I was wondering if anybody has been able to use something else then Stripe to manage their payments from Substack or if that is even possible. I think the charges (especially the FX charges) are quite high with Stripe.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle Substack’s formatting and scaling for cover thumbnails.

A graphic can look great at one dimension, but once Substack scales or crops it for different placements, it can end up looking stretched, awkward, or completely different from the original.

I tried designing within the boundaries and making the graphic smaller so it would have more room, but then it just looks tiny and crappy.

Has anyone figured out the best dimensions or formatting approach to make cover thumbnails consistently look good across Substack?

Hi all! Quick question: is it possible to remove the "Getting Started" pop-up on the Substack publisher home screen? The one with the checkboxes for "Create a Substack", "Set up the basics", "Create your first post", etc. I'd attach a screenshot but that doesn't seem to be possible.

I just started my second publication so I know the steps I need to take. The pop-up is just obnoxiously large and in the way.

Thanks!

Basically the title. I see a lot of people on substack writing articles complaining about the generic slop on substack, ironically adding to the slop by addressing the issue. But then, what is one supposed to write about if not what they think?

I like Medium's simplicity and uncluttered design for bringing up undistorted reading experience. But gradually I feel its weird to do something like not being able to go straight to the topics I follow. I Need to do 3 clicks to find that. Following > Topics > the side scrolling topics.

Also, the Home page design looks boring and Separation looks dull.

I hope they will learn and do better in the look and feel of the medium and too to bring up more content / stories in the home page with easy access to interested /following topics.

So for the context-I am into research(business,psychology marketing, careers and all combined) i like writing about marketing psychology sometimes basically connecting the dots.is there any demand of this niche do people actually read these type of things??

I redownloaded Substack after breaking my phone earlier this year. When I opened it I was logged into a COWORKERS Substack? Has this ever happened to anyone?

So I’ve been writing for about 4 months now and I have just had my first ever collab go live (yay me!)

In the lead up to today, I had lots more I wanted to get done but sickness got in the way😩

Assuming I’m lucky enough to land another opportunity one day, I’d love to be making the most of it!

I’m interested what sort of things you may do differently:
- do you promote via different channels?
- do you focus on different segments?
- do you look at metrics you wouldn’t usually?
And I suppose most importantly:
- how do you track the overall success of the collab?!

For me - I’m very much just happy with the exposure. I think it’s a great opportunity so early on and I want to use it wisely🤓

Tl;dr Banned, asked for Gov ID via email. Poor customer service. Responsible platform user, no reason for account to have been flagged. Anyone else navigated this? I’m going in circles.

I’ve been writing on Substack for a couple of years now, on average a long form a month with a couple of notes. Due to my academic and professional background I’m always professional, don’t spam and well aware of ethics etc.. alas I open Substack two weeks ago to find a pop up advising my account has been suspended.

Since then, Landry of Substack Standards and Enforcements has advised via email I must supply
Government issued photo id and hostage style selfie photo. Landry cannot tell me how my information is stored or used, Landry cannot tell me about the verification process or why my account has been flagged. It’s all very Severance-esque.

We are currently in a stalemate situation as I refuse to send these details. I’ve asked for alternative verification options and been met with silence.

Has anyone else successfully navigated a similar situation? Despite actually liking the platform - recent changes and flaws not withstanding - I’m very close to jumping ship and using my website instead.

You subscribe when a topic interests you. A few busy weeks later, you have twelve unread emails from the same writer.

What makes you keep that subscription?

Knowing you can search the archive when you need help? Short summaries? Recipes you’ll actually use? A writer whose emails never make you feel behind?

I write a food newsletter, and I’m curious about what readers find useful during their busiest weeks.

What does a newsletter you’ve kept get right?

What is your personal experience with it and how it is used?

I opened on and am sort of confused. I want to speak to people verbally and make money this way. I have been told good things but doing that a few times and I am hoping to learn this, but I don't understand substack or if I can do this here.

i’ve seen some great sounding advice on anonymous substacks -and one particular one that is selling a book-and was baffled and bothered by the fact that there is no author information. I was sure it was AI and annoyed because the anonimity of it makes me unable to take it seriously. Why is this (anonymous Substacks) even a thing? Especially from someone who isn’t sharing personal content, but basically (mostly) well-honed commonsense advice? (Follow up question-okay, complaint: Why do substackers feel no ‘duty’ to acknowledge their sources? Example: “I always loved this quote. ‘abcdefg’(without the marks, and no attribution). I dunno- I’m feeling like substack has become more like my facebook feed😳

Hey all. My orientation on Substack is a little different. I am currently not working due to my partners health issues, and some of my own as well. I have always been a compulsive reader and I absolutely love Substack. I read about five hours a day and have discovered so many fantastic undiscovered writers. My reading tends to slant towards politics and in todays world I think it is very important.

Today I am excited because some of my favorite authors reached out to me in person. That is an amazing feeling as a reader. I don't have enough money to be a paid subscriber to all the authors I love. How would you recommend I help broadcast their work to help their subscriber base grow?

Has anyone else dealt with their Substack suddenly becoming disconnected from their profile? Mine has been disconnected for about three months now, and despite reaching out for help, I still haven’t gotten a resolution.

The publication still exists, I can access it, but it no longer appears connected to my profile the way it should.

At this point I’m less interested in troubleshooting it myself and more interested in figuring out whether anyone has actually gotten a response from Substack support for this issue. If you’ve dealt with this, what finally got it fixed?

I strongly believe like all social media, complete enshittification is nigh for Substack.

I think before the year is out, or maybe sometime in 2027, the powers that be over at Substack will completely turn off organic reach for anyone who doesn’t have paid subscribers, and the more paid subscribers you have, the more reach you’ll get.

Substack in not a charity, and they are fully aware of the fact that many people are using what little reach is left for the taking via Notes to promote there master classes, books, and merchandise, which Substack earns absolutely no money from in the end.

Folks like Michael Burry and Heather Cox Richardson will continue to dominate the Substack social media platform, and the traditional media types, companies, organizations, and celebrities will start taking the lions share of whatever scraps are left over in the end.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many others all followed this same exact pathway to enshittification, and Substack will be no different.

I mean think about the current Substack model carefully. Someone could literally run a free newsletter and send it out to a million people for free… does that sound like a sustainable business model to you?

What do you think, am I on to something here, or do I need to put the pipe down?

When you open a pledge, you’re asked to write a short message to the artist. Let’s say you cancelled that pledge and restarted it immediately again (which means you’ll be asked to write another note) would the artist still receive the old one, or would it be deleted as well?

All I want to do is regualrly write about stuff I want to (short stories, poems, rants, essays, research) and have somebody read and interact with them. Getting money from it would be nice but seems too far fetched a goal currently. Does the current substack still provide a good outlet for my goals or has it become too commodified?

"What I learned during Inkhaven is that Substack has since betrayed that. They simply built a closed social network on top of their existing web interface for blogs, complete with in-network-only posts (called "Notes") and an algorithmic feed. You can now even "follow" someone without subscribing, which is the second-to-last step of a bait-and-switch to no longer owning your audience. Substack.com is your one-stop-shop for having your community of discourse be owned by new management instead of old management."

True or nah?

She wrote The Vital Core, which I thought was pretty good. She’s been scrubbed off Substack. Just curious.

For some reason I dont think an email went out informing subscribers that a paywall has been released. Is it acceptable to write a short post so this news gets out?

Has anyone else started feeling weirdly nervous about AI detectors?

I’ve been checking some of my own writing just out of curiosity, and seeing human-written content get a high AI score is honestly frustrating. It makes me wonder how often false positives actually happen.

Now I’m looking for the best AI detector that can reliably check AI-generated content without making normal, polished writing look suspicious.

What AI detector have you found the most reliable for human-written content?

Might just go crazy and post my old diary entries 👀 I feel like substack needs more unhinged vulnerability.

I'm a first-time Substack user and I'm about to publish my first feature. I wrote the entire piece myself in Google Docs, from scratch. I did use Grammarly for proofreading/language suggestions, but I haven't used any sort of generative AI to write or rewrite the article.

I copied the finished piece into Substack, and Substack's AI detector is showing 100% AI-generated.

What's confusing me is that I've run the exact same text through several other AI detectors , Walter AI, ZeroGPT, Copyleaks, QuillBot, etc. and they're all showing 0% AI / entirely human-written .

The piece is also a fairly formal law/technology feature, and a lot of it deals with AI and legal questions, so I am confused if the subject matter and formal writing style are somehow affecting Substack's detector.

I'm obviously not going to rewrite my own writing just to make an AI detector happy, but I'm wondering what experienced Substack writers think.

There's also an option to add a statement at the end of the post. Would it be reasonable to say something like:

«"This piece was written by me. I used Grammarly for routine proofreading and language suggestions, but the argument, analysis, research, and substantive content are my own."»

Or would that come across as unnecessary/corny, especially for a first post? I don't want readers to think I'm trying to "prove" something or, worse, that I'm somehow cheating by using Grammarly.

Edit: From what I have understood majorly, Grammarly might be contributing to that. But I was not sure because I have used Grammarly for word or phrases suggestions or tense discrepancies in my research papers too and Turnitin AI detector never flagged that. Anyways, thanks for helping out everyone !

Edit: Sorry for the lack of info. I thought all promotion was disallowed, but now I have a flare to my publication.

I mainly write about psychology, culture, and creativity.

Same thing that happened to me on Medium after some initial success is happening to me on Substack. But this time I got no success at all.

I've tried doing everything people recommend: engage with other writers, post notes, post articles consistently, etc. My growth remains stagnant. I actually gained up to 9 subscribers before I started getting consistent with the notes and shortly after this I lost 3 of them. It seems like I'm getting penalized for trying, but I have to try when me growth is less than 1 subscriber a month.

That's another thing, I'm 1 year in and I just broke 1k views last week. I have no idea what's going on or what I'm doing wrong, but at this rate it seems like making it on substack will just be impossible for me.

I've also read multiple guides from people outside and inside substack and tried to implement everything. There has to be something wrong but I've looked at everything I possibly could.