Borrowed distribution vs owned distribution, and what each one really pays.
| Medium | Substack | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to publish | Free | Free |
| Reader price | $5/mo or $50/yr membership ($15/mo Friend tier) | You set it, minimum $5/mo for paid tiers |
| How you earn | Partner Program pool, based on member engagement | Direct subscriptions, you keep ~87% after fees |
| Platform cut | Opaque pool formula | 10% plus Stripe processing (~3%) |
| Audience ownership | Readers belong to Medium | You own and can export the email list |
| Distribution | Algorithmic feed, topic pages, publications | Email delivery plus Notes and recommendations |
| Formats | Articles | Newsletters, podcasts, video, chat, Notes |
| Portability | Posts exportable, audience is not | Full list and content export |
| Typical earnings reality | Most Partner Program writers earn very little | Long tail earns little, but the model scales with your list |
| Best for | Reach and discovery without list management | Building a durable, monetizable audience |
Verified as of August 2026. Both platforms are free for writers to publish on. The money works differently on each side.
| Medium | Substack | |
|---|---|---|
| Writer cost | $0 (membership not required to publish) | $0 |
| Reader cost | $5/mo or $50/yr, Friend of Medium $15/mo or $150/yr | Set by the writer, paid tiers start at $5/mo |
| Platform fee on earnings | None stated, payouts come from the member pool | 10% of subscription revenue |
| Payment processing | Handled by Medium | Stripe, roughly 3% on top |
Run the Substack math once and it sticks with you: 100 paid subscribers at $10 a month is about $870 a month after fees. On Medium there is no equivalent formula. Your payout depends on how much attention members give your posts, and the formula has changed more than once.
Pick Medium if you want readers without doing distribution work. You publish, and the algorithm, topic pages, and publications can put your writing in front of people who have never heard of you. For an unknown writer, that cold-start reach is genuinely hard to replicate. A Substack with zero subscribers gets zero readers, while a good Medium post can find an audience on its own.
It also fits occasional writers. If you publish a few times a month as a professional credibility play, or you want a place for essays without running a mini media business, Medium removes every operational chore. No list hygiene, no deliverability worries, no pricing decisions.
Just be honest about the money. Partner Program payouts come from a shared membership pool, the formula has been reworked, and the widely reported reality is that most writers earn very little. Treat Medium income as a bonus, not a plan.
Pick Substack if you are building something you intend to own. Subscribers are an email list you can export tomorrow and move to any other tool. That portability is the whole moat. Platforms change rules, formulas, and feeds, and an email list is the one asset that survives all of it.
The economics are also simply better once you have any real audience. You set the price, readers pay you directly, and after the 10 percent platform fee and Stripe processing you keep roughly 87 percent. A writer with 500 paid subscribers at $8 a month clears more in one month than most Medium writers report earning in years. Substack has also grown well past newsletters, with podcasts, video, chat, and a Notes feed that gives some of the discovery Medium was always better at.
The cost is that growth is on you. Substack recommendations help, but most subscriber growth still comes from work you do elsewhere. If you will not consistently promote your writing, the ownership advantage never compounds.
Most comparisons frame this as a lifestyle choice, algorithm people versus email people. The sharper frame is risk. On Medium you carry platform risk forever: the payout formula, the feed, and the paywall rules have all changed before and will change again, and you cannot leave with your readers. On Substack you carry market risk instead: nobody may want to pay you. Market risk is scarier early but it is the risk you can actually work on. Platform risk never goes away no matter how good you get.
The other overlooked move is that this is not either-or. Plenty of writers use Medium as top of funnel and Substack as the asset, republishing pieces on Medium with a pointer to their newsletter. Medium supplies strangers, Substack turns them into an audience you keep. If you have the patience to run both, that combination beats either platform alone.
If writing is part of how you plan to make a living, I would build on Substack and treat the email list as the asset. The 10 percent fee is a fair price for direct reader revenue and full portability. Medium is the better choice only when reach matters more than ownership: hobby writing, credibility pieces, or testing whether anyone cares about your ideas at all. And the honest advanced answer is both, with Medium feeding readers into a Substack you own.