Podia vs. Substack: Which one is right for me?
Podia and Substack are both platforms where you can make a living off your writing and creative work. Both offer newsletters and blogging, and both make it easy to grow an email list without needing a ton of techie know-how.
But while Substack focuses on paid newsletters and members-only content, Podia is an all-in-one platform where you can blog, sell digital products, build online courses, set up a full website, and grow your email list.
Let’s take a look at the details of each platform to help you decide which is right for you.
Podia vs. Substack plans and pricing
Substack is a newsletter platform where you can subscribe to publications and start writing content yourself. It’s free to create a newsletter and share your writing on your Substack blog. You can choose to make your writing available to the public or exclusive to subscribers, and you can choose how much you want to charge for monthly or annual subscriptions. You’ll pay Substack a flat 10% of your earnings.
With Podia, you can choose from three plans: Mover, Shaker, and Earthquaker. All Podia plans come with your website, blog, digital products, community, and unlimited members and sales.
Podia has a 30-day free trial that lets you test everything, too, so you can make sure it’s the right fit before buying.
- Mover: $49/month and 5% transaction fee ($42/month when paid annually): Includes your community, website builder, blog, landing pages, digital products, and courses, with 50 products and 25 community spaces.
- Shaker: $99/month and 0% transaction fee ($84/month when paid annually): Includes everything in Mover, plus affiliate marketing, upsells, 1 assistant seat, and integrations with PayPal, Zoom, and Zapier, plus 150 products and 100 community spaces.
- Earthquaker: $179/month and 0% transaction fee ($150/month when paid annually): Includes everything in Shaker, with unlimited products, unlimited assistant seats, unlimited video storage, and unlimited community spaces.
All Podia plans include email marketing features like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns.
- Mover includes up to 100 subscribers
- Shaker includes up to 500 subscribers
- Earthquaker includes up to 1,000 subscribers
You can also pay for more subscribers on any plan as your list grows.
Podia also includes a free migration service on paid plans. The team will move your products and customers over from another platform so you can get set up faster without extra work. Learn more about how migrations work here.
Podia lets you sell digital products in addition to blogging and newsletters
One of the biggest differences between Podia and Substack is the ability to sell digital products. Substack lets you make money one way by selling paid newsletter subscriptions or memberships.
With Podia, you have more monetization options with digital downloads, events, online courses, and coaching sessions — basically, you can sell any type of file or program you like. You can make product bundles, add upsells, create coupons, and bundle your products with community access
Plus, Podia has a full online course platform that you can use to make unlimited self-paced, cohort, drip, access-limited, and live courses. Courses and products can be free or paid, and there are integrations with Stripe and PayPal for payment processing.
Blogging and website features on Podia and Substack
While Substack lets you share newsletters and blog posts, Podia has a full website builder with unlimited landing pages, your link in bio, and dedicated blogging functionality.
With Substack, you can set up a blog and a basic homepage. Your homepage lets you show featured blog articles and recent posts, but the personalization options are limited. You get some basic customizations like font and accent colors, but otherwise, your layouts are pretty much set. Plus, Substack shows related newsletters on your homepage, which could distract people from your work.
With Podia, you have full control over the look of your website and blog. You can choose from dozens of professionally designed layouts that can be customized however you like, and you can:
- Change details like fonts and colors
- Adjust the margins and spacing of your whole site or just specific sections
- Embed videos, podcasts, audio clips, quizzes, and other interactive features
- Update your SEO settings, like your page title, description, and URL
- Share links to your social media channels and email list in your footer in just a few clicks
You can also add unlimited landing pages with Podia, including email opt-in landers, product sales pages, about pages, and any other pages that you need.
Email marketing features of Podia and Substack
Substack is pretty basic when it comes to email marketing. You can send a message to all your subscribers or just paying members, and you can schedule emails to go out at a later time. You can also see stats about your messages, like open rate and click rate.
To get new subscribers on your list, Substack frequently shows an opt-in form to your audience as a pop-up and within your content. You can also show an opt-in form at a breakpoint in your article to gate content that’s only for subscribers or paid members.
With Podia, you decide when and where you promote your newsletter. You can use a lead magnet, free product, opt-in form, full email landing page, or add CTA banners throughout your website.
Podia also has advanced email marketing features that allow you to get more nuanced in your email sending. You can:
- Add tags and segment your audience members based on the products they buy, the forms they subscribe to, and the actions they take with your business
- Build campaigns with unique entrance and exit conditions
- Send sequences and automations like welcome emails, sales promos, and drip courses
- Create custom audience segments, so you make sure your message always goes to the right people
- Automatically send someone an email when they join your affiliate program, sign up for your community, or interact with your business in some way
- Trigger campaigns when someone clicks a link in a previous email
- Choose from a library of beautiful email templates, or use your past emails as a starting point
Best of all, Podia handles a lot of this behind the scenes, so you don’t have to build it yourself. When someone buys a product, that information is automatically saved, so you don’t have to create complicated webs of tags.
Simply put, Substack is a good choice for basic newsletters and blogging, but keep in mind that you’ll always pay 10% in transaction fees.
Podia is a great fit for content creators, bloggers, and small business owners who want advanced email and blogging in the same place as their website, community, and products, with the ability to upgrade and add even more features as your business grows.
The best way to know for sure is to try Podia for yourself! You can start blogging and sending email newsletters right now with a 30-day free trial. We can’t wait to see what you make.