How to make money on Substack: my real numbers.
174 paid subscribers. About $23,000 a year. Every number pulled from my dashboard, September 2026.
You make money on Substack mostly by getting readers to pay for a subscription. Substack takes a cut, the card fees take a little more, and you keep the rest.
Want the whole playbook now? Here’s where I wrote it all down.
People ask me how much that really adds up to. So here it is, no rounding up.
174 paid subscribers out of 7,577 readers. $23,182 a year in revenue.
Want the whole system now? Here’s where I wrote it all down.
That’s gross, before fees. And only 2.3% of my readers pay. That’s normal.
How Substack pays you. It’s free until someone pays you. Then three fees come out: Substack keeps 10%, the card processor charges 2.9% plus 30 cents, and there’s a 0.7% billing fee on recurring payments.
On a $10-a-month subscription, you keep about $8.34 before taxes. Plan on losing roughly 14% to 17%. Annual plans lose less.
My numbers, month by month. I turned on paid subscriptions in January 2026.
| Month | Paid | Total readers | Yearly revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 58 | 2,719 | $6,488 |
| March | 64 | 3,205 | $7,196 |
| April | 115 | 4,711 | $12,610 |
| May | 143 | 5,659 | $18,302 |
| July | 146 | 6,453 | $21,794 |
| September | 174 | 7,577 | $23,182 |
That’s 3.5 times more in nine months. I barely moved from January to March. Then April and May nearly tripled it. Four months after my first paid subscriber, I earned the Bestseller badge.
After fees, that’s roughly $19,200 to $20,000 a year in take-home. Not a million-dollar headline. A real, growing paycheck.
Where my paying readers came from:
- Notes. Over 100 paid sign-ups. One Note alone brought in 44.
- The Substack app itself. About 100 more, from people finding me while reading other writers.
- The paywall. 10 readers hit a locked post and upgraded on the spot.
- Google. Just 7.
My best Notes weren’t tips. They were personal stories. Getting divorced at 45. Starting over in a 700-square-foot apartment. The day I hit Bestseller.
People pay for a person they trust, not a list of tips.
How many subscribers do you need? At $10 a month and my 2.3% paid rate:
| Take-home goal | Paid needed | Free readers needed |
|---|---|---|
| $500 a month | 60 | about 2,600 |
| $1,000 a month | 120 | about 5,200 |
| $2,500 a month | 300 | about 13,000 |
| $5,000 a month | 600 | about 26,000 |
Most newsletters convert 2% to 5% of free readers. If you’re under 5%, you’re not failing.
So the job is simple. Grow the free list with Notes. Raise the paid rate with trust.
I wrote down exactly how I do both: the setup, the daily Notes, the paywall, and turning free readers into paid ones.
That’s one piece of it. I run 22 income streams on my own, after 40, and I wrote down every one of them, step by step, so you can pick the one or two that fit you and stack them.
Not a headline number.
A real paycheck that keeps growing.
Lori
P.S. Notes brought me more paid readers than anything else. Here’s the whole playbook.
Earnings disclaimer: Any income or results I share are my own and are not typical. Your results will depend on your effort, experience, niche and the market. Nothing here is a promise or guarantee that you’ll make money.
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I also use AI tools to help research and create content for you! While I love sharing strategies to help you succeed, please remember that everyone's journey is unique—individual results vary, and there are no guarantees. Thanks so much for stopping by!
