Substack Unveils Sponsorship Program Teaming Advertisers With Newsletter Authors

Substack wants to simplify the search for sponsorship revenue for its thousands of newsletter writers.

The platform on Monday said it debut a new stage of its native sponsorships program that gives individual creators to strike up partnerships with advertisers such as Yahoo Scout, Whatnot, Granola, Balenciaga, T-Mobile, Polymarket, and Uber. Specific terms of these agreements were not revealed.

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“These forward-thinking brands recognize that some of the most interesting conversations happening on the internet are driven by writers and creators on Substack. They’ll be building with, and investing millions of dollars in, the creators who choose to participate,” said Chris Best, Substack’s CEO and founder, in an essay published Monday. ” These are not arbitrarily inserted ads. They are direct partnerships between brands and publishers who have already built robust audience-first businesses. Creators choose who they work with. They set the creative direction. They keep full editorial independence. Our job is to take care of what they shouldn’t have to — the matchmaking, the infrastructure, the logistics –so they can stay focused on the work.”

Substack’s program is the latest effort in a bid by creator publishing platforms to help monetize content in more meaningful ways. Beehiiv, for example, recently unveiled a new suite of tools that will help its creators build websites; sell products and services that range from eBooks to coaching; and host podcasts, among other activities.

Advertisers may be looking to partner with newsletter publishers more frequently as the medium gains new scale. According to Bes, more than 100,000 publishers make money on Substack through subscriptions, with the top ten creators making more than $100 million a year. The platform has “tens of millions” subscribers, he said.

Substack may be looking for a share of revenue that individual authors are already creating on their own. Best pointed to the fact that ” some of the most successful creators have been finding ways to expand their business and better serve their community by partnering with organizations that help them offer
more perks, invest more deeply in their editorial, and introduce new features for subscribers.” Emily Sundberg, creator of the “Feed Me” newsletter, did a sponsored letter with the dating app Hinge, for example, while Lenny Rachitsky, author of the career-focused “Lenny’s Newsletter,” put together a collection of complementary product access and trials and offered it as a perk to certain tiers of subscribers.

“These creators, along with their independent agents and managers, handled this work
themselves,” said Best. “They had to figure out the outreach, negotiate the terms, manage the relationships, and handle the logistics, on top of the work of showing up for their subscribers.”

Substack also launched what it calls “Creator Kits,” a new tool for publishers to create a media kit, based on details they want to share about their Substack publication.