You run a business and want to write about what you know. Both Substack and Medium let you publish for free. The real question is where the readers end up. Substack builds an email list you own and can take with you. Medium puts your posts in front of its own readers, and keeps most of the relationship with them.
Facts below come from Substack's and Medium's own help pages, as of October 2026.
The short verdict
- Pick Substack if you want a list of people you can email about your work, and you want to keep that list if you ever move.
- Pick Medium if you want to test topics in front of an existing reading audience, and a growing email list matters less to you right now.
For most business owners, the list is the asset. A reader on your list can become a client. A reader on someone else's platform is harder to reach again.
How readers find you and stay with you
Substack sends each post by email to your subscribers and publishes it on the web. You can export your subscriber list as a CSV file at any time. Names are not included, but emails are.
Medium shows your posts to its readers and to people who follow you. Readers can also subscribe to get your stories by email. Medium changed the rules for those subscriptions in April 2025. Its audience stats page says you can export emails you imported yourself and those of readers who subscribed before April 2025. If all your subscribers joined after that, the export is empty.
That means a Medium audience built today stays on Medium. If you want to reach those readers later about a new service, you will need to reach them through Medium.
How each one pays
Substack is free to publish. If you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack keeps 10% of each payment, and Stripe charges its own processing fees. A custom domain costs a one-time $50 (how much Substack costs).
Medium pays through its Partner Program. Writers earn when paying Medium members read, listen to or engage with stories placed behind the paywall (Partner Program overview). To join, Medium lists these requirements (eligibility):
- An active paid Medium membership.
- At least one published story.
- A complete profile.
- A bank in a country eligible for payouts.
- Being 18 or older, and agreeing to the program terms.
For a business owner, one client who reads three posts and then books a call is often worth more than months of reading income. Weigh each platform on how well it leads readers to that call.
Being found
"Being found" can mean two things.
- Found by readers on the platform. Medium shows stories to its members and says it favours thoughtful, well-crafted stories when it distributes them (Partner Program overview). Substack also has its own app with a feed.
- Found in search. Neither platform can promise you search traffic. If search matters to you, keep your best articles on your own website too, and follow the basics in SEO for small business.
One simple approach: publish on the platform that builds your list. Share a short version on LinkedIn or Medium with a link back. There are ideas for the LinkedIn side in LinkedIn post ideas for business.
What to write about
Readers who might hire you want practical posts from someone who does the work. Good starting points:
- The question clients ask you most, answered in full.
- A mistake you see often in your field, and how to avoid it.
- A short case story: the problem, what you did, the result.
- Your view on a change in your industry, in plain words.
Write in the same voice you use with clients. A reader should recognise you when they get on a call.
How to decide
- Decide what you want most from writing: an email list, reach, or reading income.
- If it is a list, start on Substack or another newsletter tool.
- If it is reach, try Medium for a few posts and watch which topics get read.
- Either way, end each post with one clear next step, such as joining the list or booking a call.
- Review after three months and move your effort to what brought you clients.
For the writing itself, see how to write a newsletter. If you are weighing newsletter tools, see beehiiv vs Substack, and to grow the list, how to build an email list.