The State of Substack for PR

News provided by Featured Oct 19, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

Original research · Find Substacks database

The State of Substack for PR

Data from Featured's Find Substacks database of 38,746 Substack publications. October 2026.

Based on 38,746 Substack publications, October 2026 · 12 min read

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 · Share of all 38,746 publications; a publication can appear on more than one row. · 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% · Source: Featured, Find Substacks database (38,746 publications), analysis dated October 2026.

Figure 2. Publications by free subscriber tier (cumulative thresholds)
Free subscribers	Publications	Share of database
1,000 or more	35,654	92.0%
5,000 or more	16,156	41.7%
10,000 or more	9,481	24.5%
25,000 or more	3,904	10.1%
50,000 or more	1,784	4.6%
100,000 or more	733	1.9%
250,000 or more	195	0.5%
500,000 or more	50	0.1%
1,000,000 or more	10	0.0%

Method and notes

Source: Two exports from Featured's Find Substacks database totaling 38,746 publications, each marked as a verified-audience publication. Fields include subscriber and follower counts, direct message availability, linked social accounts, monetization model, bestseller badge, paid subscriber band, podcast status, launch date, language, and topic tags.
Counting: Percentages are shares of all 38,746 publications unless a table or figure states a different base. Topic shares use the 18,899 topic-tagged publications as the base because 51.2% of records carry no tag, and publications with more than one tag count once under each tag. Subscriber figures are the rounded counts Substack displays publicly, so medians and sums are computed on rounded values.
Thresholds: Every publication with a recorded count has at least 1,000 free subscribers. Bestseller badges follow Substack's own tiers at 100, 1,000, and 10,000 paying subscribers. Paid subscriber bands are Substack's reported ranges, available only above its reporting threshold.
Dates: Launch year is the date the publication was created on Substack. The analysis was run in October 2026 and reflects the database at that time; counts change as publications are added.

Topics:Research