We recently crossed 50,000 subscribers at Write • Build • Scale, and if I look back at our 2-year journey on Substack, most of our growth didn’t come from doing more:

Instead, I claim that our rapid growth is based on a handful of smart decisions that most creators skip.

We Don’t Want You on Our Monthly Plan

The price of our monthly plan is $20, which is higher than the average on Substack:

Most publications sit between $5 and $10 a month, so ours looks expensive next to them, and that’s on purpose. We don’t want people on our monthly tier, and thanks to that decision, less than 5% of our paid members choose the monthly plan.

Instead, we want our members on the annual plan at $85 a year.

When you set the monthly price high enough, the annual plan stops feeling like a discount and starts feeling like the obvious choice.

The revenue math is the smaller half of the story: An annual member is a different relationship than a monthly one.

Someone who commits to a full year shows up more, actually uses what we build, and stays long enough to get results. That’s the depth that turns a list of subscribers into a community people want to be inside.

So even during launch weeks and promotions, we almost only promote annual. We rarely discount monthly to make it easier to say yes.

If you run a paid publication, the question here is which plan you actually want people on, and whether your prices are quietly steering them there.

But pricing is only one lever in the free-to-paid problem, and it’s the one most creators guess at. Our Free-to-Paid Playbook is full of 100+ tested strategies for turning free readers into paying members, filtered by subscriber stage, so you find the right move in minutes instead of guessing.

Notes Brought Us 10,000 Subscribers, and One Sentence Did the Work

This one surprised us more than anything else. Around 10,000 of our 50,000 subscribers came directly through Substack Notes, a fifth of everything, from a feature most creators either ignore or post to with no real strategy.

Here’s the part that changed how I think about it. We co-published a deep analysis that looked at over 9,000 Notes from more than 600 writers. Not likes. Not restacks. Which Notes actually converted readers into subscribers.

I Analyzed 9,641 Substack Notes. Here's What 99% of Writers Are Doing Wrong.

Sinem Günel and Orel

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May 8

Read full story

The finding that stood out had nothing to do with timing or how often you post: The Notes that converted best opened with a specific, verifiable credential. Not a clever hook. Not a question. A credential.

Notes that opened that way converted at 20 times the rate of Notes that didn’t.

It makes sense the moment you picture the feed: Notes is a scroll full of strangers. The person passing your Note isn’t familiar with your work yet, doesn’t know your results, and has no reason yet to trust a word of it.

The first sentence is the only moment you get to signal you’re worth listening to, and a credential does that instantly. The insight that follows becomes much more believable once the reader knows why you have the standing to say it.

So lead with what you’ve actually done, not just with the insight.

If you are serious about growing on Substack, you really can’t miss out on Notes.

But we know that showing up every single day can feel like a massive burden. That’s why we have created 365 notes templates for you.

You can get full access for only $47 right now.

Live Streaming Is the Fastest Way to Build Trust

When Substack rolled out live video streaming, we dived in right away and have probably hosted more sessions than any other publication.

And that’s for two reasons:

The first is trust.

Live is unfiltered, unedited, and in real-time. You get things right, you get things wrong, you answer questions you didn’t see coming.

That’s the whole point, because people connect with a human thinking on their feet, not with polished, perfect content. It’s the fastest trust-building format on the platform right now.

The second is growth, and this is the one to pay attention to.

Most of our streams are collaborations. A partner brings their audience, those readers discover our work inside a real conversation, and a meaningful share of them subscribe. Every collaboration live is a warm introduction to a new audience by someone they already trust. That compounds in a way solo content just can’t.

Saying No Is a Growth Strategy

When we were building this publication, there was a constant pull to be everywhere. Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X. Every platform feels like an opportunity you’re wasting by not being on it.

But we made a deliberate choice: Substack was the one thing.

Our philosophy is to go deep on one platform at a time so we can ignore anything else.

What most creators miss is that being everywhere doesn’t automatically multiply your reach or revenue, but it instantly divides your energy, and usually means nothing you’re doing is working particularly well.

The creators growing fastest right now aren’t doing the most things. They’re doing fewer things at a consistently high level.

If your attention is split across platforms and none of them is really moving, that’s probably your answer. Pick the one with the most potential for your goals and go deep. For us, that was Substack, and 50,000 subscribers later I have no regrets.

The Right Platform at the Wrong Time Is Still the Wrong Platform

I learned this one the hard way. A lot of creators are either on the wrong platform, or on the right platform at the wrong moment.

I’ve built my email list on Kit since 2020. That’s where my core list lives and where my automated sales run. I first joined Substack in 2021, then left. Back then, Substack was essentially a simple email tool. You could write and send emails, but there was no real discovery, no Notes, no recommendation network, no way for a stranger to stumble onto your work. For someone who already had a list, there wasn’t much reason to be there.

When I came back in 2024, everything had changed. Substack had built the discovery infrastructure that turns it into a genuine growth engine: A recommendation network, Notes, explore options, and so much more. It had matured into something that could actually put my work in front of people who’d never heard of me.

That’s when it made sense to go all-in because the features finally matched what I needed to grow my business.

The best platform isn’t just about your preferences. It’s about whether the platform’s current toolset serves your specific goals right now. A platform that was wrong for you two years ago can be the perfect fit today.

None of This Was a Shortcut

Every one of the points above was a deliberate choice, and deliberate choices compound. The more intentionally you make them, the faster they pay off.

If you already run a business or a coaching practice, and you’d rather not spend the next year figuring these decisions out by trial and error, that’s what we built the Substack Accelerator for. It’s direct coaching from the Write • Build • Scale team, applied to your specific publication, built around one outcome: Becoming a Substack Bestseller and building real income on top of it.

It’s application-based, because we only take people we’re confident we can get there. If that sounds like you, you can apply here: substackcoaching.com