Newsletter first or site first: Substack and Typoza
Both send your posts by email. Substack is built around the inbox and its network; Typoza around a site at your own address.
Free to start, no card. You can export your posts at any time, on every plan.
A year of posts on Substack
- An address on substack.com, or a domain you connect
- A layout shared with other publications, with a few options
- Readers who found you through recommendations and the app
- Substack's percentage on every paid subscription
A year of posts on Typoza
- Your own domain, from the Collective plan
- One theme set to your colours, fonts and text width
- Readers who found you through search, feeds and links
- A flat plan price, and no reader payments at all
Substack starts from the inbox: each post is a newsletter issue, and each issue also gets a web page. It costs nothing until you charge readers; from then on, it keeps a percentage of what they pay.
Typoza starts from the site. Your posts live on your own pages, and your workspace's newsletter, the Letter, can send each one by email. You pay a flat price for the plan, and Typoza does not take payments from readers.
Choose by where you want readers to meet you: in their inbox and in Substack's app, or on a site at your own address.
Point by point
| What we compare | Typoza | Substack |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | Your site. Each post can also go out by email. | The newsletter. Each issue also gets a web page. |
| Pricing model | A free plan, then a flat price per workspace. | Free until you charge readers, then a percentage of paid subscriptions, plus payment fees. |
| Paid subscriptions | Not offered. | Built in, and the heart of the product. |
| Your address | A typoza.com subdomain, or your own domain from the Collective plan. | A substack.com address, or your own domain once connected. |
| Design | One theme set to your colours, fonts and text width, with menus you arrange. | Substack's layout, with a set of options. |
| Site structure | Categories, tags, standalone pages and a sitemap. | An archive of posts, which you can split into sections. |
| Finding readers | Search, feeds and shares, plus the Typoza directory if you opt in. | Recommendations between publications and the Substack app, which bring real subscribers. |
| If you leave | Posts in Markdown and JSON; subscribers as CSV, JSON or a spreadsheet. | An export of your posts and your subscriber list. |
What Substack does better
Every comparison has this section, and it is never empty. We lose on these points:
- Paid subscriptions, working from the first day with nothing to build. That is what Substack exists for.
- The network. Recommendations between publications and the Substack app bring subscribers that a standalone site does not get. Typoza's directory is opt-in and young, and does not do that work.
- No ceiling on a free newsletter. Your list can grow without a bill, while each Typoza plan caps its subscribers.
- A reading app, where subscribers find the publications they follow.
Moving from Substack
Substack exports your posts and your subscriber list. Typoza imports the list. You re-create the posts by hand, since Typoza's importer only reads WordPress files.
What comes across
- Your subscribers' email addresses, from the CSV in Substack's export. You import them into your workspace after confirming these people agreed to hear from you.
- Each post's text, copied into the editor with its headings, lists and links.
- Email itself. Your workspace's newsletter sends each new post, or a daily or weekly digest, as each subscriber chooses.
- Your custom domain, if you connected one. Point it at Typoza instead, from the Collective plan.
What does not
- Paid subscriptions. Typoza takes no payments from readers, so paying subscribers stop paying on the day you move. Settle that before anything else.
- Substack's recommendations and its app. Typoza has nothing like them.
- Your substack.com addresses. They keep working while the publication stays up, and Substack does not redirect them to your new site.
- Pictures, which you upload again: the importer that fetches them works only on WordPress files.
So, which one?
Pick Substack if…
Paid subscriptions are your income, you want to earn from the first reader without paying anything, or Substack's network matters more to you than a site of your own.
Pick Typoza if…
You want a site at your own address, with categories, your design and a newsletter sent from it, and you do not need readers to pay you through it.
Questions people ask next
Can my readers pay me on Typoza?
No. Readers cannot pay you through Typoza in any form. If paid subscribers fund your writing today, moving ends that income.
Do I keep a newsletter if I move?
Yes. Readers subscribe on your site and confirm their address. Each new post then reaches them by email, one by one or in a daily or weekly digest, as they prefer, and you can write to them by hand as well.
Can I bring my subscribers?
Yes. Import the CSV from Substack's export: Typoza keeps the email addresses and ignores the other columns. You must confirm these people agreed to hear from you, since writing to people who never opted in is the quickest way into spam folders.
Will my posts rank better on my own site?
We cannot promise that. You get your own domain (from the Collective plan), categories and tags, a sitemap, structured data and a share image for each post. Ranking still depends on what you write and on who links to it.
What happens to my custom domain?
It is yours: point it at Typoza, and the certificate comes with it. Substack's post addresses start with /p/ and Typoza's do not: add a redirect by hand for each old address that still gets visits.
The post you keep putting off
Write its first paragraph today. The post stays a draft until you publish it, and no reader sees it before then.
Free to start, no card. You can export your posts at any time, on every plan.