The State of Substack for PR
Research
Data from Featured's Find Substacks database of 38,746 Substack publications. October 2026.
Findings
- Original research · Find Substacks database
- Based on 38,746 Substack publications, October 2026
- 90.8% — Have Substack DMs open (35,198 of 38,746 publications)
- 4,000 — Median free subscribers (Across 35,654 publications with a recorded count)
- 481.9M — Combined free subscriber count (Sum across all publications, not unique readers)
- Reachability: nine in ten writers take direct messages
- Substack direct messages are the primary route to a newsletter writer, and 35,198 publications (90.8%) have them open. Counting linked social accounts as a second channel, 37,314 publications (96.3%) can be reached by DM or at least one social account, leaving only 1,432 (3.7%) with neither. Reachability holds at the top of the market too: of the 9,481 publications with 10,000 or more subscribers, 89.4% have DMs open.
- Reachability by channel
- Substack DMs open: 90.8%
- At least one social account: 77.7%
- Two or more social accounts: 48.4%
- Instagram linked: 46.5%
- X linked: 43.5%
- LinkedIn linked: 27.9%
- YouTube linked: 23.8%
- Custom domain: 16.0%
- Share of all 38,746 publications; a publication can appear on more than one row.
- Figure 2. Publications by free subscriber tier (cumulative thresholds)
Related companies: Featured
Source: press.featured.com/research/the-state-of-substack-for-pr/
Cite as: Featured / Brett Farmiloe, “The State of Substack for PR”, October 19, 2026.