Substack is often filed under “newsletter platform,” but that undersells what it has become: a hybrid owned-audience engine with built-in social discovery. Buffer’s The Weekly Scroll has grown past 92,000 subscribers since moving to Substack, and the team’s updated guide makes one point clear: this is now a content system, not just an email tool.
For marketers and D2C founders, that changes the calculus. Instead of renting reach from a social feed, you can build an exportable subscriber list while still getting discovery through Substack’s public Notes feed.
Why the subscriber-follower split matters
Substack draws a hard line between subscribers and followers. Subscribers get your posts by email; followers only see your Notes in the app. Both are useful, but only subscribers are an asset you can export. The play is simple: let Notes introduce you to cold audiences, then convert that attention into email subscribers you own.
Four content surfaces, one flywheel
Substack gives you four ways to publish:
- Posts: the core email and web format, including audio, video, and a podcast RSS feed.
- Notes: a short-form public feed similar to X or Threads, where non-followers can discover your ideas.
- Chat: subscriber-only conversations that live in the app and on your publication page.
- Live: scheduled or instant video streams for everyone, all subscribers, or paid members only.
Substack is free until you switch on paid subscriptions. At that point it takes 10% of subscription revenue, with Stripe processing fees on top. You can paywall entire posts, previews, Chat threads, or Live sessions.
Where the growth actually comes from
The guide is blunt: most early growth happens inside Substack, not from sharing links elsewhere. Two levers do the heavy lifting.
Recommendations work because Substack can offer your publication to another writer’s new subscribers, and vice versa. Several creators interviewed for the guide called this their biggest single source of new subscribers.
Notes work because the feed surfaces content from writers you do not follow. A useful observation, a single tactical idea, or a quote from your latest post can travel further than a link. Restacking other writers’ Notes with added commentary also increases visibility.
Lade Falobi, who writes Marketing for Geeks, put search on the list too: “I wish I’d known to optimize for search earlier.” Substack articles can rank on Google, but only if you fill in the SEO title and description on every post.
What to do before you publish
Do not start with a blank profile and one post. Spend about an hour on setup so first-time visitors see a real publication.
Fill out your profile and publication details, choose a category, and write a one-line description. Rewrite the automatic welcome email and ask a reply-worthy question to boost deliverability. Connect Stripe now even if you are not charging. Import any existing email list so you do not start from zero. Publish a short welcome post and a first Note before your regular cadence begins.
Then pick a niche you can describe in one sentence and a schedule you can sustain. The guide recommends starting slower than you think you can manage. Consistency builds habit; quality prevents churn.
Think of Substack as an owned-audience flywheel. Notes and Recommendations create discovery, your publication converts that attention into subscribers, and email gives you a direct line to the people who matter most. Paid subscriptions can come later, once you know what your audience values.
Source: Buffer: All-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses
