Medium vs Substack — Which Platform is Better for Readers and Writers?
My reflections from 3 months of using both platforms
There are many platforms out there that are available for writers who want to share their work with a wider audience. However, two of the biggest are Medium and Substack, and having used both for a while now I thought it might be useful to share my experience of using each.
I started writing on Substack in May 2023, and Medium at the start of August this year. I usually publish weekly on each platform, with most content cross-posted as I have entirely different audiences on each, but with occasional content that is more targeted to one set of readers and so is only posted to one or the other.
I’m going to assume that anyone reading this is at least a little familiar with how Medium works since that’s where this article is hosted. But just in case you’ve found this article via an indirect channel, let’s start from the basics: Medium is a membership-based site where most articles are behind a paywall, and can only be read by other members who are paying the monthly fee, which is around £5 or the local currency equivalent.
From a reader’s point of view, the site is fairly useless without paying the monthly fee, as the vast majority of writing will be kept behind the…
