With Substack and WordPress both vying for your attention as a content creator, it can be hard to decide which one is the best fit for your newsletter blog.
While Substack promises easy setup and hosting, WordPress gives you more control and flexibility in the long run. As your audience grows, will you wish you had more monetization or customization options?
So which one you should opt for Let’s take a look.
Key Differences Between Substack and WordPress
| Aspect | Substack | WordPress |
| Ease of Use | Very easy to get started. Simple drag-and-drop editor. | Requires technical skills to setup and manage. More learning curve. |
| Flexibility | Limited customization. Stuck with Substack design templates. | Highly flexible and customizable. Design your site as you like. |
| Monetization Options | Only paid subscriptions. Substack takes 10% cut. | Wide options like subscriptions, courses, ads, affiliates etc. Keep more revenue. |
| Integrations | Few integrations available. Limited third-party tools. | Integrates with >60,000 plugins. Access to robust ecosystem of tools. |
| Data Portability | Easy to export content and subscribers. | Seamless migration capabilities. Export all data and users. |
| Hosting | Fully hosted on Substack servers. | Self-hosted – require own hosting and domain management skills. |
As you can see from the comparison, while Substack provides a simple drag-and-drop interface for getting started, it limits flexibility, customization and integration options in the long run. WordPress gives full control as a self-hosted platform but requires some technical expertise for setup and management. The monetization percentage and data ownership model also differs significantly between the two platforms.
Also Read: WordPress Vs Umbraco
Setup and Technical Requirements
The setup process for both is fairly easy. With some basic knowledge, you can get started with both.
Substack Setup Process
Setting up a Substack blog is extremely simple. All you need is:
- Create a Substack account by signing up with your email.
- Choose a username for your Substack blog and customize your profile.
- Start writing! The Substack editor provides basic formatting tools to write posts.
- Connect your existing social media profiles for promotion (optional).
- Decide if you want a free or paid newsletter. Set up payment plans for paid subscriptions.
That’s it! You can start publishing on Substack within minutes with no technical skills required.
WordPress Setup Process
The WordPress setup involves a few more steps:
- Purchase a domain name and web hosting.
- Download and install WordPress using the one-click installer provided by your hosting provider.
- Configure your WordPress site by setting up permalinks, title, plugins etc.
- Customize the design by choosing a theme, editing header, footer etc.
- Install and configure required plugins like Google Site Kit, Yoast etc.
- Start creating blog posts and pages on your self-hosted WordPress site.
Technical Skills Required
- Substack: No technical skills required.
- WordPress: Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and familiarity with hosting/FTP accounts. Advanced customization requires PHP coding skills. Managed hosting reduces technical difficulty.
Also Read: Introduction to Laravel Nova
Growing Your Audience
If you are looking for both then your purpose is clear “To grow audience”. So lets compare both in that regard.
Discovery on Each Platform
- Substack: Limited discovery options within the Substack platform itself. Readers find content mainly through social sharing.
- WordPress: Content is discoverable via search engines like Google if SEO best practices are followed. Has the potential to rank for long-tail keyword phrases.
Social Sharing Options
- Substack: Provides share buttons for common social networks. Light integration with LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
- WordPress: Wide range of sharing plugins allow embedding sharing buttons for any social network. WordPress as better social analytics with plugins like Jetpack.
Promotion Tools Available
- Substack: Only basic promotion options like profile/blog links sharing. No email list or landing page creation tools.
- WordPress: Robust ecosystem of plugins for all promotion needs – email lists like Mailchimp, conversion tools like OptinMonster, social sharing buttons, landing pages via Elementor etc.
Also Read: Best WordPress Plugins and Themes
Monetization Options
Monetization is necessary if you are looking for content generation just to keep the whole system growing. For that let us see which option is better for you.
Paid Subscriptions
- Substack: Only option. Substack handles payments and takes 10% commission.
- WordPress: Multiple membership plugins like MemberPress, Restrict Content Pro etc. to offer subscriptions on your site. Payment options like PayPal, Stripe. No platform fees.
One Time Payments
- Substack: Not available.
- WordPress: Paid downloads, online courses etc using plugins like LearnDash, Easy Digital Downloads, WooCommerce etc. Wide payment integration.
Sponsorships/Ads
- Substack: Advanced plan allows basic display ads. Limited targeting options.
- WordPress: Dynamic display ad management with plugins like AdInserter. Target ads based on demographics, behavior etc. Monetize via affiliate links, banner ads.
Affiliate Marketing
- Substack: Not available.
- WordPress: Leverage plugins like Shareasale to promote affiliate products. Higher revenue potential.
Courses/Memberships
- Substack: Not available.
- WordPress: Robust course and membership creation with plugins like LearnPress, MemberMouse, WPMude. Sell multiple membership levels/products.
Donations
- Substack: Via paid newsletter subscriptions.
- WordPress: Allow one-time/recurring donations with plugins like GiveWP, Donately etc.
Paid Features
- Substack: Not available.
- WordPress: Sell customizations, services, private updates etc using paid memberships and course plugins.
WordPress opens many more monetization avenues with lesser platform fees compared to Substack’s single subscription model. But this is not as simple as that, target audience depends a lot in this case and you can find quality audience that are already on substack.
Cost Analysis
If you get started on either of these platforms then which one is cost effective for you?
Fees for Each Platform
- Substack: 10% fee on all paid subscriptions. No other costs.
- WordPress: No platform fees. Only costs include hosting, domains and plugins if needed.
Additional Costs on WordPress
- Web Hosting: Starting from $2-5/month. Good managed hosts include Bluehost, SiteGround, etc.
- Domain Name: Once off fee of $10-15 or yearly renewal fee of $10-15.
- Plugins: Popular plugins like WooCommerce, LearnDash have one-time fees starting from $50-200.
Long Term Cost Savings on WordPress
- Lower subscription fees compared to Substack’s 10% commission.
- Option to scale hosting as site grows without gateway limits. More control over scaling costs.
- Save money on ads, courses, donations etc which are not available on Substack.
- Possibility of monetizing in multiple ways reduces dependency on single source.
- Lifetime ownership of content, data and monetization channels.
In the long run, WordPress is more cost-effective with wider revenue potential and monetization control. Though initial setup costs exist, flexibility saves a lot more over time compared to Substack’s platform dependency. However, in Substack’s favor, there is no setup cost only when you have paid subscription as opposed to the setup cost on WordPress.
Migration Process
If at some point you want to migrate from one platform to another here is the guide to do it.
Exporting from Substack to WordPress
- From migration to WordPress, On Substack, go to Settings > Export Data. This allows downloading all posts, authors and subscribers data.
- The downloaded file contains separate CSV files for posts, authors and subscribers which need to be imported individually.
Importing to WordPress
- Install the Substack importer plugin which allows bulk importing posts and authors data from the CSV files exported from Substack.
- For subscribers, you need to connect your WordPress site to an email service like Mailchimp. Then import the subscribers CSV to sync the email list.
- Subscribers will need to re-confirm subscription on WordPress since it is a new platform and mailing service. Consider notifying subscribers about migration via social channels.
Redirection After Migration
- Update any links on social media/web to point to the new WordPress site URL instead of Substack after migration.
- Set a 301 redirect from the Substack blog URL to WordPress URL using redirection plugins like Redirection to avoid duplicate/broken links.
- It is important subscribers don’t lose access to paid content. Plan content export and Redirection properly to ensure a smooth transition.
Proper planning is required to migrate content, paid subscribers base and brand links between the two platforms smoothly without disrupting readership experience.
Closing Remarks
While Substack offers lightning-fast setup without technical burdens, ultimately it constricts flexibility, community access and long-term monetization potential compared to WordPress.
Self-hosted WordPress gives content creators full autonomy over customizing features, interacting with the vast ecosystem of plugins, and multi-level monetization approaches to build a sustainable enterprise.
Of course, this freedom requires investment of time, skills and resources – which is where Hybrid Web Agency can provide invaluable support.
As a leader in WordPress development Agency, We have deployed optimized solutions for many leading publishers and membership sites. Content owners can directly utilize our development team on an hourly/project basis or Hire dedicated WordPress Developers to augment capabilities.
Our flexible staff augmentation models help de-risk technological concerns so you can focus maximum energy on content, community and business growth. Hybrid Web Agency also provides training programs to help clients attain WordPress proficiency over time.
