I am an almost daily user of Substack. I’ve created on the platform since 2022 and I’ve actually made money on the platform. I co-host a fabulous weekly livestream on the platform called “Shh, We’re Talking” with two friends who are incredible co-hosts: Angela Hollowell founder of Melanin MVP and Please Hustle Responsibly and Corey Gumbs founder of The Black Podcasters Association and the Blk PodNews Industry Newsletter. I truly enjoy the incredible work that creators share on the platform and love that it’s a great space for long-form content creation. Written work, art, community spaces and more. So why on earth did I decide to slow down my monetization strategy that I had been leaning into for the past couple of years. What happened? I even have a course called “How to Make Money on Substack” that I’m absorbing into a new product with a broader focus. I plan on taking the word “Substack” out of the title. By the way, I’m focused on making money on the platform again but I’ve totally changed how I plan on approaching the process in 2026.
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Become a Creator Getting Paid
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Show Notes
I was happily building my newsletter on Substack and really enjoying the organic growth. I loved that other people were recommending my work, that I could download my list and all of the amazing creativity on the platform. There were other things that I loved about the platform such as the ability to record video or audio in your content, the amazing people that I could collaborate with and the way that I my project made money-especially the first year being on the platform. But as I grew my Creators Getting Paid I started to notice some things that I was concerned about and couldn’t quite put my finger on. In fact, I found myself asking what’s going on?
- Why were bigger creators than me crashing out wildly in frustration and leaving Substack with an anger that I’d never seen on other platforms. They just seemed so betrayed. That’s the best word for it.
- The Paywall Feature-I began to feel like the language of only focusing on paywalls was inadverdantly keeping creators from developing other types of products on the platform. Paywalls work but I just felt like Substack wasn’t developing monetization tools to keep creators from needing to integrate other tools onto the platform.
- Customer service-To be honest, this became my biggest concern. What if I grew my project to multiple hundreds or more than 1,000 paying subscribers and I’m unable to speak with a human about my issues. I’ve lost count of creators becoming so frustrated with what they’ve expressed to be slow responsiveness to their behind the scenes issues. What I’ve noticed is that these creators are in the 10,000 or more subscriber range. I’m currently just under 5,000 subscribers. If I grow at the same rate that I did in 2025, I will hit 10,000 subscribers by the end of the year. I don’t want to crash out at the end of the year.
- Why can’t I schedule lives with my Android phone? Content is a big part of my monetization strategy.
Instead of making Substack “Wrong” and having all of these expectations of the platform that they weren’t going to meet, I decided to make some changes behind the scenes. YOU DO NOT have to make these changes. I do think, though, it’s important to pay attention and get ahead of some issues that could impact your business and brand as it grows. I also realized that the concerns I had aren’t unique to me, in fact, I see creator concerns on almost daily basis. It’s important to recognize that growing SAAS tool might not grow and make adjustments at the pace that you need it to and that’s ok. Initially, it was a little scary to slow down monetization on the platform (hey, I need money just like everyone else) Then I made my peace with this process and rethought my monetization strategy for 2026.
What I Decided to Do
- Doubled-Down on Growing My List-Specifically off of the Substack platform. I love the Substack eco-system but I think, no, I know the long-term health of my list depends on having a more focused growth strategy that relies on attracting community members off of the platform. A healthier list has higher click through rates, better responsiveness from the readers, higher opening rates and earns the creator more money in the long-run.
- Moved my list building focus-I’m integrating Beehiiv into my list-building efforts. All of my opt-in forms are now on the Beehiiv network. Want to try out Beehiiv, get 20% off the first 3 months of your subscription when using my affiliate link: creatorsgettingpaid.com/bee (please note that I may be compensated if you make a purchase using the link) I am not the only person integrating a tool that is better suited for newsletter behind the scenes. In fact, I think this will become increasingly more common as Substack continues to move towards a social media platform approach. I use Flodesk for my romance project the look of the emails is better for that type of project.
- I added a Stripe Donate Button-Another creator showed how to add a button that allows users to give their community members a donation option where they can choose the amount that they donate. Currently, this is not offered on the platform.
- Removed the PayWall-This took so much pressure off of me and made more sense as I added a product that I preferred people subscribed to. Don’t get me wrong, I would love for you to subscribe to Creators Getting Paid (the newsletter) but I added a new resource and built it off Substack on purpose. I share more details towards the end of the episode.
- Created Pretty Links and Will Be Adding QR images-And discussed them in livestreams, podcast episodes, social media and website show notes. I actually wanted to keep people from clicking off of the Substack platform-something that I’m sure they will likely penalize users from doing as the user project grows.
- Launching a YouTube Channel-I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile. I’ve finally decided to launch my channel and will be directing people to my list.
- Doubling down on Threads-I love using Threads. It’s a wildly unserious place making people a lot of money. This year I plan on bring Threads into my monetization and growth strategy.
Slowing down my monetization on Substack gave me the space to avoid the mistake of accidentally being 100% all in on the platform. This is not just specific to Substack. All third party platform have issues. I just kept seeing the same problems popping up from users who were ahead of me and I decided to avoid building in a way that would have me dealing with the same problems a year from now that they were dealing with currently. I paid attention. I’m looking forward to being on Substack and building in a way that has taken a lot of the expectations and pressures on the platform OFF of the platform. We’ll see how things go. I will say that I feel a lot more confident about
The Creator Income Collective
At the end of 2025 I quietly launched my new membership “The Creator Income Collective” the goal? Help creators make more money by being in community and learning how to better grow and monetize their lists. Members of The Creator Income Collective also gain access to the following resource: SUBSCRIBED-a growing list of creator newsletter or email lists that you can reach out to collaborate with if they say “yes” and your communities and projects align. Head to creatorsgettingpaid.com/membership to become a part of the community today. It’s purposely priced at $9 a month because I want this to be the easiest “Yes” you’ve said to a professional development tool for your online brand this year. Looking forward to meeting you!
