Substack

A place for independent writing.

substack.com

HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA

51-200

B2B

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Jul 30, 2026

Overview

Substack is a San Francisco-based creator publishing platform that helps writers, journalists, podcasters, video creators, and media companies build paid subscriber businesses with integrated publishing, payments, discovery, and community tools.

Primary product

Subscription publishing platform for independent writers and creators

Founded

2017

Headquarters

111 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94104, United States

Team size

2,000-3,000

Industry

Online Audio and Video Media

Sub-industry

Subscription-based publishing and creator media platform

Offices

111 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94104 (HQ)

New York City, New York, United States

Business model

subscription revenue share

creator publishing platform

brand sponsorships / partnerships

Funding

Stage

Series C

Total raised

$208M

Latest round

Series C · Jul 2025

Latest amount

$100M

Series C

Jul 2025 · BOND and The Chernin Group

$100M

Venture - Series Unknown

Nov 2024

$10M

Equity Crowdfunding

May 2023

$7.8M

Series B

Mar 2021 · Andreessen Horowitz

$65M

Series A

Jul 2019 · Andreessen Horowitz

$19.1M

Seed

Apr 2018 · Fifty Years

Pre-Seed

Jan 2018 · Y Combinator

People & investors

Leadership

Chris Best

Co-founder & CEO

Hamish McKenzie

Co-founder & Chief Writing Officer

Jairaj Sethi

Co-founder & CTO

Sachin Monga

VP of Product

Lauren Schutte

Head of Partnerships

Mike Cohen

Head of AI & ML Engineering

Karim Damji

Chief Financial Officer

Investors

Work & culture

Mission-driven and creator-first, with an emphasis on writer ownership, direct audience relationships, autonomy, and high standards. Public messaging is strongly anti-ad-driven and pro-independent publishing, while recent hiring copy emphasizes collaboration, ownership, and building for creators.

Compensation

Public engineering postings describe market-competitive pay plus equity and exceptional benefits; one Substack systems-engineering posting listed a $185,000-$225,000 cash salary range, plus equity.

Benefits

100% covered health care premiums

parental leave

flexible PTO

internet stipend

phone stipend

home office allowance

equity for full-time roles

Product & market

Pricing

Free to start; Substack keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue after credit-card fees.

Differentiators

—Free to start and free to leave
—Writers keep 90% of revenue after card fees
—Built-in discovery through recommendations, Notes, and network effects
—All-in-one publishing, payments, growth, chat, video, and podcasting tools
—Creators own their IP, mailing lists, and subscriber payments
—Substack Defender provides legal support for publishers

Technology

TypeScript

JavaScript

Node/Express

React

Postgres

Redis

AWS

DynamoDB

Customers

independent writers

journalists

podcasters

video creators

media companies

newsrooms

experts and educators

creative voices

Competitors

Beehiiv

Ghost

Patreon

Medium

Mailchimp

Flipboard

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

$1M-$10M

hello@substack.com +1-571-730-9882

Signals & risks

Layoff

Jun 2022

Substack laid off 13 employees, roughly 14% of staff, citing a weak funding environment and a push to conserve cash.

Source

Acquisition

May 2021

Substack acquired People & Company to accelerate writer community-building and support programs.

Source

Acquisition

Jul 2021

Substack acquired Letter to help independent writers collaborate and build community infrastructure.

Source

Acquisition

Aug 2021

Substack acquired the team from Cocoon; Cocoon founders Alex Cornell and Sachin Monga joined as product and design leaders.

Source

Acquisition

Sep 2022

Crunchbase lists Yem as a completed Substack acquisition.

Source

Latest news

Substackers Say New AI Detection Tool Is a ‘Witch Hunt’

404 Media · Jul 2026

404 Media reported backlash from some Substack writers and readers after the company launched AI-detection tools and transparency features around AI-assisted writing.

Substack bets readers want to pay for content written by humans with new AI detection tool

Axios · Jul 2026

Axios framed the new Pangram feature as part of Substack's push to make human authorship more transparent and valuable to subscribers.

Against Claudefishing

The Substack Post · Jul 2026

Substack launched an AI-detection feature via Pangram for posts, notes, replies, and comments, along with creator disclosures like "How I make this."

Substack Unveils Sponsorship Program Teaming Advertisers With Authors

Variety · Jun 2026

Substack expanded native sponsorships, connecting creators with brands such as Yahoo, Whatnot, Granola, Balenciaga, T-Mobile, Polymarket, and Uber.

Substack’s new ‘Reply Rules’ feature lets creators control how people respond

TechCrunch · Jun 2026

TechCrunch covered Substack’s Reply Rules feature, which lets creators set community reply preferences and moderation rules across posts, Notes, and Chat.

Jobs and careers at Substack

17 jobs at Substack

iOS Engineer - Sponsorships

Remote

Engineering

New York; New York City, NY, United States

3d ago

Remote

Full-time