Medium vs Substack

Medium is a blogging platform that also allows any publication on Medium to start a newsletter and correspond with their subscribers directly in their inbox.

Substack helps anyone set up a blog and email newsletter and publish directly to their audience and get paid through subscriptions. No tech knowledge is required. It’s free to get started on Substack. If you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack will keep a 10% cut of revenues.

Feature Comparison

Medium and Substack both have great feature sets so the right tool for you really depends on your needs.

Features	Medium	Substack
💸 Paid Subscriptions Accept paid subscriptions	❌	✅
➗ Segmentation Create segments of subscribers	❌	❌
🤖 Automation Automate actions based on behaviors	❌	❌
📩 Embeddable Forms Embeddable subscription forms	❌	✅
📄 Landing Pages Create landing pages for your newsletter	✅	✅
🔌 3rd Party Integrations Connect to other services	❌	❌
🖊️ Visual Editor Drag and drop email editor	✅	✅
📝 Markdown Editor Write emails in markdown	❌	❌
👩‍💻 HTML Design emails with HTML text	❌	❌
⚒️ API Integrate with the platform's API	❌	❌
📈 Analytics Get data on your emails' performance	✅	✅
🌍 Custom Domain Use a custom domain for your page	❌	✅
🗣️ Referrals Setup a referral program	❌	✅
💽 Self Hosting Host on your own server	❌	❌
📢 Recommendations Recommend and be recommended by other newsletters	❌	✅