Substack at $45M/year

TL;DR: After originally positioning against ads, Substack is working on its own ad product to keep its highest-earning writers from defecting. Sacra estimates that Substack hit $45M annualized revenue (ARR) in July 2025, up from $37M in 2024, taking 10% of roughly $450M GMV across 5M paid subscriptions. For more, check out our full report and dataset on Substack.


We first covered Substack in April 2023 at $19M in revenue as the “luxury publishing conglomerate” taking on legacy media like the NYT.
We last covered Substack in May 2024 at $29M in revenue as Substack’s competition with Beehiiv and ConvertKit intensified.
Key points via Sacra AI:
- Sacra estimates Substack hit $45M in annualized revenue in July 2025, up from $37M at the end of 2024 (up 23% YoY from $30M in 2023), monetizing via a 10% take rate on $450M of GMV and valued at $1.1B for a 24× forward revenue multiple—compare to Beehiiv at $30M in revenue as of June 2025, up from $20M as of the end of 2024, and Kit (formerly ConvertKit) at $43M in SaaS ARR at the end of 2024, up 14% YoY from $38M in 2023.
- By shifting the focus of its web & app experience from individual newsletters to a social feed that blends long-form posts, Notes, one-to-many Chat threads and live video, Substack is transitioning from newsletter platform to the “thoughtful” alternative to X’s discovery layer—the key risk being that as it becomes a social media platform, Substack’s incentives shift toward platform engagement & usage rather than helping its writers build audiences that retain & re-engage.
- While originally positioning against ads, the middle class of Substack writers and up now generate 20-60% of their income from negotiating & placing their own ad spots in their newsletters—an evolution that has Substack building its own advertising product, betting on its brand & prestige to generate enough revenue for writers to justify Substack’s 10% take rate and stem the flow of defections to 0%-take-rate platforms like Beehiiv & Kit that monetize as SaaS.
For more, check out this other research from our platform:
- Substack (dataset)
- Justin Gage, founder of Technically, on how Substack earns its 10% take rate
- Beehiiv (dataset)
- ConvertKit vs. Beehiiv vs. Substack
- Nathan Barry, CEO and founder of ConvertKit, on ConvertKit’s path to $100M in revenue
- ConvertKit (dataset)
- Stan (dataset)
- OnlyFans (dataset)
- ConvertKit at $38M ARR
- Substack: the $19M/year content LVMH