Switching from Substack?
Substack does newsletters.We do the rest.
Substack is genuinely good at one thing: paid newsletters with discovery and recommendations baked in. If that is your whole business, stay. But the moment you want to add courses, a real community, automations, or a CRM, Substack runs out of road — and the 10% it takes from every paid subscription quietly compounds into thousands a year.
The 10% adds up quietly.
Substack takes 10% of every paid subscription. On top of that, Stripe takes 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, plus an additional 0.7% billing fee on subscribers who joined after July 2024. That's roughly 13–14% of your gross revenue — every month, forever, with no cap. Here's what it costs at three common revenue levels.
What Substack doesn't do.
Substack is a newsletter platform with discovery built in. That's its strength. But “newsletter” isn't a business model — it's a marketing channel. The minute you want to add courses, a community, automation, or proper customer management, you're back to a Frankenstack.
No proper LMS.
Substack has paywalls and posts — not courses. No drip schedules, no quizzes, no completion tracking, no certificates, no module/lesson structure, no progress bars. If you want to teach, you'll need Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, or Simplero on top — and tell people to log in somewhere else.
No real community.
Substack has Notes (a public, Twitter-style social feed) and Chat (basic group chat for paid subs). Nice extras. Not a community platform. No threaded discussions, no spaces, no member profiles, no forums, no events. If you want what Skool, Circle, or Mighty Networks deliver — you're adding another tool.
No automation, CRM, or funnels.
No tag-based segmentation. No behavioral triggers. No drip sequences beyond “send on schedule.” No CRM to track contacts across products. No native affiliate program. No multi-step sales funnels. Substack does “writer publishes; reader pays.” Anything more sophisticated lives in a separate tool.
In their own words.
Real quotes from real Substack writers — about the 10%, the missing features, and the moment they realized newsletter wasn't enough. Verbatim. Attributed.
beehiiv.com/blog · Dec 2025
How Much Does Substack Cost Creators in 2026
“What is the feature you miss most from Substack?”
beehiiv.com/blog · Dec 2025
via beehiiv case study
LinkedIn · Sep 2025
The Pure Procurement Newsletter
beehiiv.com/blog
All quotes verbatim. Sourced from beehiiv published case studies, Reddit r/Substack, and public LinkedIn posts. Where attribution requires anonymity (Reddit threads), only the source forum is named.
Side by side. Whole platform vs whole platform.
A factual comparison of Substack vs Simplero across the features that determine whether your business can actually live on one platform. Numbers current as of May 2026.
| Substack | Simplero | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | 10% of every paid subscription, forever | 0% — you pay your plan, we don't take a cut |
| Payment processing | Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 + 0.7% billing fee (post-July 2024 subs) | Stripe or PayPal at standard rates — we don't surcharge |
| Transaction fees on courses/products | N/A — no native courses | 0% on every plan, every product |
| Email marketing | Newsletter sends — no advanced segmentation, no behavioral triggers, no real automations | Full email engine: lists, segmentation, automations, broadcasts, behavioral triggers |
| Paid subscriptions | Native — with discovery and recommendations | Native — plus one-time, payment plans, trials, upsells, order bumps |
| Courses with drip / quizzes / certificates | — | Full LMS: drip schedules, quizzes, certificates, completion tracking, AI transcripts |
| Community | Notes (public social feed) + Chat (basic group chat). No threaded discussions, no spaces. | Native community: spaces, forums, member profiles, threaded comments, events |
| Automations / workflows | Welcome email + scheduled sends only | Full automation builder: triggers, conditions, branches, time delays, behavioral |
| CRM | — | Native CRM on every plan: contact records, tags, segments, sales pipelines |
| Affiliate program | — | Full affiliate program from Scale plan up |
| Sales funnels | — | Multi-step funnels with order bumps, upsells, downsells |
| Video hosting | Native (for posts and podcasts) | Native, included — with AI transcripts and subtitles on Skyrocket |
| Custom domain | Yes ($50 one-time setup fee) | Yes — included free on every plan |
| Audience ownership | You can export your email list (good). You don't own the discovery / recommendations / network. | Full ownership of contacts, content, custom domain, and the experience |
| Founder access | Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, Jairaj Sethi run a VC-backed company. You're a creator, not a customer they answer. | Calvin still answers customer emails. Concierge tier ($1.5K–$2.5K/mo) for direct line to founder + product team. |
| Years in business | Founded 2017 | Founded 2009 — 17 years and counting |
| Funding model | VC-backed: ~$200M raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, BOND, Chernin Group. Valued $1.1B in 2024. | Bootstrapped. Profitable. Independent. No outside investors. |
Substack's strength is genuine: paid newsletters with discovery and a network. If that's the entire shape of your business, Substack is great. If your business is wider — courses, community, automation, products, programs — you'll outgrow it.
The real difference.
Two genuinely good products solving two different problems. Pick the one that matches the shape of the business you actually want to run.
Substack is a newsletter platform. Simplero is a business platform. Both true. Both useful. If newsletter is your whole business, Substack is great — stay. If you want courses, community, automations, CRM, affiliates, and a real funnel — that's a different category of tool.
0% platform fees vs 10% + Stripe. Forever. At $5K/mo paid subs, that's $7,800/year staying with you instead of going to a VC-backed company. We don't take a percentage of what you make. We never have.
Founder access included. Calvin still answers customer emails. Partner-level access is included on every plan; concierge tier ($1.5K–$2.5K/mo) gives you a direct line to founder and product leadership. Substack's founders raised $200M and aren't taking your call.
Founded 2009 · Bootstrapped · 17 years · Proud of it.
What Simplero customers say.
Verbatim. Real names. Real businesses.
Simple, honest pricing.
Three flat tiers. No 10%. No surprise fees. No “congratulations on growing” tax. Bring any payment processor you like — we won't surcharge. Prices shown are the monthly rate when paid annually.
$59 /mo
$149 /mo
$249 /mo
All plans include email delivery, video hosting, and zero transaction fees. Need more than 5,000 contacts? Add them in blocks — $15/mo per 2,500 above 10K.
Beyond the newsletter.
Make it simplero™
