Medium Vs Substack: Which Platform is Faster for Building a Blogging Site?

Medium Vs. Substack: Head-to-Head Comparison

What is Substack?

What is Medium?

1. Medium Vs. Substack: Ease of Setup

• Substack: Substack is designed with simplicity in mind, making it extremely fast to set up. You can create an account, set up your newsletter, and start publishing content in just a few clicks. The process is streamlined with minimal distractions, allowing you to jump straight into writing without needing to customize templates or designs. You don’t even need a domain to get started. Just sign up, and you’re good to go.

• Medium: Medium is equally simple when it comes to the initial setup. After signing up, you can start writing immediately without needing to customize much. Its focus on articles makes it straightforward, and the built-in editor is ready to go. You don’t have to worry about external tools or custom configurations, making the process quick for getting content published.

2. Medium Vs. Substack: Features and Functionality

• Substack: Substack is primarily built around email newsletters, focusing on direct-to-subscriber communication. This singular focus makes it ideal for writers who want to build a subscription-based audience. With basic text formatting and a clean interface, it prioritizes simplicity. Substack recently introduced "Notes," a short-form feature similar to Twitter, which gives users a new way to engage. However, Substack’s feature set remains relatively minimal, particularly in terms of multimedia support and content diversity.

• Medium: Medium shines when it comes to flexibility in the type of content you can create. Writers can publish articles, essays, and stories, and the platform supports embedding images, videos, and interactive content from platforms like YouTube and Twitter. This makes it much more versatile for those looking to diversify their content beyond newsletters. Additionally, Medium’s editor is intuitive and rich in formatting options, making it easy to create visually engaging content.

3. Medium Vs. Substack: Audience Acquisition and Content Distribution

• Substack: Audience acquisition on Substack is highly dependent on subscribers. There’s no centralized discovery feed, so new writers need to actively promote their newsletters on external platforms to gain visibility. Once subscribers sign up, however, the connection is direct, and writers have more control over their audience. Substack’s main strength is that it allows creators to own their email list, which is valuable for long-term audience building.

• Medium: Medium excels at helping writers get discovered. Its platform has a powerful recommendation system, topic tags, and a personalized homepage feed, making it much easier for new writers to gain traction without heavy self-promotion. Readers can find articles based on their interests, and stories are recommended based on previous reading habits, significantly boosting visibility. Additionally, readers can follow writers directly, which helps build a larger audience faster.

4. Medium Vs. Substack: Monetization Options

• Substack: Substack offers a straightforward subscription model, where writers can charge readers for access to their premium content. You can choose to offer free or paid newsletters, and Substack takes a 10% cut of your subscription revenue. This model works well for writers with dedicated followers who are willing to pay for exclusive content. Additionally, Substack provides promotional support to help creators attract subscribers, which can be particularly helpful for monetization growth.

• Medium: Medium’s monetization is tied to its Partner Program. Writers earn money based on engagement metrics like reading time and claps, Medium’s version of likes. This model can be inconsistent, as income depends on how much time readers spend on your content and their interaction with it. Medium does not offer the same direct monetization control that Substack provides, as you’re earning from the platform’s general subscriber pool rather than individual subscriptions.

5. Medium Vs. Substack: Customization and Branding

• Substack: Substack allows writers to personalize their newsletters, from choosing colors and fonts to setting up custom domains. You can create a more personalized look and feel for your newsletter, making it an excellent choice for writers who want full control over their branding. Additionally, Substack offers landing pages for your newsletter, giving you more room to tell your story and create a branded experience.

• Medium: Medium offers minimal customization options. Writers can add a profile picture, bio, and a cover photo, but that’s where the personalization ends. Medium maintains a standardized design across the platform to ensure a consistent user experience. While this keeps things simple, it limits your ability to create a unique brand identity.

6. Medium Vs. Substack: Advanced Integrations

• Substack: Substack’s integration options are quite basic. It primarily supports payment integration through Stripe for subscription fees, and there are limited options for embedding multimedia content like videos or interactive elements. This makes it ideal for text-based content but less versatile for writers who want to include rich media.

• Medium: Medium is far more flexible when it comes to integrations. It allows embedding of multimedia from various platforms like YouTube and Twitter, enhancing the storytelling experience with visual and interactive content. This makes Medium a better choice for those looking to create rich, multimedia-driven stories.

7. Medium Vs. Substack: Community and Collaboration

• Substack: Substack fosters a more personal, one-on-one relationship between writers and their readers, with communication happening primarily through email. Collaboration is less of a focus, though writers can feature guest posts or collaborate through interviews. The overall community aspect is built around individual newsletters, meaning it’s less collaborative than Medium’s publication-based model.

• Medium: Medium is built with collaboration in mind. Writers can contribute to publications, which are collections of stories curated by editors, allowing for teamwork and broader visibility. These publications help writers reach larger audiences, and the community aspect is much more pronounced. Medium also encourages reader interaction through comments and social shares, building a more vibrant, interactive community.

8. Medium Vs. Substack: Content Ownership

• Substack: Substack allows writers to own their email lists and content. This ownership is a significant advantage, as it gives you control over your audience and the flexibility to migrate to other platforms without losing your subscribers. You can freely export your content and email list whenever needed.

• Medium: Medium also allows writers to retain ownership of their content. However, the platform’s paywall system complicates things. If your stories are behind the paywall, republishing them elsewhere can negatively impact your Medium earnings, and you don’t have access to email subscribers in the same way you do with Substack.

9. Medium Vs. Substack: Analytics and Insights

• Substack: Substack provides detailed analytics, including insights into subscriber growth, open rates, click-through rates, and revenue tracking for paid newsletters. This makes it easier for writers to understand what content is resonating with their audience and optimize for better engagement and monetization.

• Medium: Medium offers analytics on views, reads, and the read ratio, which indicates the percentage of readers who finish your article. While these metrics are helpful for understanding content performance, Medium’s analytics are more focused on engagement and lack the detailed revenue and subscriber insights that Substack provides.

Medium Vs. Substack: Pros & Cons

Medium

• Strong SEO: Medium’s platform enhances the visibility of your content, making it easier for readers to discover your work through search engines.

• Quick Setup: Launch your blog effortlessly without technical skills, allowing you to focus on writing.

• Access to a Large Audience: Benefit from Medium's built-in user base, increasing your chances of reaching more readers.

• Minimalist Interface: The clean design ensures a distraction-free reading experience, emphasizing your content.

• Monetization through Partner Program: Earn revenue based on how much readers engage with your stories, giving you a financial incentive to create high-quality content.

• Lack of Content Ownership: Writers do not fully own the content they publish on Medium, as the platform controls its hosting and distribution.

• Restricted Monetization for Non-Partners: Writers who aren’t part of the Medium Partner Program have limited options for monetizing their work.

• No Community-Building Features: Medium lacks tools to help writers build or manage their own community of readers.

• High Competition: Due to the vast number of writers on Medium, it can be challenging for new or lesser-known writers to stand out.

• No Affiliate Marketing or Product Promotion: Medium strictly prohibits third-party product promotion and affiliate marketing, limiting some revenue opportunities.

• Geographical Limitation of Partner Program: Medium’s Partner Program is available in only 33 countries, excluding many potential writers from earning revenue on the platform.

• No Ads Allowed: Medium does not permit advertising on its articles, limiting further monetization methods.

• Limited Customization: Medium doesn’t offer native plugins or advanced features for enhancing SEO or personalizing the blog’s appearance.

• Uncertainty in Content Ranking: Due to the intense competition, there’s no guarantee that even well-written content will get ranked or promoted.

• Difficult to Build an Email List: Medium doesn’t offer effective ways to export an email list, making it harder for creators to retain their audience across platforms.

• Conservative Monetization Model: Despite its popularity, Medium remains limited in its monetization and feature set, offering fewer ways to diversify income.

Substack

• Full Ownership: Retain complete rights to your content, allowing for greater control over its distribution and monetization.

• Direct Subscriber Engagement: Connect with your audience through email, fostering a stronger relationship and better feedback.

• Custom Pricing Models: Flexibly set subscription rates for your newsletters, allowing for varied monetization strategies.

• Diverse Content Options: Publish various formats, including articles, podcasts, and videos, appealing to different audience preferences.

• Easy Data Management: Seamlessly import and export your email lists and content, providing flexibility in how you manage your audience.

• No Built-In Audience: Unlike Medium, Substack doesn’t offer a centralized audience. Writers must build their readership from the ground up, which can be challenging.

• Weak SEO Features: Substack is not optimized for search engines, meaning it may require more effort and cost to drive organic traffic to content.

• Limited Marketing Tools: Substack doesn’t provide advanced internal marketing features, leaving writers to rely heavily on external promotion.

• No Community-Building Tools: Like Medium, Substack lacks features for managing and growing an interactive community of readers.

• Minimal Third-Party Integrations: Substack offers limited integration with other tools and platforms, restricting the ability to expand its functionality.

• Significant Revenue Cut: Substack takes a 10% cut from paid subscriptions, and writers also have to cover Stripe’s payment processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).

• Stripe as Sole Payment Gateway: Substack only supports Stripe for payment processing, which may not be convenient for all users.

Bullet.so: The Best Alternative for fast blogging

• User-Friendly Interface: Bullet.so offers a simple and intuitive interface, making it easy for users to create and manage their content without technical skills.

• Notion-Based Structure: The platform leverages a Notion-like format, allowing for organized and structured content creation, which is great for users familiar with Notion.

• Custom Domain Support: Bullet.so enables users to connect their custom domains, enhancing branding and online presence.

• Flexible Content Types: Users can integrate various content formats, including text, images, and videos, making it versatile for different types of content.

• SEO Friendly: Bullet.so is designed with SEO best practices in mind, helping users optimize their content for search engines and reach a wider audience.

• Community Engagement Features: The platform supports features for community interaction, allowing users to engage with their audience effectively.

• Monetization Options: Bullet.so provides flexible monetization through a subscription model (membership feature), allowing you to earn recurring revenue from exclusive content. It also ensures security with three levels of protection: password protection, email verification, and segment-specific verification, keeping your content secure for authorized users.

• Data Ownership: Users retain full ownership of their content, ensuring they have control over how it's used and distributed.

• Import and Export Capabilities: Bullet.so allows users to easily import and export their content, facilitating a smooth transition to and from other platforms.

• Integration Capabilities: Users can integrate with various third-party applications, enhancing functionality and expanding usage options.

• Easy Collaboration: Bullet.so facilitates co-authoring and collaboration, making it easy to work with other writers on joint projects.

Conclusion