Upgrading Substack’s recommendation network

The best way to grow just got better

Two years ago, we launched a feature called Recommendations that gives writers the ability to recommend publications to their subscribers. Today, Recommendations, along with the Substack app, powers a network that drives 50% of all new subscriptions and 25% of new paid subscriptions on Substack. Lenny Rachitsky, who writes the top publication in Substack’s Business category, has called the feature a “total game changer.” 

“IMHO it’s one of the most impactful growth features in history,” Lenny wrote. 

In its short life, Recommendations has become an indispensable part of the Substack network, which in recent months has swelled to more than 3 million paid subscriptions to writers and creators. 

Now we’re taking Recommendations to the next level, expanding its reach and giving writers the ability to curate their own “scenes” on Substack. Starting today, the improved feature lets writers introduce more publications for their readers to subscribe to, recommend people to follow in the Substack app, and give readers instant access to a network of the voices they most trust.

This peer-to-peer system of trusted endorsements represents a step forward, and away, from an era of social media that has been overwhelmingly based on centralized discovery and control.  

What’s in the box?

Readers will see recommendations from a writer during the subscribe flow for their Substack. After subscribing and choosing a paid plan, they’ll be presented with a screen that allows them to opt in to a package of people to follow and Substacks to subscribe to based on the writer’s recommendations. 

In previous versions of this screen, a reader would be presented with a maximum of three publications to subscribe to, even if the writer recommended more. Now they will be able to see a list of as many publications and profiles as the writer considers worthy of attention. 

In the near future, writers will be able to customize these lists of recommendations, building scenes that people can dive into so that their readers can experience Substack through their eyes. 

Readers can select or unselect the people and publications they are most interested in or aren’t yet interested in. The reader’s feed in the Substack app, and on substack.com, will then be instantly populated with notes and posts from the people in that network. 

Part of the magic of Recommendations is that writers can build up goodwill with other writers by helping them grow, and with readers by helping them curate a worldview. With these upgrades, writers will have even more power to introduce readers to their corner of Substack and get more credit for doing so. Through Substack’s analytics, we’ll show writers how many subscriptions and follows they have driven for people in their network. 

We hope that by encouraging people to help each other find new audiences, we can continue to nurture a “goodwill growth loop” that fosters a symbiotic media ecosystem. 

What’s to come

We strive to design Substack so that it can be a place where writers can grow their reach while holding on to their editorial dignity. Writers shouldn’t have to compromise the integrity of their work just to get clicks. The same ethos holds true for the scenes that people hang out in online. We want everyone to have the power to curate scenes to which they’re proud to introduce their subscribers without having to worry about conforming to an unwinnable attention game. We think these improvements to Recommendations help writers and readers find that sweet spot. 

Early data show that this approach to Recommendations increases both the number of subscriptions that Substacks enjoy and the number of followers that individuals get, helping them amass large audiences that serve as a base for ultimately finding new paid subscribers.

We will take an iterative approach to rolling out these new features, with the basics available to everyone starting today. We’ll be listening closely to feedback and will keep improving these features as we make the recommendation network central to Substack’s new economic engine for culture. We see tremendous potential for the recommendations network to evolve and expand in the months ahead. 

Stay tuned for more!