Substack vs Medium: Which Is Better for Writers?

newsletterapi is an independent project for Substack writers, not affiliated with Substack or Medium. This page has no affiliate links. Every fee and feature below comes from Substack's and Medium's own help centres, read on October 22, 2026.

The problem

Substack and Medium look alike from the outside: a clean editor, a reading app, a way to get paid. Underneath, they are different businesses. Substack is a newsletter tool where readers pay you; Medium is a reading platform where readers pay Medium and Medium pays writers.

The difference that matters most to many writers is the list. As one operator put it, "I don't consider someone a newsletter subscriber unless they've provided an email address that I can actually export and migrate elsewhere" (@mannyyreyyes, X, 2026-10-16). A LinkedIn post titled "Substack in 2026 feels exactly like the Medium era of 2017" raised a different worry: "You can't meaningfully separate readers from leads" (asif ali, 2026-01-22). Both are fair concerns, and they point in different directions.

How do Substack and Medium compare at a glance?

As published on October 22, 2026:

	Substack	Medium
Cost to publish	Free (Substack)	Earning requires an active membership (Medium)
Who readers pay	You, at the price you set	Medium: $5/month or $50/year; Friend of Medium $15/month (Medium)
How writers earn	Subscription payments minus 10% and Stripe fees	Partner Program: member reading time, engagement and bonuses (Medium)
Email to your readers	Full newsletter in the inbox	Story emailed to subscribers as "a short preview" linking to Medium (Medium)
Export subscriber emails	Yes, in the export zip (Substack)	Only imported emails and those who subscribed before April 2025 (Medium)
Custom domain	One-time $50 (Substack)	Requires an active membership (Medium)
Public API	Read-only Publisher API where enabled; no webhooks	No new integration tokens (Medium)
RSS	Yes	Yes
Post export	Zip with posts, list and stats	HTML files in a zip (Medium)

How do you get paid on Substack vs Medium?

Substack. You set monthly, annual or founding prices. Substack's pricing article says it "keeps 10% of subscription revenue", with Stripe card processing at 2.9% + $0.30 for US cards and 0.7% for Stripe Billing. A reader paying $8 a month is your customer, and you know their email.

Medium. Readers buy a Medium membership at $5 a month or $50 a year (Medium). To earn, you join the Partner Program, which needs an active membership of your own, at least one story and a bank in a supported country (eligibility). Earnings depend on member reading time, engagement, a Boost bonus, an external-traffic bonus (5% for reads from outside Medium) and a one-time amount when a story converts a new member (earnings calculation).

The judgement: Substack pays you in proportion to how many readers value you enough to pay you directly. Medium pays you in proportion to how much paying members read you. If you have a loyal niche, Substack's model is more predictable. If you write widely read pieces and don't want to sell subscriptions, Medium's model can suit you better.

Who owns the audience?

This is the sharpest difference.

On Substack, "Anything you publish on Substack is yours to own", and the export contains your "posts, subscriber list, and related statistics" (Substack Help). Readers get the full post by email.

On Medium, followers and email subscribers are Medium's readers who chose to follow you. Medium's audience stats help says you can export only the emails you imported and those of readers who subscribed before April 2025: "If your list only includes users who subscribed after April 2025, the export will be empty." Emails to subscribers carry a preview that sends readers to Medium.

If owning a portable list matters, Substack wins clearly. If you just want readers and don't plan to email them yourself, Medium's model costs you nothing extra.

Can I automate or extend either platform?

Neither is an automation platform.

• Medium says it "will not be issuing any new integration tokens for our API and will not allow any new integrations", though "All existing tokens will continue to work" (Medium Help). RSS and IFTTT remain for reading.
• Substack has RSS, the export, a read-only Publisher API where enabled, and an official MCP for Bestseller publications, but no webhooks and no write API. See our Substack API guide for the full map.

Writers who cross-post often script it themselves. One wrote: "Every time I post an X article, claude takes it and posts it in beehiiv, substack, medium, linkedin and my personal blog" (@AunySillyMe, X, 2026-10-16). If you want your Substack archive as clean data for that kind of pipeline, the newsletterapi Posts API returns it as JSON or Markdown, read-only. To publish on Substack from your own files, see publishing to Substack from Markdown.

Can I use both Substack and Medium?

Yes, and many writers do. Medium's import tool "will automatically backdate the post to the original date, as well as add a canonical link", so search engines credit the original. A common pattern:

1. Publish on Substack, so subscribers get the full post by email.
2. A few days later, import the post URL into Medium (Stories → "Import a story").
3. Add a link back to your Substack signup page at the end of the Medium version.

Note that Medium's tool imports content only "from other sites for which you have the right to do so."

How do I move from Medium to Substack?

1. Posts. Substack's importer supports Medium: paste a URL such as https://medium.com/@your under Settings → Import/Export → "Import posts" (Substack Help). Substack warns that some platforms' RSS feeds include only "the latest 20 posts", so check the archive came across.
2. Older posts. Download your Medium archive (Settings → Security and apps → "Download your information"), which arrives as HTML files in a zip (Medium Help). The newsletterapi import converter turns that archive into a file for Substack's own importer.
3. Subscribers. Export whatever Medium allows, then upload the CSV under Subscribers → "Add subscribers"; Substack asks you to confirm "these subscribers have opted in" (Substack Help). Followers who never shared an email can't be moved; invite them with a link in your last Medium stories.

Full walkthrough: importing posts to Substack.

Which should I choose?

If you…	Lean towards
Want readers to pay you directly at your own price	Substack
Want an email list you can export and take anywhere	Substack
Want to write without running a newsletter	Medium
Want paid reach without selling subscriptions	Medium's Partner Program
Want both reach and a list	Publish on Substack, import to Medium with a canonical link