & transparent is this pricing model? | Very: full pricing listed |
| What is the range of prices offered? | Free publications can use Substack for free. For paid publications, Substack charges a 10% cut of subscription revenue. In addition, there is a credit card fee of 2.9% plus 30 US cents per transaction charged by payments provider Stripe. |
| What factors drive higher pricing? | More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic) |
| What skills are needed to get this tool set up & usable? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| What skills are needed to USE this tool day-to-day? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| Does this tool use proprietary file formats for saving documents & outputs? | Defaults to common open standard file formats |
| Is the product reliant on 3rd-party APIs or interoperability to function? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy technical issues in the last 3 years? | No |
| How clear is the Terms of Service for users (i.e. publishing customers)? | Technical, legalistic TOS |
| Does the product have a data collection & usage policy on its website? (Can be a GDPR statement)? | Yes, comprehensive. |
| Is their data policy “GDPR everywhere”? | No GDPR policy information available |
| Does the product require your audience to sign-in to use it? | Yes, sign-in compulsory |
| IF SIGN IN REQUIRED: Does audience sign-in use 3rd party platforms? | No 3rd party auth, just a user account |
| Does the public product website mention how to export or transfer your data to another service? | Only partial exports available |
| Does the public product website mention how to delete your data? | Only limited deletion available |
| Have there been any newsworthy security breaches with this product in the last 3 years? | No |
| Does the company have an accessibility statement on its website? | No / cannot find |
| Does the company release information on the diversity of the workforce? | No |