Product news for writers: Improved analytics, new payment methods and sharing tools

Learn about the new tools we’ve built for writers

At Substack, we believe great writing is valuable. We’re focused on building simple tools that allow you to grow your audience and earn an income directly from subscribers, on your own terms. Learn about the new tools we’ve built for and with writers below. 

Please chime in, in the comments section, with your feedback.

Measure your growth, engagement, and reach

Smart data gives you the insights you need to make informed decisions about what you publish, how you share it, and when. Our new stats updates will help you double down on what helps you grow your audience and revenue. 

New post stats

• Post stats help you understand the reach, engagement, and growth performance of each unique post you publish. In our new post stats, charts showcase post performance compared with past posts and how your post performs over time. Visit the posts page in your dashboard and click on any post to see the three new tabs alongside the overview tab.

• “Reader sharing” Stats tab. This new tab gives you visibility into who of your subscribers are helping you grow the most by sharing. Filter the table by time range, or the number of new free or paid subscriptions they generated from sharing your publication or posts. Then select any number of subscribers and email them directly. Visit your Reader sharing stats.

• The network tab offers more specific source insights. Of note, more than 25% of all Substack subscriptions originate from the Substack app. Visit your network stats. 

Earn money for your writing 

Few things express trust in media better than a paid subscription. Here are some tools we’ve built recently to help writers supercharge their paid subscription strategies and earn more income.

Local currency pricing

• Local currency pricing. When prices are displayed in their local currency, subscribers are more likely to upgrade to paid, and writers earn up to 10% more revenue. Now we automatically present subscription prices in each subscriber’s local currency, supporting 12 different currencies.

• Paid subscriber messages. New paid subscribers are now prompted to leave the writer a message when upgrading to a paid subscription. We hope to make these messages more valuable over time, including making them shareable or easier to use as testimonials.

• Founding tier tools. The founding tier allows your most passionate readers to buy a subscription at any price higher than the annual plan. Now it’s easier than ever to communicate perks directly with your founding members with a custom welcome email that new founding tier members receive upon upgrading or to publish a page visible only to founding tier members.

Grow your audience

We’re introducing new shared video, audio, and image assets, as well as a powerful new subscriber referral program. We’ve added these new features to your toolkit to help make marketing your publication online as powerful and easy as possible. 

Visit the new share center from the three dot menu of any post. Download images for socials, including Instagram, and generate a shareable video using text from your post and your own voice (example below).

• Improved shareable assets. We’ve added new ways to create shareable images or videos of any post in just a few clicks. Instantly share to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Notes, or LinkedIn with new image dimensions, including Instagram stories, for each platform, showcasing your work. After you publish a post or from the three-dot post menu, you can “view shareable images.” You can also create a shareable video of a favorite section of your post (now in beta). Highlight text, select AI voiceover, or record your own voice, choose your style, and then share. 

• Subscriber referrals are helping writers bring in thousands of new subscribers a day. Publications with free or paid subscriptions can reward subscribers for spreading the word about their Substack through referrals. When writers announce referrals to their subscribers, like Luca Rossi and Leslie Stephens did, they have seen more than twice as many subscriptions from shares. Turn on referrals.

Connect to podcast listeners directly 

Over the past year and a half, we’ve been quietly building tools for podcasts to evolve and flourish here that are fueled by direct relationships with your listeners, who reward you for content they love. 

New audio transcription tools

• The flexible audio paywall allows you to share the majority of an episode with the public while keeping some bonus content for paid subscribers only.

• Audio transcription tools. Our new transcription tools use cutting-edge AI to automatically generate podcast transcripts and create social sharing assets. 

In case you missed it

For more information on the new and improved tools and features, visit the links above. We hope you give them a try.

As always, please feel free to leave feedback and ideas in the comments.