A new view for leaderboards
A powerful way to track success and discover standout publications
For many publishers, landing on one of Substack’s leaderboards has opened the door to new subscribers, unexpected collaborations, and meaningful recognition of their work. Today, we’re expanding leaderboards in the Substack app to drive the discovery of even more voices across the platform.
Two ways to track success
Leaderboards bring the Substack ecosystem to life by helping writers and creators find new subscribers, potential collaborators, and inspiration. Audiences, meanwhile, can browse the leaderboard to discover compelling new voices. The leaderboard design makes subscribing easy, with a “+” icon next to each publisher’s name for one-click subscriptions.
Leaderboards can be accessed via the category tabs at the top of the Notes feed in the app or by clicking on the leaderboard ranking listed on a publisher’s profile. Each category features two distinct views:
Rising: This new view highlights the fastest-growing publications within a category based on paid subscription growth. This tab helps emerging writers and creators get discovered by surfacing what’s trending across Substack.
Top Bestseller: This view highlights the highest-earning publications in their category, ranked by annual recurring revenue (ARR). It recognizes the consistent effort, quality, and subscriber loyalty required to build a sustainable, high-revenue business on Substack.
Digital development entrepreneur
writes the publication and was excited to see his new publication featured.“Seeing Career Pivot on a Substack leaderboard after just six weeks is both exciting and humbling,” he says. “It’s a strong motivator to keep expanding my audience and delivering even more value to my subscribers.”
Currently, leaderboards exist for our most popular categories, though we may add more in the future. Publishers can update their category in their publication settings at any time.
Learn more: Choose a leaderboard category for your publication
A new way to break through
In addition to the two leaderboard views for each of our top categories, we’re introducing a “New Bestseller” tab that highlights fast-growing publishers who became Bestsellers in the past 30 days. Because it’s category-agnostic, this view surfaces a diverse range of voices and creators driving conversations across the platform.
Tools to help you climb the ranks
Landing on a leaderboard can come from steady growth or a standout moment—but sustaining momentum takes the right tools. To support you on that journey, here are some current and upcoming features designed to help you track progress, refine your strategy, and build a thriving publication.
Publisher stats
Publisher stats are now available from within the app, giving you a real-time snapshot of your overall performance. Stats for subscriber growth, total revenue, and post views from the past 30 days make it easier to understand what’s working and where to focus. And soon we’ll introduce a new metric to show how close you are to earning your first (or next) Bestseller badge.
Learn more: Publisher stats in the app
Detailed analytics
To go deeper, you can also view post-level stats for written and video posts and notes, tracking engagement, subscription impact, play counts, hours watched, and profile visits. These insights can help you identify high-performing content and double down on what resonates with your audience.
Learn more: Post stats and Notes stats
Title testing (coming soon)
Soon we will roll out title testing to all publishers on web, enabling you to try out different title and subtitle options on a portion of your audience and automatically send the top performer to the rest. This provides a way to boost open rates and increase engagement.
Looking ahead
These expanded leaderboards and new tools will allow us to feature a broader range of creators and publications than ever before. With dedicated views for rising stars alongside established bestsellers, audiences can discover more voices, while publishers of all sizes gain meaningful visibility.
We’ll continue to refine these features over time. If you have suggestions for improving leaderboards or other discovery tools, please let us know in the comments.
Download the Substack app to see the rising and established voices in each category, and what’s possible for your own publication.
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