Medium vs. Substack (For Comedy Writers)

A reader question about the pros and cons of Medium and Substack

I recently got this reader question:

“In a future post could you break down the pros/cons of Medium vs. Substack?” - Jeff

I was planning to write some ideas about marketing for creative writers, so a post on Medium versus Substack is as good a place to start as any.

Let’s focus on Medium vs. Substack for comedy writers and creative writers.

This will be a long deep dive with lots of detail!

First, let’s quickly distinguish the overall idea of each platform.

Medium is an online writing platform where individual writers can easily publish any kind of writing within an ecosystem of millions of readers and writers. It has a large built-in audience and a feed that surfaces your writing to all kinds of readers. It’s a simple platform. You can create a free Medium account and start publishing your writing within a couple of minutes. Overall, Medium is sort of a new-school version of blogging.

Substack is a hybrid between an email platform and an online publishing platform. Substack is newsletter-first and email-first: you build a relationship with your readers by getting their email addresses directly, and you own this email list. So, all Substack writers are inherently building a private email list. When you publish on Substack, it sends to this email list, and it also publishes your post on the web for anyone to read, on Substack’s domain. Substack is like a new school-version of an email newsletter combined with online publishing.

Both Medium and Substack have monetization options, but they work very differently. More on that below.

I personally use both platforms.

I started writing on Medium in 2018 as a way to publish some of my humor pieces outside of traditional humor publications. I also wanted to grow an online audience, which is hard to do just by publishing in traditional literary or comedy sites.

I started on Substack last year (in 2024) as a way to write a weekly newsletter about comedy writing craft—the one you are now reading!

I really enjoy both platforms, and it would be hard for me to choose just one or the other. Happily, I don’t have to choose.

But let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

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What comedy writers want

Before going deep on the specifics of each platform, it’s good to think about what you actually want, as a writer, in an online platform.

I’d say creative writers should seek some or all of the following:

1. A place to easily self-publish your writing online. A home base where your readers can find your writing.

2. A platform to experiment and have fun with your writing.

3. A place to find and build an online audience. A way to grow a following of readers who like your voice and what you’re doing.

4. A way to build an audience that you own. This means an audience that you can take anywhere—one that is not owned by a company or an algorithm. Preferably, you want an email list that you own.

5. A way to make money from your writing. If you can make a reliable, significant income, all the better. But even coffee money is better than nothing.

As you’ll see, neither platform perfectly does all of that.

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Medium for comedy writers