Substack
Newsletter platform with paid subscriptions and recommendations between authors. Free to start; the author keeps 90% of revenue, minus credit card fees.
Sending a newsletter and collecting subscriptions can be done with Ghost or listmonk plus Stripe, without the 10% commission. What you lose is the core of Substack: the recommendation network and the app that bring new readers, and managed sending with no deliverability worries. If your audience already comes from you, replaceable; if you count on discovery, not.
What you lose
- Recommendations between authors and the reading app that bring subscribers
- Managed sending, with no deliverability tuning
- Ready-made subscription payments
Existing alternatives to Substack
- GhostOpen source
Publishing, newsletters and paid subscriptions, with no commission on your revenue (MIT).
- listmonkOpen source
Self-hosted newsletter manager (AGPL); sending goes through an email service of your choice.
The prompt to build it yourself
Set up a self-hosted paid newsletter to replace Substack. Do not build a platform: deploy Ghost, which handles publishing, subscribers and paid subscriptions. To do: - A docker-compose.yml with Ghost and MySQL, volumes in ./data, automatic restart. - Caddy in front, automatic HTTPS on my domain. - Email sending through a transactional service that I will give you (keys in .env), with SPF, DKIM and DMARC checked. - Stripe connected for paid subscriptions, in test mode first. - Import of my subscribers and articles from the Substack export. - A nightly encrypted backup copied off the server, with restore.sh and a restore test. Out of scope: recommendations between authors, mobile reading app. README: launch, import, update, restore, and a reminder that I lose Substack's discovery effect.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Substack be replaced by a custom-built tool?
- casevibecode verdict: Partly replaceable. Sending a newsletter and collecting subscriptions can be done with Ghost or listmonk plus Stripe, without the 10% commission. What you lose is the core of Substack: the recommendation network and the app that bring new readers, and managed sending with no deliverability worries. If your audience already comes from you, replaceable; if you count on discovery, not.
- What is Substack used for?
- Newsletter platform with paid subscriptions and recommendations between authors. Free to start; the author keeps 90% of revenue, minus credit card fees.
- What alternatives to Substack already exist?
- Ghost (open source), listmonk (open source). Options to compare before committing to a custom build.
Community feedback
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