How Substack Growth Really Works
What I’ve learned after 10 months on the platform
Ten months ago, I started writing on Substack.
Why I started is a long story. The short version is: After years of silently lurking on social media platforms I just reached that tipping point and decided this was something I had to do.
I was tired of theorising. Tired of thinking. Tired of advice that sounded smart but never actually helped. So I wrote. I wrote about what I’d tried. What I’d failed at. What I believed in, even when no one was reading.
Now, 10 months in, I’ve grown to 3000+ subscribers and if you’re here to find out how this is for you. Because most of the growth advice you’ll hear doesn’t apply to people like us. People doing this in the margins. After work. On weekends. In stolen time.
We’re here to make something with meaning and to build slowly, like it matters. Because it does. I’m tired of watching talented writers burn out trying to mimic the posture of full-time creators who spend 40 hours a week polishing their brand.
You don’t need to post every day. You don’t need a niche. You don’t need a funnel, a Notion dashboard, or a 6-figure roadmap. You need a rhythm. A reason. And the courage to write things that won’t perform well, because it actually says something.
Hustle culture has infected creativity. It’s turned writing into content, and content into a commodity. If you’ve felt that pressure, you’re not imagining it. But there’s another way to grow. One that doesn’t burn you out or make you feel like a fraud. One that takes longer, but actually gets you somewhere worth going.
This is what’s worked for me. Not theory. Not tactics. Just honest experience, with practical steps you can try today.
If you’re at the beginning of your journey and feel stuck, unsure what to write about, or how to build something that actually lasts I made something for you.
The 2HOUR Starting Point: a clarity-first toolkit to help you find your voice, choose your direction, and start writing with purpose.
I’ll get into the deeper, more personal lessons in a minute. The ones about rhythm, traction, identity, and creative momentum.
But first, let’s deal with the surface layer. The tools, features and mechanics of growth on this platform. Because they matter. And they’re often misunderstood.
Substack’s Growth Features: Useful, but overrated
Substack has rolled out a lot of tools to help writers grow:
Referrals (I’m not focussing on this)
Save this post so you can come back to the resource links above when you need to. Substack makes it very hard to find this resource hub (it is also no longer updated) once you are signed in
Some of them are useful. I’ve tried all of them. I’ve gained subscribers through them. But very few of these tools are reliable, consistent, or even fully functional, especially if you’re doing this part-time.
Substack will tell you these features are your “growth engine”. But most of them are just noise unless you have time, traction, and a system.
This isn’t a teardown. It’s a reality check. Especially if you’re someone doing this on the side, without a team or a strategy deck.
Here’s what I’ve learned from actually using them.
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Recommendations: Set and forget — with limits
Recommendations is the most effective growth tool on Substack, but also the most misunderstood.
Set it up, and you’ll likely see new subscribers trickle in over time. That’s because Substack nudges new readers to follow recommended writers during sign-up. But the algorithm behind it is completely opaque.
You can recommend 5 people and one or two will get 80% of the results. No one knows why. It’s not merit-based. It’s not fair. It just is.
What’s even worse is that a lot of those new subscribers aren’t really subscribers. Substack forces new readers through a click funnel when they sign up. They are presented with publications to subscribe to and many people will just click through without being aware that they are actually subscribing to your newsletter.
The result is that they clicked once but may never open a single email from you - it’s often just dead weight.
One thing I have learned is that the chances of you actually getting subscribers from another creator depends on how many people they recommend themselves. I am recommended by some massive accounts (20,000+ subscribers) and they’ve only brought me a handful…because they are recommending everyone and their dog (a growth hack which I am NOT going to get into here).
Play around with this feature and you will quickly realise what is actually going on.
Notice how Substack is pushing me to follow people over subscribing to publications. They want me to stay on their app.
So what should you do?
Use it. It is still a good way to grow, but be mindful of who you collaborate with. Because it DOES matter who you recommend and who recommends you…it can be exciting when someone starts recommending your publication but if it has nothing to do with what you write about reject it.
Cross-Posts: In theory, great. In practice, broken.
Cross-posting someone else’s essay to your own list sounds, or better yet, have your work posted to another audience sounds like a beautiful idea. I’ve tried it several times. I wanted it to work. It didn’t.
Now take this with a pinch of salt. It could just be me. Maybe I did something wrong, as I’ve talked to others and they haven’t experienced the problems that I encountered.
However I tried it out at least four times. I cross posted just as an email and also as a substack post (so that it appears on my homepage). Every time the deliverability failed. Half my list didn’t get the post. There’s no transparency on who saw it or what happened. It feels clunky, unfinished almost like a beta feature they forgot to fix.
Try it out if you like but don’t spend time and energy on it.
Notes: Half community, half dopamine trap
Notes is Substack’s Twitter alternative. And to be fair, it’s better than Twitter in a lot of ways. The people are kinder. The conversations are richer. The reach is real.
But let’s be honest, this wasn’t built for community. It was built to keep you on the platform. And that means it runs on the same fuel every other platform does: frequency, visibility, and the constant pull to perform.
I use Notes. It has been the biggest driver of my growth. I’ve met great people through it. But I’ve also seen how easy it is to lose focus and to write for Notes instead of writing for yourself.
Use it with caution and log out when it stops feeling honest. If you have an addictive personality I would seriously suggest setting time limits for yourself. It may not be as addictive as Tick-Tock or instagram but you can scroll for a few minutes and suddenly half an hour has passed.
I know this is controversial but since the introduction of these features Substack is no longer a newsletter platform focused on writing, it’s a social media platform focused on attention capture and the sooner you understand this the better your experience will be.
I cannot stress the importance of agency enough. Ask yourself the question:
Are you an active contributor or a passive consumer on Notes?
If you are struggling with this I challenge you to this:
Experiment for the next 30 days:
Post 1-3 Notes per day. Interact with people for 10-20 minutes a day. How does this make you feel? Exhausted? Excited? Drained? Infused? Hopeless? Make changes to increase the positive energy. The focus here is your own energy, not whether you go viral or not.
Lives: Cool feature. Not for most of us.
Substack Lives are a clever way to collaborate. You go live with another writer, talk about your work, and ideally gain exposure from each other’s audiences.
The thing is that most of us here are introverts and quite possibly started writing because we don’t want to be on camera. We prefer to think and write in isolation and that’s ok there’s nothing wrong with that.
Another thing is that most of us don’t have a big enough audience to make this work. I even saw a live with Hamisch McKenzie, the cofounder of Substack and it had less that 300 viewers.
Substack wants to be the “everything platform” but even YouTube, a video-native platform, struggles to get live streams right. Substack is trying, but it’s not there yet.
What should you do?
Speaking on Camera - especially live, is a very different skill to writing. If you are just starting out I would not recommend putting time and energy into this. Do not get distracted. Focus on why you came here in the first place. To write.
Group Chats: Growth hacks in disguise
Group chats are hard. There’s a reason that there are dedicated platforms for community like Circle and Skool. Group chats lack any of these features. They are very light weight but still take a lot of effort to get off the ground.
Most active group chats that I have seen on Substack are what we used to call “engagement pods.” You like my Notes, I like yours in the hope of boosting each other into the algorithm.
I’ve tried them. They don’t work, at least not in a way that feels good.
The only caveat here is that there is value for beginners new to the platform. And there is community value in general - It can be a great way to get started and meet new people. But they are not about growth.
The “growth benefits” of group chats all lie with the creator hosting them. They control the conversation, the tone, the vibe the frequency and so capture the growth.
My personal experience from these engagement “notes fests” is that they become a distraction. They are there to build and protect fragile egos not to build anything meaningful.
Use it as a stepping stone to help with the ins and outs of the platform but don’t expect to “grow by posting in other peoples chats. If you want your own chat to be active you will need to invest significant time and energy. Just posting regularly is not enough, and so it will take focus away from the writing.
The Honest Truth
These tools aren’t bad. But they’re not the reason people stick around. They’re not why someone subscribes, opens, replies, or shares.
They’re not why you started this. You started because you had something to say. Because you wanted to write something true. Because you believed, somewhere deep down, that the only way out was through.
All of these features have some merit. But they each require time, attention, and repetition to use well and that means less energy for your actual writing. (It took me three months of posting notes before I started to gain any traction! 3 Months!!).
The creators you see “going all in” on these features and tools are full time creators and Substack is a very important part of their business.
If it’s your side project or writing practice you cannot compare yourself to them. Be mindful of your energy and careful what you chase. Focus on the work. The real growth still comes from the same place it always has:
Clarity. Resonance. And consistency over time.
What Actually Makes a Difference
Here’s the part that matters. Not the mechanics. Not the tools. The real stuff underneath. The things that build traction slowly, quietly and with depth.
How you frame your writing is everything.
There are ways to game the algorythm and boost your numbers but that is all worthless if no one opens your emails or reads your posts. Writing what resonates comes from conviction, from having a perspective and the courage to state it clearly.
A message resonates when the reader sees themselves reflected back in your writing. You can spend a lot of time perfecting hooks, and gaming headlines but at the end of the day it comes back to yourworld view? What are your values? And why are you here?
How to find your why:
Look at your favourite piece, the one you were scared to publish. What truth was buried in it?
Ask: what belief do I keep coming back to, even when it doesn’t get likes?
Finish this sentence: “If no one ever read this, I’d still write it because...”
If you don’t start from there, everything else becomes noise.
2. Collaboration: Write With, Not Just For
The creative journey is lonely. What keeps you going in the quiet middle, when growth stalls and doubt creeps in, is connection.
A few people who see you is more important that a big following or a slick system. .
Collaboration is how you build that, not necessarily for growth but initially for survival, a reminder that you’re not doing this in a vacuum.
Share someone else’s work. Quote their line. Send them a reply that isn’t transactional. Not because you want something, but because you want to feel less alone. That’s what community is.
How to build through collaboration:
Shout out a writer you respect once a week, even if they’re “smaller” than you.
Join conversations in Notes with something real, not just emoji claps.
Propose a co-written piece or shared theme, not for numbers, but for momentum.
You’ll go further with people in your corner. Even if it’s just two or three.
3. Resonance. Truth Over Novelty
Resonance is about recognition. It’s when a reader stumbles on your work and thinks, “I’ve felt this. I just didn’t know how to say it.”
That’s why growth follows resonance. Not because you’re gaming attention but because people feel seen. This is deeply human. We remember what makes us feel less alone.
How to write with resonance:
Start with an emotion, not an insight. Let the idea emerge from the feeling.
Re-read your writing through the lens of a stranger. What would they feel?
Write something you’ve never said publicly, but have always wanted to.
4. Positioning: Say It From Your Worldview
If you’re writing from your true authentic self this should come pretty natually to you. But it’s worth rethinking and refining your Positioning. It’s extremely important because it’s about how you frame your entire voice.
Your writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of a larger conversation. The way you enter that conversation, your angle, your tone, your lens, is everything.
Most positioning advice is shallow. Find a niche. Solve a problem. Speak to pain points. Fine. But real positioning comes from your worldview.
It’s about the thread that runs through everything you write. The thing you’re building, even if no one’s asked for it yet.
How to shape your positioning:
Identify 2–3 recurring themes in your last 10 posts. That’s your spine.
Define your “enemy”. Not a person, but an idea you reject (e.g. the corporate grind, your old boss, religion).
Describe your reader not by demographics, but by values: what are they tired of? What are they looking for? (btw don’t overcomplicate this. The best “ideal reader” is your past self.
When your worldview is clear, readers know what to expect and who to tell.
These aren’t growth hacks. They’re creative anchors and if you’re early in your journey this is the best place to start.
Everything else can wait.
If you found this post helpful please consider sharing it with someone else because starting out on substack can be overwhelming. Finding a starting point can make all the difference. If you still feel lost I made something for you, check it out here: 2Hour Starting Point
Other than that, Enjoy the rest of your day.
Benjamin.
Very encouraging. It does feel impossible to keep up with so many seemingly full time writer here, but I'm constantly reminding myself of why I need to write for my own soul and keep a pace that is sustainable for me.
The thing people miss about newsletters - small, engaged audiences generate more impact than large, passive ones.
Better to have 100 readers who act than 10,000 who scroll.