Substack fees explained: what it takes in 2026

Substack takes 10% of every paid subscription a publication sells, and that is not the whole deduction: on a web checkout Stripe also charges 2.9% + $0.30 for the card and a 0.7% billing fee for the recurring charge, all deducted before Substack pays you. Publishing itself is free, whatever the size of the list. This guide sets out each fee as Substack publishes it, with worked examples computed by the same engine as the Substack fee calculator. Every rate below is quoted from Substack's official pricing article, cross-checked against Substack's Publisher Agreement, and was verified on 3 September 2026.

What Substack charges

There is one price list, in US dollars; what changes the total is how the reader pays.

Only the first row is Substack's own. The rest belong to whoever moves the money: Stripe on the web, Apple in the iOS app — never both, because Apple collects in-app payments itself and remits the proceeds to Substack.

What a web subscription actually pays

On a monthly subscription paid by card, the fee on $10.00 is $1.66 and you keep $8.34, an effective rate of 16.6%. On an annual subscription paid by card, the fee on $100.00 is $13.90 and you keep $86.10, an effective rate of 13.9%.

The percentages are identical at both prices; the gap in the effective rate is the fixed $0.30, charged once per transaction. Billed as $100 once a year it is paid once, billed as $10 a month it is paid twelve times — the one real lever a writer has.

Subscriptions bought in the iOS app

When a reader upgrades inside the Substack iOS app, Apple takes the payment and applies its own service fee, and Substack's 10% comes off as well. Stripe is not involved, so its card and billing fees do not apply.

On the same monthly subscription bought in the app, the fee on $10.00 is $2.50 and you keep $7.50, an effective rate of 25%.

Substack states Apple's fee only as "an extra 15-30%" and does not say which conditions produce which rate, so this schedule uses the low end. Treat the in-app net above as a best case, not a quote. Substack's default setting, "adjusted pricing", also raises the price shown in the app so that your take-home lands closer to the web figure; Substack publishes no formula for that adjustment, so the calculator models the other setting, "keep prices the same", where the in-app reader pays exactly what a web reader pays.

Pricing so you keep a round number

The fees come out of what the reader pays, so adding the rate to what you want to keep is never quite enough. Work backwards instead:

• Web checkout: To keep $10.00 you charge $11.92, and the fee is $1.92.
• iOS in-app purchase: To keep $10.00 you charge $13.33, and the fee is $3.33.

The calculator's "I want to net" mode does this for any price and either payment path.

What this guide leaves out

The schedule covers the two ways a reader can pay for a subscription and nothing else. Out of scope: the non-card methods Stripe prices separately per country (iDEAL, Bancontact, Sofort, SEPA Direct); the legacy 0.5% billing-fee rate for creators who connected Stripe before 10 July 2024, which Substack says expired on 30 June 2025; Apple's exact rate within its stated range, and the arithmetic behind adjusted pricing; sales tax and VAT, which Apple handles for in-app purchases; and Stripe's own payout, currency-conversion and dispute charges.

When these rates last changed

This schedule was first verified on 3 September 2026 against Substack's help-centre pricing article, cross-checked against its Publisher Agreement. Confidence is medium, not high: the agreement confirms that a revenue share and the payment processor's fees are deducted before payout, but it restates none of the percentages, so every figure rests on the help-centre article alone. Substack publishes no effective date for its pricing, so it is re-verified every 60 days. The Substack fee changelog holds the single entry so far; the methodology explains the check, and if a figure here disagrees with what Substack shows you, report it.

Frequently asked questions

Does Substack charge a monthly fee?

No. Publishing, hosting and sending email cost nothing however many subscribers you have, and Substack takes nothing at all until you turn on paid subscriptions. From that point it is 10% of each transaction and no fixed monthly charge.

Why is my payout less than 90% of the subscription price?

Because Stripe's fees come out of the same payment. The 10% is Substack's share; the card fee and the billing fee are the processor's, and both are deducted before the money reaches your Stripe balance. Stripe shows the split on each "Succeeded" transaction, with the billing fee listed separately from the processing fee.

Is it cheaper to take subscription payments myself?

Only if you already run the rest. A processor charges for the payment alone — compare the PayPal fee calculator or the Square fees guide at your own subscription price — and Substack's extra 10% buys the hosting, the email sending and the app. The PayPal fees guide shows what a bare payment costs.

Where do these numbers come from?

Every figure is quoted from Substack's own help-centre article, saved as a dated snapshot and checked by a person. The schedule is quoted line by line, with the verbatim source text behind every rule, in the calculator's fee table for anyone who wants to check it.