Substack Analytics Explained: Every Dashboard Metric

The problem

"It shows opens and clicks, and that is about it." (r/Substack, November 2025)

"Substack does not flag which paid subscribers are going quiet." (r/Substack, April 2026)

Analytics gaps came up in 17 of the 111 public forum and review sources we coded, and 16 of those date from 2025 or later. In a Reddit thread asking writers what Substack should build next, "better analytics to figure out where subscribers come from" was the top analytics request, with 13 points.

Substack's dashboard answers "how did this post do?" well. It is weaker on "who is drifting away?" and "which channel brings readers who stay?". This guide defines every metric using Substack's own help centre (as of October 2026), lists what is missing, and shows how to answer the rest from your own export.

Where are Substack's stats?

According to Substack's metrics guide, stats live in four places in the dashboard sidebar:

Place	What it's for
Home	Overview cards: total subscribers, paid subscribers, gross annualized revenue (or pledges), and views
Posts	Per-post stats: Overview, Reach, Engagement, Growth (admins only) and Discussion tabs
Stats	Reports: Network, Audience, Retention, Sharing, Notes, Email, Surveys, Traffic, Unsubscribes, Earnings, Pledges
Sources	Unique visitors, new subscribers and new revenue by source, with markers for posts and Notes

The Subscribers page is a fifth place. It holds the per-person table you can filter, segment and export (subscriber dashboard guide). The app shows a lighter "View stats" summary for each post (app stats).

What does each post metric mean?

All definitions below are paraphrased from Substack's metrics guide:

Metric	Definition	Watch out for
Total views	Every view across web, email and the app; one person viewing five times counts five	Inflated by re-reads and forwards
Recipients	Subscribers sent the post by email or app, counted once	—
Open rate	Share of recipients who viewed it (email or app), each counted once	See "opens" below
Delivery rate	Share of subscribers who received it	Substack changed the calculation, so older posts may show higher rates now
New subscribers	People who subscribed after reading this post, split free and paid	Last-touch attribution only
Estimated revenue increase	Estimated rise in gross annualized revenue from new paid subs (admins)	An estimate, not cash
Links clicked	Openers who clicked, plus counts per link	—
Engagement rate	Subscribers who liked, clicked, shared, restacked, commented, read to the bottom or watched/listened 30+ seconds, after opening	Non-subscribers excluded
Click-through rate	Subscribers who clicked a link after opening	Non-subscribers excluded
Traffic sources	Where the post's views came from	—

The Stats → Posts table defaults to Title, Date, Audience, Views, Engagement rate, Free subs, Paid subs, Estimated value and Open rate. You can add Likes, Comments, Shares, Emails delivered and Emails opened, and download the table as a CSV.

How does Substack count opens?

An open is recorded when a recipient loads the email's images (each email has "a subscriber-unique pixel") or views the post in the app (Substack help). Forwarded copies credit the original subscriber. Opens "almost immediately after delivery" are excluded as likely security scanners. Clicks without a view don't count.

Two caveats matter for comparisons:

• France and Italy. To comply with new privacy rules, Substack no longer records email opens from subscribers currently in France or Italy, for emails sent after 14 October 2026. Those readers are left out of the open-rate denominator (same article). If you have many readers there, expect open counts to drop and activity-based filters to under-rate them.
• Apple Mail privacy. Mail apps that block tracking can make engaged readers look inactive. Substack says zero-star subscribers may be caused by "Privacy features such as in Apple Mail" (stars article).

What do the Retention, Network and Sources reports show?

Retention (paid publications only) has Paid and Free tabs with net growth, cohort analysis and churn (Retention help):

• Paid cohort analysis shows the share of paid subscribers still subscribed after 30 days, 6 months and 12 months, by signup month. Gifts and comps are excluded.
• Paid net growth rate is the change in paid subscribers from 30 days ago. Hover to see upgrades, new paid, trials started and "cancellation initiated".
• Cancellation initiated vs expired: an annual subscriber who cancels in June keeps access, and stays counted as paid, until the term ends.
• Free retention covers free net growth, free cohorts and free churn. The data starts on 1 January 2026.

Network splits subscribers into six groups: Substack App, Other Substack Network (recommendations, referrals), saved credit cards, existing accounts, imported accounts and new accounts (metrics guide).

Sources separates Direct, Email clicks, Substack surfaces (Onboarding, Trackbacks, Other), Direct to App, iOS App Checkout, and Import/Gift/Pledge/Share.

Unsubscribes lists each paid canceller's email, date, reason and feedback.

What is missing from Substack analytics?

Beyond the two complaints above, writers name more gaps:

• "The analytics never really improved, and there's still no API." (@rishikeshshari on X, March 2026)
• "better analytics to figure out where subscribers come from" was the top analytics wish in a 2025 feature-request thread, with 13 points.

In practice, the dashboard gives you:

• No first-touch or multi-touch attribution. A post gets the credit if the signup happened after reading it.
• No churn-risk list for paid readers. You can filter by activity, but nothing alerts you.
• No source-quality view. You can't see whether readers from Notes retain better than readers from Google.
• No history you control. Ratings and activity are relative and rolling.
• No public analytics API. The official MCP server is read-only and limited to Bestseller admins.

How do I export and analyse my own Substack data?

Substack says "Anything you publish on Substack is yours to own". Two exports exist:

1. Subscribers → Export. A CSV with "all columns" or "visible columns only". All columns adds activity such as last open and post views. Names are not included (export help). You can filter first and export only the filtered list.
2. Settings → Exports → Create new export. A zip of posts, subscriber list and related statistics, emailed when ready.

Then, in a spreadsheet or notebook:

• Cohorts by source. Group subscribers by signup month and by the free subscription source column. Compare the share still active (opened in the last 30 days) after 3 and 6 months.
• Going-quiet paid list. Filter paid subscribers with zero email opens in the last 30 days and low activity. Send them a check-in email from a saved segment. Segments update automatically.
• Posts that convert. Join the Stats → Posts CSV (free and paid subs per post) with topics or tags you add by hand.
• Monthly snapshots. Save each export with a date. One writer with a 188-point post describes "a full data export every month, read into a database" (r/Substack, Oct 2026). Diffing two snapshots shows who joined, upgraded or left.

Exporting and keeping your own copies also counts as a backup; see how to back up your Substack and exporting subscribers.

How do I add Google Analytics to Substack?

In Settings → Analytics, paste your GA4 Measurement ID (it starts with G-). Substack's GA4 article says page view, signup and paid subscription events should appear within about 24 hours. The same section accepts a Google Tag Manager container, Meta and X pixels, and Parse.ly (Analytics section help).

GA4 is the right tool for traffic questions: landing pages, UTM campaigns, referrers and devices. It's anonymous, though, so it can't tell you which subscriber is going quiet. For that you need the export. Brad Hargreaves, leaving Substack, wrote "Making a simple Google analytics dashboard is becoming a massive pain." (LinkedIn). Set up GA4 early so you have history when you need it. The other connections are covered in Substack integrations.

Is there an analytics API for Substack?

Our analytics API for Substack exports works from the export you already download: upload it and get cohorts, going-quiet segments and source quality through a dashboard, API or MCP. It never asks for your Substack login. To get access, email hello@newsletterapi.io.