How To Make Money on Substack (In 2025)

TL;DR — you won’t

A writer, trying to understand how he can make money on Substack — Wiki Comms

Making money on Substack is easy. By easy, I mean making $1. All you have to do is beg. Write articles, switch on paid subs, and add a link to your ko-fi page at the end (like this). Someone is bound to give you money.

Making a living wage on Substack is close to impossible and a complete waste of time if that’s your number one goal.

Learn plumbing instead.

But I guess you won’t listen to me. Like all writers, you want to make money by writing whatever you want. It doesn’t work like that. To have a tiny chance at earning from your words, you’ll need:

• hard work
• boring strategies
• low ethical standards

If that’s you, here’s how you make money on Substack (in 2025):

The Classic: writing about writing

Example: this article.

There are many writers on Substack. Some of them have money and are willing to invest in their future.

That’s where you can be more or less predatory and scammy.

Are you going to promise your subscribers riches? Or are you going to tell them the truth?