When new readers sign up for my Substack, I ask a question in the welcome email. It asks what they’re struggling with as a writer. Those emails are often fodder for my writing, especially if I see the same question repeatedly. A lot of people tell me their struggle is finding time to write. Me, too. I can never find any time, I have to make it. It’s what we humans do. We make time for what’s important to us.
There’s a funny question that’s been floating to the top a lot lately and it’s this. Which is better, Medium or Substack? If you’re also been wondering that, I understand. But also? It’s kind of the wrong question, so I want to talk about that.
There’s a handy little website called Similar Web. It lets you look at the statistics and performance of any site they’ve tracked. So let’s start there.
In terms of sheer traffic, Medium is the hands down winner…
In the last 3 months, 506.7 million visits to Medium and 177.9 million to Substack. On a month to month basis, Medium gets almost triple the traffic Substack gets.
So when you hear people scream that Medium is dead? Nope. It’s not. An individual writer struggling on Medium does not mean Medium is dead. It just means people aren’t reading what that writer is writing. Very big (and important) distinction there.
Medium and Substack are apples and oranges…
I keep seeing people comparing Medium and Substack and that’s a fundamental mistake. Yes, you can write at both sites. Yes, you can earn money at both sites. But functionally? What they offer is entirely different and you’re going to have a very bad time trying to grow at either if you don’t understand the differences.
On Medium — Members sign up and pay Medium a monthly fee to read all they want. Those monthly fees go into a pot to pay what needs paying, from staff to writers. As a writer, you build a catalog of writing and get paid primarily based on member reads, although there are other factors that affect pay. For example, payout rate is higher on boosted stories than non-boosted. Pay rate is also higher if the reader is a friend of medium paying the higher monthly rate.
On Substack — Members do not pay Substack. There is no pot writers get paid from. If you get paid, it’s directly out of the reader’s pocket if you enable paid subscriptions. Substack makes their income from you, not from readers. They take 10% off the top of paid subscriptions. For that reason, they give more exposure to paid subscriptions in the Substack network because that’s where they make their money. Doesn’t matter if you’re good or not. If you charge, they will give you added exposure because they want 10% of your fees.
Five critical differences
While you can “get paid to write” on both sites, there are some critical differences.
You can make consistent income on Substack in a way you can’t on Medium.
Statistically, Substack says 5.7% of readers, on average, will pay. That said, there’s one Substacker with 117K subscribers, but under 200 paid. But, averages exist for a reason, so you can math accordingly. The only fluctuations with the Substack model will be paid members signing up, or members canceling subscriptions. But as a rule, you’ll have a pretty good idea how much you’re earning every month by watching the number of paid subscribers in your dashboard. On Medium, there’s no dashboard telling you how much you’re going to earn this month. As if. lol
You can hit the jackpot on Medium in a way you can’t on Substack
I’ve had stories that earn $50, and I’ve had stories that earned thousands. That can be a new story you just wrote, or an old one that takes off for some strange and unknown reason because the universe is weird. Last week my top read story was a history piece I wrote over two years ago. There are no viral paydays for a good story at Substack. A viral story might bring you more paid subscribers, but then it’s on you to retain them. At Substack, you plod along, adding subscribers one by one and watching your income in your dashboard. On Medium, pay is not a constant, but surprise wins are possible and really nice when they happen.Substack is more niche oriented, Medium is more story oriented
On Substack you’ll do better if you stick to a niche. On Medium, that’s less of an issue. I write in four different niches on Medium. History, women’s issues, book reviews, and personal essays. That’s harder to do on Substack. Both platforms allow you to “tag” individual posts, but on Substack you also assign tags to your publication. And, if you check the leaderboards, all the top paying Substacks are very niche oriented based on tags assigned to the Substack publication.On Substack, you have to sell yourself
On Substack, you are your own little Medium. It’s your job to get people to sign up, pay their dollars, and keep good content flowing so they keep on paying and don’t cancel. But that’s not on a pool of writers like at Medium. On Substack, that’s on you. On Medium, you don’t need to sell anyone, it’s Medium’s job to get people to sign up and pay. If you write good stories that gets boosted, Medium will send you traffic and you get paid based on reads, not selling subscriptions.It is easier to build a list on Substack
For some odd reason, people are much less likely to give you their email address on Medium. On Medium I have over 40K readers, but only 1K email subscribers. On Substack, every person who subscribes is an email address. So if you’re looking for list building, that happens faster on Substack.
So if you’re wondering which is better, neither. It depends on what you’re looking for. It’s not about better. It’s about suitability for what you’re trying to achieve.
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The most common problem…
Medium has been around much longer than Substack. So writers who “used to” do well on Medium when it was a much smaller place often get disgruntled and stomp away to Substack screaming that Medium is dead, Medium sucks, boost sucks, etc.
The hate, anger and disgruntlement creeps into feeds everywhere, on Medium, on Substack, LinkedIn, Facebook, everywhere you look and it makes new writers wonder what’s true, what to believe, which site is “better” and unsure of where to write.
Here’s the fact. Writing is a tough industry.
According to BookScan, 99% of books published sell under 5000 copies.
At Amazon CreateSpace, 85% of books sell under 200 copies.
Magazines that pay writers reject roughly 90% of submissions.
At Fiverr, roughly 90% of writers make under $100/month.
At Medium, roughly 90% of writers make under $100/month.
I don’t know the numbers at Substack, but can’t imagine it’s much different.
Here’s where writers go wrong. Too many dive in excited and when they don’t get results, they go look for tips and advice. How convenient that so many people are happy to give that advice. Unfortunately, it seldom helps. You know why, right?
Because writing about how to make money writing in a world where half of people don’t have a thousand dollars in the bank is an entirely different animal than writing personal essays or poetry. What do you think they can teach you? Seriously.
I know a writer who used to write the most beautiful essays. Guaranteed boost every time. Now that writer is pushing money buttons. Which is — whatever. We all have to decide what we’re okay with to pay the bills. But if you really want to write poetry or essays? Those people have no idea how to make money doing that. What they know is how to make money and build a following writing about making money.
If any one of those “money” writers started a new account under a pseudonym and didn’t tell their followers, and wrote what you wrote, poetry or personal essays or whatever you’re writing, they’d struggle just like you are.
You want to learn how to get better results? Look up the people who are doing well at what you want to do. On Medium, scroll the /latest feed in the publications you write for. Look to see what’s floating to the top. On Substack, spend some time in the leaderboards. Learn from people doing what you want to do. Not from people who aren’t doing what you do and are just pushing your money and failure buttons.
As writers, it’s easy to blame a platform. Amazon sucks. Publishing sucks. Medium sucks. Magazine suck. Everything sucks. Blame, blame, blame. That gets us nowhere. If other people are making a decent income writing and I’m not, the bottom line is that I am the problem but the good news is I am also the solution. It’s on me to figure out what I’m doing wrong.
There’s a concept in gaming I really like. Level up. Sometimes, that’s what we need to do. And it’s not easy. But it’s absolutely worth it. No matter where you write.
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This was a long post. If you found it helpful, I’d love if you’d clap, comment or restack.
And if you made it to the bottom, I’d love to know what you think.
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