[DAY1] Free vs. Paid Newsletters
One of the questions I often hear from people in my Substack community:
Should I run a free or a paid newsletter?
Substack writers are mostly split into two camps—those who swear by free newsletters and those who champion paid ones. Both have strong opinions about why their approach is the “right” one.
Not me.
I love to test and learn.
My tests prove one thing:
It’s not EITHER/OR!
You can (and should) do both.
I run a paid newsletter on Substack, and I became a bestseller in just three months. But I also believe in the power of free newsletters. Both have their place, and both can help you monetize your Substack.
Let me break it down for you.
Free Newsletters
Why Choose Free?
Simple & Easy: Free newsletters are straightforward. You write, grow your audience, and build trust.
Monetizatize from day 1: Even without a paywall, you can monetize right away through:
Selling digital products (like courses and ebooks)
Affiliate marketing
Sponsorships
Faster growth: Free newsletters tend to grow faster on Substack, especially if you’re active on Substack Notes (the social media of Substack). And if you have a solid portfolio of offers, you can easily grow to 6 figures in just a few months.
The Downsides:
Needs constant creation of new offers on top of your content: Selling the same digital product to the same subscriber gets tricky after a few attempts. You need to build a new offer (ideally) every month to maintain a 6 figure revenue and grow from there.
More sales skills required: You’ll need strong marketing and especially copywriting skills to continuously sell digital products. And there's the additional effort required in building the digital products, setting the landing pages and building the sales funnels.
Against Substack’s business model: Substack thrives on paid subscriptions, so there’s always a risk they might limit free content distribution in the future (just a hunch).
Paid Newsletters
Why Choose Paid?
Aligned with Substack’s model: Substack’s tools are designed to support paid subscriptions, and the platform prioritizes features that help you grow a paying audience. It's the best place to grow a paid newsletter, because Substack specializes ONLY in that business model, so the tools and features are state-of-the-art. Substack literally helps you sell more subscriptions.
Your content Is the offer: With paid newsletters, your content itself becomes the product. You don’t need to constantly create new offers—you can even build digital products in public, one piece at a time. You can write a book or build a course chapter by chapter and paywall it.
Long-term income: Paid newsletters compound over time. With each new subscriber, your recurring revenue grows.
The Downsides:
More Complex: Running a paid newsletter is running a business. But not any kind of business, it's a subscription business. One of the most complex business models. Yet, one of the sweetest and most lucrative ones because of the faulty belief people will continue to pay indefinitely. You’ll need to keep providing tangible benefits to your subscribers (e.g., tools, guides, case studies). And you need to retain them (no need when you sell one-time offers). You need to build relationships.
Takes Time: Paid newsletters don’t scale overnight. You’ll need patience to see the compound effect. You don't get to the 6 figures fast, but rather steadily.
So, What’s the Best Approach?
Do both.
Here’s how I see this:
Run a paid newsletter:
Your core content goes here, and it’s where you focus your efforts.
Provide additional tangible value for your paid subscribers, like templates, tools, or exclusive workshops.
Work with your free subscribers as if you run a free newsletter:
Sell digital products or affiliate offers to your free subscribers (I give exclusive discounts to my paid subscribers)
Use free content to funnel readers toward your paid subscription.
Automate:
Import automatically all your Substack subscribers to Kit (or other EMS)
Set up email funnels to upsell free subscribers on your paid offers and make money on autopilot!
Essentially you monetize the same content many times:
you write a book or build a course one chapter at a time and offer it to your paid subscribers.
when ready, you create the digital product and sell it to free subscribers.
sell your product to other platforms like Amazon and Gumroad.
It's the core concept of any online content business: Repurpose. Repurpose. Repurpose.
Voila!
You’ve got the best of both worlds!
What’s Next?
Tomorrow, we’ll dive into an even bigger question: How to find your niche.
Because whether you’re running free or paid, choosing the right focus for your newsletter is the first step toward long-term success.
See you then, Yana
P.S. If you need help with crafting your Substack strategy, join my paid community and get a free 30-minute strategy call with me, where I'll personally help you figure this out.
P.S.S. I still haven't announced this yet, so you're the first to know: I'm deep-diving into these (and some more topics) about Substack, compiling them into a flagship course, called Substack Quest - where you'll have everything in one place. All my strategies, case studies and tools I use to achieve these results. Once I complete it, I'll increase the price (currently just $5/month (paid annually)). Upgrade now and secure your spot at this low price forever!