The Tech Stack Every Solo Publisher Needs in 2026
Substack quietly skims ~10% off paid subs — clear $100K and that's $10,000 a year gone. beehiiv and Ghost charge 0%. Here's exactly where the math flips.
Substack quietly skims ~10% off paid subs — clear $100K and that's $10,000 a year gone. beehiiv and Ghost charge 0%. Here's exactly where the math flips.
Substack's 10% fee is only half of it. Stack Stripe on top and a $5 newsletter with 2,000 subscribers loses $1,890 a month — 18.9% of gross. Here's where the break-even flips.
Picture a 1,000-subscriber paid newsletter on Substack at $10/month. That's $120,000 a year in revenue — and Substack pockets $12,000 of it. Move the same all-paid list to Ghost Pro at $25/month and the platform takes $300. That's the high end of the math; most publications run a