Medium vs Substack: The Honest Truth After 6 Years & 80k Followers

Most people are asking the wrong questions.

I spent six years at the top of Medium—managing Better Marketing (one of their biggest publications), becoming a boost nominator, running the Medium Writing Academy, and building 80,000 followers. And then I started quietly shifting to Substack.

Not because Medium failed me, but because I outgrew what it could offer.

Here’s what nobody talks about: these platforms aren’t competitors. They’re completely different games with different rules, different prizes, and different players.

And in this piece, I’m going to show you exactly when to use each platform—and why you might want to secretly use both.

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The Fundamental Difference

Here’s the easiest way to understand the key difference between the two platforms:

Medium is like being a chef at a great restaurant. Amazing kitchen, prestigious address, customers already waiting.

But you don’t own the restaurant, you don’t keep the customer list, and if the restaurant changes its menu or shuts down, you’re out.

Substack is like opening your own restaurant. It’s smaller initially. You need to find your own customers, but you own everything—the recipes, the customer list, the building. You can expand, franchise, or sell it.

On Medium, you’re a “Medium writer.” Your identity is tied to the platform. When people share your article, they say, “Check out this Medium article.”

On Substack, you’re YOU. When people share your newsletter, they say, “Check out Sinem’s newsletter.”

This might seem subtle, but it’s a major difference for the long-term potential of your content.

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The Discovery Difference

Medium’s Algorithm Machine

When you publish on Medium, your article enters a recommendation system that can show it to thousands of readers.

I’ve had articles reach hundreds of thousands of readers in the early days, not because I had followers, but because the algorithm picked it up. The curation system, the publication network, the tag system—it’s all designed for one thing: helping readers discover stories they’ll enjoy reading.

The catch? You’re playing in Medium’s sandbox. They can change the algorithm or their expectations and boost guidelines tomorrow (and they have, multiple times), and your traffic disappears.

Substack’s Relationship Engine

Substack’s discovery is completely different.

Even though there’s an algorithm that can help you get discovered, there’s a much more important social layer. Notes, recommendations, cross-promotions—everything is built on relationships and collaboration between writers. You grow by other writers supporting you, not just by an algorithm’s or curator’s decision.

The catch? It can be slower initially because you have to build trust and relationships first. You’re less likely to go viral overnight.

But once you build momentum, it compounds in ways that are not possible on Medium simply because you OWN your audience and relationships on Substack.

While Medium can give you larger dopamine hits through the Partner Program, Substack allows you to build compounding growth.

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Let’s Talk About the Money

Medium’s Partner Program

I made over $100,000 directly through Medium’s Partner Program, and here’s exactly how it works:

You write stories → Readers pay a monthly flat fee to access Medium’s paywalled content → You put your story behind the paywall → Paying members read your work → Medium calculates what the engagement and the time readers have spent on your article is worth → You get paid based on engagement from paying Medium members.

The good:

• You can earn from day one

• No need to build your own audience first

• One viral article can generate hundreds or thousands of dollars, even now in the time of Boosting

The brutal truth:

• You’re splitting a fixed pool of money with every other writer

• Earnings are unpredictable since they can fluctuate massively based on viral posts

• Constantly writing new stories is all you can do

Substack’s Direct Monetization

Substack is radically different. You set your price, readers pay YOU directly, Substack takes 10%.

The good:

• Predictable revenue (100 subscribers at $5/month = $500/month recurring revenue)

• You control everything—price, what’s free, what’s paid

• Higher earning potential (top writers make up to seven figures per year)

• You own the relationship with your readers and customers

The brutal truth:

• You start at $0

• Building a paid audience takes months

• You need to be comfortable selling your paid tier like a product

• Most writers hate selling their work

While Medium paid me directly for my writing, Substack readers pay me for my expertise, my offers, and my brand.

While the only way to control my earnings on Medium was to publish more articles that could earn money, the journey on Substack is very different because you have to build a paid tier that is worth paying for and consistently promote it.

This is a much more strategic approach to content creation because you’re not supposed to just throw spaghetti at the wall on Substack.

At Write • Build • Scale, we have recently crossed the 1,000 paid subscriber threshold, which is a massive accomplishment. That’s only been possible because we approached Substack as a growth channel, not just a platform that allows us to run a paid newsletter.

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The Ownership Equation

Let’s talk about what you actually own and build on each platform, because this is where things can get uncomfortable in the long run.

On Medium

My 80,000 followers on Medium? I don’t own them. I can’t email them. I can’t take them with me when I leave the platform.

If Medium shuts down tomorrow, they’re gone, and I have no way of ever reaching them again, even though these are all people who enjoyed my work and actively decided to follow me.

Most writers learn this the hard way: followers are worthless.

Medium has changed its algorithm dozens of times since I started.

In 2018, claps determined earnings.

In 2019, read time became king. In 2020, curation was everything.

In 2021, publications mattered most.

In 2022, they prioritized new writers.

In 2023, they changed the payment formula again.

And now, Boosting is the key.

Each change means you need to adapt and re-evaluate your strategy and goals.

On Substack

On Substack, I can literally download my entire email list right now. I instantly get a CSV file, which is basically an entire business that I can take anywhere.

But it goes deeper: You own your content (full rights). You own your payments (Stripe account). You own your relationship with your readers (direct email access). If Substack disappeared tomorrow, I’d still have my 20,000+ subscribers. I’d just move them to my newsletter on Kit and keep going.

This ownership is one of the aspects that made Substack so interesting for me because I’m not just a writer—I’m an entrepreneur.

Medium is incredible for writers who want to write.

But if you want to build a business, you need ownership and features that support your goals.

Medium isn’t built for creators and entrepreneurs. It’s simply a space for writing.

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Community—The Hidden Leverage

This is where the platforms diverge most dramatically—and where I saw the biggest difference firsthand.

Here are the hard facts:

Medium: 6 years, 80K followers, I made a handful of friends—even though I was running the leading community for the platform.

Substack: 1 year, 20,000+ subscribers, 1,000 paying clients, deep relationships with dozens of writers who became not only friends but also our strongest collaboration partners and affiliates.

Those relationships are worth much more than followers.

Medium is like writing in a beautiful library where everyone’s in their own cubicle.

You can admire other people’s work, but you’re not really connecting. Sure, there are comments and highlights. But when did you last make a real friend on Medium? When did collaborations happen? When did writers team up? The platform is designed for readers, not for writer-to-writer connection.

Substack feels like a writer’s co-working space.

Everyone’s building something, and they’re helping each other do it. In my first year on Substack, I co-hosted dozens of live events with other writers, I wrote guest posts, and I’ve built actual friendships with like-minded writers I got to meet around the world.

This isn’t just networking. The Substack community directly grows your business through recommendations, cross-promotions, and collaborations.

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The Feature Comparison

Let’s get specific about what you can actually DO on each platform.

Both platforms come with a simple editor for long-form content.

On Substack, you can directly integrate subscription buttons, publish podcasts or videos, run live streams, and post short-form notes—while Medium is exclusively for long-form writing.

For audience building, Medium is algorithm-driven, with distribution decisions made by publication editors and boost nominators. But more importantly, you don’t build an email list that you can take with you.

Substack is relationship-driven with a recommendation network, and you own those emails.

For monetization, Medium offers only the Partner Program.

Substack offers paid subscriptions, founding member tiers, and group subscriptions. Most importantly, you can use your Substack as a marketing channel to monetize your work by offering products and services outside of Substack as well. This isn’t possible on Medium because the moment you plug promo links into your articles, they won’t reach many people.

One feature that perfectly illustrates the difference is Substack’s chat. You can not only privately message other writers and your readers, but you can also create a subscriber chat and treat your audience as a community.

At Write • Build • Scale, we use our chat almost every day to engage with our readers, run giveaways, share updates, and provide a space for connection.

This is the opposite of Medium, which doesn’t even allow its writers to communicate with each other. Not even publication editors have a proper way of communicating with their writers—we still use external tools for that.

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Who Wins? The Honest Platform Prescription

You Should Choose Medium If:

• You’re a purist writer who wants to focus solely on craft

• You love the serendipity of algorithmic discovery

• You want immediate potential for virality

• You’re not interested in building a business beyond writing

• You prefer working within established structures

• You want to earn money without managing subscriptions

If you said, “I just want to write great articles and get paid,” Medium can be perfect for you.

Will it happen overnight? Of course not. There is a lot to learn about Medium’s internal distribution systems. And if you’re new to the platform, you need to know that you are not going to make big bucks with every single piece you put out there.

You Should Choose Substack If:

• You’re building a personal brand or business

• You want predictable, growing revenue

• You’re comfortable with relationship-based growth

• You want to own your audience

• You plan to expand beyond just writing (courses, coaching, community)

• You think long-term compound growth over short-term viral hits

Real talk: If you see writing as the foundation of a larger business, Substack is non-negotiable.

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The Hybrid Strategy

Here’s what the smartest writers are doing, and what I recommend to most writers:

Write the pillar piece on Substack (your newsletter).

Republish the same piece on Medium.

Create Notes on Substack from key insights.

One piece of content, two platforms, two different audiences.

Let me give you an even better example: This piece originally started as a YouTube video. The script is now being published on Substack as this post. I’ll repurpose snippets as Substack Notes, and I might also publish the entire piece on Medium and link to it in my newsletter on Kit.

That’s the game: One message, multiple platforms, compound growth.

If you’re on Medium and wondering if it’s time to add Substack to the mix, here are three signals to watch for:

The Ceiling Signal: Your Medium earnings have plateaued for 6+ months.

The Business Signal: You want to launch digital products or services and build a sustainable business on the internet instead of just relying on the Partner Program.

The Ownership Signal: You’re tired of algorithm anxiety and want to own your audience.

But here’s what I recommend: Don’t burn bridges.

You can perfectly use both platforms together. You don’t need to quit Medium and start Substack, or do the opposite. Instead, you can repurpose the pieces you’ve already written on one platform, take them to the other, and start to slowly build your multi-platform approach.

When we started the Write • Build • Scale publication on Substack, I republished many of my older Medium articles. This allowed me to spend more time actually understanding Substack as a platform because I didn’t have to constantly churn out new content and could instead focus on connecting with the audience and building relationships with writers.

Here’s the way I look at it: Medium is where writers can get started. Substack is where digital entrepreneurs can thrive.

Those 80,000 followers I gained on Medium, that validation, that training—it made me the writer I am today. It taught me to write. But Substack is teaching creators to build an ecosystem and a sustainable business.

Remember, you don’t have to choose between platforms. You just need to choose your own path.

If you’re starting out, here’s my advice: Pick the platform that most resonates with you at your current stage.

Start to write and show up without the pressure of achieving viral hits or building a massive audience. Just get the reps in, build your confidence, and enjoy the process.

But listen to early signals. If you realize that you actually enjoy thinking about your writing in an entrepreneurial way, you definitely don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to build an email list instead of just followers.

At the end of the day, followers are worthless no matter if you build them on Medium, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

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Now It’s Your Turn

I’d love to know where you are in your journey right now. Are you a Medium writer thinking about Substack? A Substack writer wondering if you should try Medium? Or someone starting fresh?

Drop a comment below and share your thoughts or questions. 💬

If you’re new to Substack and want detailed templates, frameworks, and guidance on how to build your publication, click here to get access to our Substack Starter Kit. 🧰

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💰 Next: How much money can you make on Substack?

If you’re not sure whether Substack is worth it for you and what you can expect from the platform, check out this video where I explain exactly how you can make money on Substack and what it takes to make a significant income on the platform: