Why did you ditch Substack?

Because I want the list, the archive, and the subscribe page on a domain I control. Substack is good at turning writers into a network. I needed a list that leaves with me and a site that can rank for words people search.

What is better than Substack?

Whatever lets you export subscribers, send reliably, and host a real landing page — Beehiiv, Buttondown, ConvertKit, even a boring ESP plus your own HTML. The tool is not the point. Ownership is.

No. It is a good product for people who want discovery inside Substack. It is a worse home if your strategy is SEO, a custom site, and a list you treat as a digital asset.

Why I ditched Substack

I ditched Substack because I want an email list I can export, a landing page I can point at, and a site that is not a feed with a tax. Notes are fine. They are not a list. I would rather be small on a domain I control than large on someone else’s algorithm.

The short version

Substack is good at one job: writers finding readers inside Substack. Notes, recommendations, the network. If that is your growth strategy, stay. I needed a different job: pages that rank, a landing page that is mine, and a list that is a digital asset I can export without a scavenger hunt.

I ditched the idea of Substack as home base. I still read people who are on it. This is not a moral campaign. It is a property decision.

Notes are not email

Email arrives. Notes hope. When the feed is the product, you are back on social, with nicer fonts. I already know how that story ends. Building a daily list is a postcard to people who asked. See the 0 to 1,000 plan. That plan assumes a page and a send, not a For You tab.

The list should leave with you

If you cannot export it cleanly and point it at a new sender, you do not own it. You have a following. Followings get sick when the app changes the rules. Substack makes export possible — I am not claiming a hostage situation — but the gravity of the network pulls you to stay inside it. I wanted gravity toward mattmerrick.com.

SEO and a real site

Search Console kept showing URLs on this domain with impressions and no HTML. Substack posts do not fix that. A static page on this site does. That is this whole sprint: fill the words people already type. A strategy lives in content strategy. Substack is a silo with a share button.

What I use instead

A sender I can leave (Beehiiv, Buttondown, ConvertKit — pick one, I will not start a holy war). A subscribe form on a page I host. Archives that can live as HTML when they matter for search. Analytics that see which URL made a customer if I sell something — DataFast, not a screenshot of opens.

Discovery is slower off-network. That is the trade. I will take slower and owned over faster and rented. Same reason I ship games on my own URLs instead of waiting for a platform to like me.

When you should not ditch Substack

Your readers already live there and you will not email them anywhere else.
Recommendations are actually your channel.
You will not build a page. Then Substack is the page. Fine.

If you stay, still export. Still keep a backup. Treat the list like property even if the app feels like a magazine.

FAQ

Did Substack wrong me?

No. I outgrew the shape. They built a network. I wanted a site.

Will I miss growth?

Yes, some of it. I will replace it with search, swaps, and pages. That is a growth strategy, not a vibe.

What about paid Substack?

Paid works anywhere you can charge and deliver. I do not need their checkout enough to put the house on their land.