The Full Time Substack Dream - How Long Does It Take?
What Does It Take For Substack To Become Your Job
Substack offers the tantalising vision of being able to make a living on the platform through their PAID subscription model. But…..
How many Paid subscribers do you actually need?
How long does it actually take to get to those heady levels of Paid subscribers?
What would be the logical steps from zero free subscribers to earning enough money to start paying the bills?
This post explores all these things and maps out a realistic time frame for getting there.
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Aimed first at professional writers looking for a freelance way out, the dream has now been taken on by many people just starting out in the world of online writing.
The ability to create something, publish it on Substack and be actually paid has fuelled a resurgence in writers seeking this new way of making their writing pay.
And, as is typical of this very creative community, there’s almost infinite approaches to how to go about this. Some people charge for all their posts, some leave all their posts FREE, some charge for the community aspects such as comments. Now we also have podcasts, videos and discussion boards plus threads. All things that can be put behind a paywall.
But this isn’t a post about the different options for what to charge for. You should visit
or for their wonderful insights here.This post is about the numbers.
To make it your day job you need the numbers to stack up
This post is about the numbers because, once you’ve settled on your offering, it’s the numbers that will get you to the point of being able to say that your Substack is your full time job.
Part of my day job is to create spreadsheet models to help businesses plan their strategies for growing their revenue over the short, medium and long term horizons. Taking some of these approaches I have set out below the various stages you might need to go through before being a full time Substacker.
As with any modelling exercise we will need to make some assumptions. It would be impossible to predict the trajectory of an individual Substack but what I’ve been able to do is apply some assumptions based around what I’ve observed since joining in August 2022, Substack’s view on conversion to paid and how that might project forward.
Growing the “average” Substack
This allows us to see where an “average” Substack might be heading and how long it might take start earning enough money to think about it becoming someone’s sole income.
In this spirit, the first assumption I’m making here is that we are starting with someone coming to Substack with no email list, a social following that only really contains their immediate social circle - no social media influencers - and someone who doesn’t have a public persona. ie this is a normal person, starting from scratch with just the talent and dedication of a beginner.
This leaves us with these “seasons” that we will work through in this article.
In The Beginning - starting out and finding your way to kick start some growth on the platform
A Purposeful Hobby - the FREE subscriber growth phase
Going Paid - taking the leap and starting to earn
Going Part Time - Scaling back the day job with partial replacement of income by Substack
Going Full Time - Full replacement of income by Substack
Before we continue, we need to make some simplifying assumptions
The Substacker is starting from scratch with no email list, no social following and no public persona
They currently earn $50,000 dollars per year and looking to replace this income like for like
All numbers are pre-Tax which can differ by location and country
Fees assumed to be 10% for Substack and 3% for the Stripe payment fee
Charge $6 per month or $50 per year assuming half of people choose each option
Growth is based around extrapolating what I have seen on my Substack. ie assuming this is a relatively average Substack growth wise
Conversion of Free to Paid of 4% which doesn’t feel silly (10% does feel silly)
1-2 posts per week with half of these being PAID when you turn on PAID (this all depends on your strategy which is not covered in this post)
Regular engagement on Substack Notes
No big social media push - focus is on the Substack Platform
Caveat: these forecasts are best guesses given the assumptions above and a leap of faith in terms of where that takes things. Real life could end up higher or lower than these projections.
1. In The Beginning
Timeline: First 3 Months
Starting Free Subscribers: 0
Ending Free Subscribers: 100
Free Subscriber Growth per 30 days: 33
Ending Paid Subscribers: Paid not turned on yet
So you’ve started a Substack and you sit there writing your first post. You have zero subscribers.
Focus on:
Working out what you enjoy writing about
Achieving a sustainable posting cadence
Engaging with people on notes, commenting on other Substack posts and building relationships.
Starting from scratch you should be able to achieve 100 subscribers in the first 3 months. This is really about building the foundations. The next phase is when you will start to see growth accelerate.
2. A Purposeful Hobby
Timeline: Month 3 to Month 18
Starting Free Subscribers: 100
Ending Free Subscribers: 1,250
Free Subscriber Growth per 30 days: 77 (this is the growth I saw in that time which accelerated beyond this towards the end of the first 18 months)
Ending Paid Subscribers: Paid not turned on yet
You know you’re serious now. It’s still a hobby so you’re still fitting it around your day job but you get into a groove that you know you can maintain. Subscribers know what to expect from you which comes with its own responsibilities.
Focus on:
Building rapport with your readers
Build connections with other Substackers by being generous with your sharing and time - be genuine
Keep refining what works for you. Don’t fall into a rut. Experiment.
3. Going Paid
Timeline: Month 19 to Month 42 (4 and half years into your Substack journey)
Starting Free Subscribers: 1,250
Ending Free Subscribers: 4,850
Free Subscriber Growth per 30 days: 150
Ending Paid Subscribers: 194 yielding $10,300 per year
The big moment has come and you’ve turned on PAID. Some do this from this start, while others wait until they have some momentum and have refined how they’re going to do it.
Your timing is totally up to you but my advice would be to not rush this, play the long game and use your free posts to drive wider reach. This way you can get the network effect working for you earlier on and then seek to convert people to paid later.
The “Going Paid” season is about starting to build those PAID subscribers and ends with you replacing one of your 5 days of full time work with income from Substack. We are assuming a $50,000 annual salary so $10,000 per year is needed to replace 1 day per week.
To do this you need 194 PAID subscribers and at 4% conversion of free to paid this requires 4,850 FREE Subscribers.
4. Going Part Time
Timeline: Month 42 to Month 117 (10 and half years into your Substack journey)
Starting Free Subscribers: 4,850
Ending Free Subscribers: 23,600
Free Subscriber Growth per 30 days: 250
Ending Paid Subscribers: 944 yielding $50,100 per year
Amazing, 4.5 years into your Substack journey you have been able to replace the income of one day per week. It’s a big moment and one you should be really proud of. You’ve built a solid FREE following too of just under 5,000 subscribers with 4% of them or nearly 200 converting to PAID.
Releasing one day a week now allows you the freedom to focus on your writing and should enable you to up your quality to some extent.
This is reflected in a subsequent increase in new subscribers joining your list which is assumed to be 250 every 30 days. This increased growth rate allows you to plough onwards, gradually replacing more of your income until you get to the magic $50,000 mark 10.5 years into your Substack journey.
You have your 1,000 true fans.
5. Going Full Time
10 and half years into your Substack journey
Starting Free Subscribers: 23,600
Ending Free Subscribers: the world is yours
Free Subscriber Growth per 30 days: 400 (you would hope the network effect can enable this)
Paid Subscribers: 944 yielding $50,100 per year but you can push on from here!
The Full Time mark is driven by reaching just under 1,000 PAID subscribers and therefore replacing your $50,000 income with Substack subscriptions alone.
This is a monumental task you’ve achieved but it has taken you over a decade.
You therefore might also want to consider other ways you can monetise your newsletter.
With over 23,000 subscribers you have some serious eye balls on your work so advertising could work.
You might want to try building a course or selling a longer form book compiled from your best posts.
So what have we learned
The assumptions in this post are exactly that - assumptions. You could grow faster or slower, you could charge more or less and you could convert more or less of your free subscribers to Paid. I may have been too pessimistic on the network effect when you get to many thousands of free subscribers.
What I’d say is that these assumptions feel reasonable to me at this stage in my Substack journey.
What do you think? Have I made some wildly inaccurate forecasts or do they feel on the money?
Will you change anything you do on the back of this?
Please drop a comment below and hit subscriber for more posts.
Two Recommendations - what to consume this week
1. Substack Writers at Work by
2. Sparkle on Substack -
Top 3 articles of the week
Finding great articles on Substack can be difficult. Fear not, I have been digging deep into the discovery areas of the platform so you don’t have to.
Here are my top three posts to read this week:
A Simple and Often-overlooked Strategy to Get More Substack Subscribers by
What to read next on Never Stop Learning
Thank you for reading and see you next week!
Oh, and please hit Like below (if you liked it of course!)
Whenever I think of how slowly I'm growing my subscribers, I remember two things.
One, I need to be grateful for what I have. Even though there is that rush whenever I gain subscribers sequentially for a period of time before things begin to slow down, it's still amazing how there are people out there who willingly subscribe to read my work.
Two is exponential growth. I won't take credit for this thought, as I read it in James Clear's book "Atomic Habits", but it's one of my motivational boosters for staying constant in the posting schedule. Even though I have not reached thousands of subscribers, it might take just one month of effort to reach that number through exponential growth. The key is to keep on trying, no matter the struggle.
Well i must be doing something wrong because it took me over a year to reach 100 subscribers!