Substack vs Medium: Which Platform Is Actually Right for You?

Substack and Medium are not competitors. They are fundamentally different tools solving different problems. Medium is a publishing network where an algorithm surfaces your writing to a large, existing readership. Substack is an email-first platform where you build a list you own and monetise through paid subscriptions. The right choice depends entirely on what you are trying to build.

TL;DR: Quick answer by goal

Why Trust This Article

My name is Hrithik Kaul. I am the founder of Typeflo, a blogging and content platform built for SEO and AI search visibility. I have spent five years doing SEO across content teams, startups, and client projects.

I have published on Medium and used Substack both as a reader and as a researcher, tracking how each platform performs for organic traffic, audience retention, and monetisation. I also run a content cluster specifically on the topic of publishing platforms, which means I have reviewed competitive analysis, SERP data, and real writer outcomes across both platforms for this piece.

What I evaluated:

• Audience ownership and data portability

• Monetisation model, fee structure, and income predictability

• SEO capabilities: domain authority, custom domains, metadata control

• Discovery mechanics and how new writers actually grow

• Platform risk: what happens when the algorithm changes

• Editorial flexibility and content format support

I have tried to be honest about where each platform genuinely wins. Typeflo competes with neither Substack nor Medium directly. It is built for teams and bloggers who care about search and AI citation, which is a different audience. That said, I will note where Typeflo is the better fit at the end of this piece.

What Is Substack?

Substack is an email newsletter platform launched in 2017. Writers publish posts that go directly to subscribers' inboxes, and they can optionally put content behind a paywall and charge a monthly or annual subscription. Substack handles payment processing (taking a 10% cut of paid revenue), and writers own their subscriber list. They can export it and take it to another platform at any time.

In recent years Substack has expanded beyond email. Substack Notes functions as a short-form social feed, similar to Twitter, where interactions can compound into subscriber growth. Writers can also host podcasts and videos within the platform. The core proposition has not changed: you build a list, you own it, you monetise it directly.

What Is Medium?

Medium is a centralized publishing platform founded in 2012. It operates more like a digital magazine than an email service. Writers publish articles on Medium's domain, the platform surfaces that content to readers through its algorithm, and popular or "Boosted" pieces can reach large audiences quickly. Readers pay Medium $5 per month for access to all content, and writers earn a share of that pool based on how long paying members spend reading their work.

Medium's biggest asset is its domain authority. With a Domain Authority of 95, articles published on Medium carry significant SEO weight and often rank near the top of Google for competitive keywords. The trade-off is that you are building on someone else's domain, in someone else's algorithm, with no access to the email addresses of readers who engage with your work.

Substack vs Medium: The Key Differences

Do you own your audience?

This is the most important question to answer before choosing a platform.

On Substack, every subscriber (free or paid) is an email address you can download at any time. If Substack shut down tomorrow, you would still have your list. That email list is an asset you own outright.

On Medium, you have no such asset. Readers who follow you on Medium do not give you their email addresses in any meaningful, portable way. Medium may notify your followers when you publish, but you do not own that relationship. If Medium changes its algorithm (and it has, multiple times), your reach can drop overnight with no recourse.

If building an audience you actually own is a priority, Substack wins this category clearly.

Which platform is better for SEO?

Medium has one of the highest domain authorities of any website on the internet. An article published on Medium can rank on the first page of Google for competitive terms within days, inheriting authority that would take a new blog years to build. This is genuinely valuable, especially for writers starting from zero.

The major caveat: that SEO equity belongs to medium.com, not to you. You cannot customise meta descriptions or page titles with full control. You cannot set canonical tags. You publish under medium.com/your-handle, which means any link equity accrued by your articles benefits Medium's domain, not a domain you own.

Substack's SEO position is weaker. Substack posts do appear in search results, and custom domains are available to all users (a genuine advantage over Medium). But the platform was not designed with organic search as a priority, and most writers find that discovery through search is minimal compared to Medium's built-in authority.

The honest summary:

• If you want traffic from Google and do not yet have an established domain: Medium gives you a faster start, though not one you can take with you.

• If you want search traffic on a domain you own: neither Substack nor Medium is the right choice. Self-hosted platforms built for SEO are a better fit.

How does monetisation compare?

The two platforms use completely different revenue models.

Medium Partner Program:

• Readers pay Medium $5/month for access to all content

• Writers earn based on member read time and engagement

• Payouts have declined significantly; writers now report roughly $0.80 per 1,000 impressions

• Around 90% of Medium writers earn under $100/month

• Income is unpredictable and algorithm-dependent; a story can earn $500 one month and $5 the next

Substack Direct Subscriptions:

• You set your own price (typically $5-20/month)

• Substack takes 10% of revenue; Stripe charges ~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction

• If you have 200 paid subscribers at $10/month, you are earning approximately $1,700/month after fees

• Income is predictable and scales with your subscriber count

• Substack reports that roughly 5-7% of free subscribers convert to paid on average

How do writers actually grow on each platform?

Growth mechanics differ substantially between the two platforms.

On Medium, growth depends primarily on the algorithm. If your story gets "Boosted" by Medium's editorial team, it can reach tens of thousands of readers quickly. Publications on Medium (topic-specific collections with their own followings) are also a meaningful amplification channel. The downside: if Medium changes its boost criteria (and it has), traffic can evaporate. Writers who do not get Boosted regularly find growth slow and inconsistent.

On Substack, the primary growth engine in 2025 is Substack Notes, a short-form social feed that functions like Twitter. Posting consistently on Notes, engaging with other writers, and building cross-promotion relationships through Substack's Recommendations feature is how most newsletters grow their free subscriber base. Growth is slower to start but more durable once momentum builds, because every new subscriber is a direct email relationship.

Neither approach is passive. Medium requires writing content the algorithm rewards. Substack requires active community building and promotion. Writers who come to Substack expecting the platform to surface their work to an existing audience (as Medium does) are usually disappointed.

What Are the Real Limitations of Each Platform?

What Substack does not do well

• SEO and search discoverability: Substack is not built for Google. If you want organic search traffic, this is a significant gap.

• Customisation: Newsletter design is minimal. You cannot build a branded, content-rich blog experience.

• Built-in audience discovery: Without Notes, the platform offers limited ways to find new readers if you are starting from zero.

• Content flexibility: Long-form blog clusters, pillar pages, topic hubs. None of these are native to Substack's architecture.

What Medium does not do well

• Audience ownership: You do not own your readership. If you leave, you leave without your readers.

• Brand building: Your content lives at medium.com. Custom domains are not available to individual writers.

• Income predictability: Payouts have declined year over year. The Partner Program is not a reliable income source for most writers.

• Control over SEO: You cannot fully control metadata, canonical tags, or site architecture.

• Platform risk: Algorithm changes have wiped out traffic for thousands of writers who built on Medium's ecosystem without a backup plan.

Which Writers Should Choose Substack?

Substack is a strong choice if:

• You have a specific niche and a perspective readers will pay for

• You already have an existing audience elsewhere (on social, on YouTube, at a job with industry access) that you can migrate into subscribers

• You want predictable, recurring revenue rather than viral unpredictability

• Long-term audience ownership matters more to you than short-term reach

• You are comfortable promoting your newsletter actively through Notes, partnerships, and social media

Substack is not the right fit if:

• You are starting from zero with no existing audience and expecting the platform to surface your work

• You want to rank on Google and generate organic search traffic

• You want to build a multi-author publication, a content hub, or a resource library

Which Writers Should Choose Medium?

Medium is a reasonable choice if:

• You are a new writer who wants to start getting reads quickly without building an audience from scratch

• You write non-niche, broadly appealing content that the algorithm can surface to a wide readership

• You want the writing experience and community without needing income or ownership in the near term

• You are using it specifically as a discovery layer, to funnel readers toward a newsletter, a product, or a personal site elsewhere

Medium is not the right fit if:

• You want to build an asset (audience, domain authority, brand) you actually own

• You are a B2B content team or SaaS company using content to drive leads

• You want a stable, predictable income from your writing

• You care about SEO and building search equity on a domain you control

Can You Use Both?

Yes, and many writers do. The dual-platform strategy that works is straightforward: use Medium for discoverability and SEO reach, and use Substack to capture and own the audience you build. Publish on Medium to reach new readers, then include a call-to-action that drives readers to your Substack free tier.

This strategy requires managing two platforms, which adds overhead. It also means accepting that neither platform is your "owned" publishing home. If long-term brand and SEO equity matter to you, using both Substack and Medium as your primary publishing stack still means you are building on platforms you do not fully control.

For writers who have outgrown both or need something purpose-built for their goals, there are alternatives worth evaluating. The best Medium alternatives in 2025 guide covers the full landscape.

Where Typeflo Fits

Typeflo is not a direct competitor to Substack or Medium. It is built for a different use case: bloggers, SaaS content teams, and creators who want their content to rank on Google and get cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity, while building an email list they own.

If you are a writer whose primary concern is audience ownership and monetisation through subscriptions, Substack is the better tool. If you want discoverability through Google's algorithm and do not mind publishing on Medium's domain, Medium has a genuine advantage there.

Where Typeflo wins is the intersection that neither Substack nor Medium addresses well: publishing content that ranks organically on your own domain, structures for AI citation, and converts search traffic into email subscribers. Every post on Typeflo is built with schema markup, auto-updated sitemaps, clean heading hierarchy, and metadata controls. These are the things that help Google and AI tools find and cite your content.

If you are building a content operation rather than a personal newsletter, it is worth seeing how Typeflo approaches blogging for SEO and AI visibility.