If you’re looking to start a newsletter, you’ve likely encountered two major options: Substack and WordPress. While both can help you reach your audience, they represent fundamentally different approaches to building your online presence. One locks you into a single platform with limited growth potential, while the other provides a foundation you can build on for decades.
In this concise guide, we’ll compare WordPress vs. Substack to help you choose the platform that aligns with your long-term goals as a creator.
Substack: Simple but limited
Substack invented itself as a newsletter-first platform, offering creators a straightforward way to write, publish, and monetize newsletter content.
Substack’s strengths:
- Simple setup: Launch a newsletter quickly with minimal technical knowledge.
- Built-in discovery: Potential exposure through Substack’s recommendation system.
- Integrated monetization: Easy paid subscription setup.
Substack’s limitations:
- Platform dependency: Your entire business exists within Substack’s ecosystem. If they make changes you don’t like—whether to pricing, features, or policies—you’re forced to accept them or start over completely on another platform.
- Unsustainable revenue sharing: Substack takes 10% of your subscription revenue forever. This becomes extremely expensive as you scale. A creator earning $5,000 pays Substack $500 per month.
- Limited customization: Substack offers minimal branding and design options. Your newsletter looks like everyone else’s, making it difficult to establish a unique brand identity.
- Growth ceiling: While Substack has expanded beyond newsletters to include podcasts and video, it remains limited to basic communication mediums. You can’t easily sell products, courses, or memberships without using separate platforms.
- Platform evolution: Substack has increasingly focused on social features like tweets and shorts. This shift toward chasing cheap engagement rather than fostering meaningful creator-audience relationships contradicts why many chose newsletters in the first place.
WordPress: Built for ownership and growth
WordPress powers over 40% of all websites because it offers something Substack can’t: complete ownership and unlimited potential for growth. As the world’s most popular website software that’s endured for decades, WordPress provides the foundation for creators who want to build something lasting.
WordPress’ strengths:
- Complete ownership: With WordPress, you own your content, data, and audience without being locked into any single company’s platform. Your website, subscriber list, and content remain under your control regardless of what happens to hosting companies or service providers.
- Unlimited customization: WordPress offers thousands of themes and plugins, allowing you to create exactly the newsletter and website experience you envision. Want specific colors, fonts, layouts, or functionality? WordPress makes it possible through extensive customization options.
- Platform Independence: WordPress is portable. You can move your site between hosting providers, change themes, or modify functionality without losing your content or starting over. This flexibility ensures you’re never trapped by a single company’s decisions or policy changes.
- Superior SEO capabilities: WordPress sites consistently rank higher in search engines thanks to clean code structure, SEO plugins like Yoast and RankMath, and complete control over technical optimization. This means new audiences can discover your content organically.
- Unlimited growth potential: Start with a newsletter and seamlessly expand:
- Full website
- Sell products
- Online courses and membership areas
- Podcasts and multimedia content
- Community forums
WordPress’ limitations:
- Technical knowledge: Self-hosted WordPress requires a basic understanding of web hosting, domain management, and website maintenance. While many hosting providers offer one-click WordPress installation, you’ll still need to handle updates, backups, and security measures. But there are hosts like WordPress.com that can handle all of that for you.
- Plugin and theme management: With thousands of plugins and themes available, choosing the right combination can be overwhelming. Some plugins may conflict with each other or slow down your site, requiring careful selection and testing.
WordPress.com Newsletter offers the same benefits of WordPress while removing the complexities of WordPress behind the scenes. It’s easy to start a newsletter or a full website, grow your audience, and build meaningful connections.
WordPress.com’s strengths
- All the benefits of WordPress listed above
- Creator-first pricing: Start completely free with unlimited subscribers and sends. Upgrade your plan to reduce fees, all the way down to 0%. This can add up to thousands of dollars in savings as you grow your subscriber list.
- The calm platform: For those that are trying to leave “always-on” social media platforms, WordPress.com offers a thoughtful platform focused on meaningful creator-audience relationships without the anxiety of chasing trends or social media metrics.
- Built for growth: Transform your newsletter into a full website, add e-commerce functionality, create membership areas, or expand into any direction your creativity takes you—all without changing platforms.
WordPress.com’s limitations
- Discovery ecosystem: While WordPress.com offers the Reader and other discovery features, it isn’t as strong as Substack’s recommendation system. Building your initial audience may require more active promotion and SEO efforts.
Head-to-Head comparison
| Feature | WordPress.com Newsletter | WordPress | Substack |
| Setup Difficulty | Easy | Moderate | Very easy |
| Ownership | Complete | Complete | Limited |
| Customization | Extensive | Extensive | Limited |
| SEO Capabilities | Strong built-in SEO | Strong built-in SEO | Limited |
| Monetization Fees | 0-10% (decreases with paid plan) | Depends on plugin | 10% of everything |
| Growth Potential | Unlimited | Unlimited | Communication mediums only |
| Technical Requirements | None | Hosting, plugins | None |
| Content Portability | Complete | Complete | Can export, will need new platform |
| Discovery Options | WordPress Reader, SEO, social | SEO, social | Substack network only |
When to choose each platform
Choose Substack if:
- You want the fastest possible setup
- You’re comfortable with permanent platform dependency
- You don’t mind paying 10% of your revenue indefinitely
- You have no plans to expand into e-commerce, courses, or forums
- You’re willing to accept limited customization and branding options
Choose WordPress if:
- You want to own your platform and audience completely
- You value long-term cost savings over short-term convenience
- You plan to grow beyond newsletters into a full online business
- You want superior SEO and organic discovery capabilities
- You prefer maximum customization and branding control
- You want the security of platform independence
- You’re comfortable with some technical maintenance
Specifically Choose WordPress.com Newsletter if:
- You want WordPress without technical complexity
- You need professional newsletter features with creator-friendly pricing
- You want to start free and scale affordably
- You value a calm platform, free from social media style tweets and shorts
- You value having your online presence integrated under one platform
Setting up your newsletter with WordPress
Option 1: WordPress.com Newsletter (recommended for most creators)
- Visit WordPress.com/newsletter and select “Start my newsletter”
- Go through the onboarding checklist to finish setting up your newsletter
Option 2: WordPress + Jetpack Newsletter
- Choose a WordPress hosting provider like Pressable or Bluehost
- Install WordPress (most hosts offer one-click installation)
- Install and activate a Jetpack, which is made by the people behind WordPress.com, and offers all of the same benefits as WordPress.com Newsletter
- Configure Jetpack Newsletter settings
Option 3: Add Newsletter to an existing WordPress.com site
- Add a Subscribe Block or Newsletter Subscription Pattern to your existing site
- Update Newsletter settings to your liking.
Importing from Substack to WordPress.com
If you’re ready to make the move from Substack, migrating to WordPress.com is straightforward:
- Export your Substack content and subscribers
- Visit the content importer by visiting Tools -> Import
- Import your content to WordPress.com
- Import your subscribers to WordPress.com
- Update your Newsletter settings
Your questions answered
How much does WordPress.com Newsletter cost compared to Substack? WordPress.com Newsletter starts free with unlimited subscribers and sends. Paid plans offer lower transaction fees (down to 0%) compared to Substack’s permanent 10% revenue share. See our detailed cost comparison to understand potential savings.
What does “owning your content and subscriber list” actually mean? It means your content and audience data belong to you, not the platform. You can export everything at any time, switch to different hosting, or change platforms entirely. With Substack, your audience relationship is mediated through their platform—if they change policies or shut down, rebuilding becomes much more difficult.
Can I customize my WordPress newsletter’s appearance? Yes, extensively. WordPress.com offers numerous themes, color schemes, custom fonts, logos, and layout options. You can create a unique brand identity rather than looking like every other newsletter on the platform.
How do I know WordPress is reliable for email delivery? WordPress.com sends over 20 million emails daily with excellent deliverability rates. This infrastructure has been refined over 17+ years and includes proper authentication, spam protection, and delivery optimization.
Is it really easy to import from Substack? Yes. WordPress.com’s import process handles both content and subscribers. The technical migration typically completes in hours, though you may want to spend additional time customizing your new site’s appearance and features.
Can I start free and add paid subscriptions later? Absolutely. This is one of WordPress.com’s key advantages—start building your audience for free, then add monetization when you’re ready, with much lower fees than Substack.
Your newsletter deserves a forever home
Choosing a newsletter platform isn’t just about today—it’s about where you want to be in five years. Substack might offer quick setup, but WordPress gives you a foundation that grows with your ambitions.
WordPress represents a fundamentally different philosophy: instead of renting space on someone else’s platform, you’re building a forever home on the open web. A place where you make the rules, keep more of your revenue, and never worry about platform changes affecting your business.
Whether you choose WordPress.com Newsletter for the perfect balance of power and simplicity, or self-hosted WordPress with Jetpack for maximum control, you’re choosing ownership over dependency, flexibility over limitations, and unlimited potential over artificial constraints.
Your brand deserves a home you own.
Start your WordPress.com Newsletter today or learn more about migrating from Substack to begin building your audience on a platform you truly control.
Have you made the switch from Substack to WordPress? Share your experience in the comments below!
