Substack

Substack's writing interface is deliberately minimal, close to a distraction-free document editor, with posts publishing to email, a public web archive, and Substack's own reader app simultaneously. The recommendation feature lets other writers endorse your newsletter to their subscribers with one click, which has become one of the more effective free growth channels in the newsletter space, and native support for podcasts and video sits alongside the written post.

Substack doesn't charge a subscription fee for sending a free newsletter of any size, but it takes 10% of revenue from paid subscriptions, on top of standard Stripe processing fees that push the real cost closer to 13 to 16% of gross earnings. The minimum paid subscription is typically $5 a month or $30 a year. There's no tier that adds more contacts or automation, since pricing is entirely revenue-based rather than list-based. It fits a writer who wants distribution and discovery more than granular control over list segmentation or automation sequencing.