Substack gives you a free newsletter with a built-in network and takes 10% of your paid subscriptions forever. Otium gives you the same model — free posts, email-gated posts, paid subscriber tiers — on your own domain for 1%, plus everything a newsletter can grow into: products, courses, a community, AI tools. Start on Substack for the network; own your machine on Otium.
The honest take
Substack's network is real. Recommendations from other writers can grow a list faster than SEO ever will.
The price is 10% of your paid tier, forever, on a domain you do not control, next to writers you do not choose.
Otium runs the same three-tier playbook (public, email-gated, paid) on your site. And when your newsletter wants to sell a course or a template pack, the checkout is already there.
The network where writers publish newsletters and charge subscriptions. Typical entry price: Free + 10% of paid subscriptions.
| Substack | Otium | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free + 10% of paid subs | Flat monthly plan + 1% of sales |
| Your own domain | Custom domain possible, network-first | Yes, native |
| Post tiers | Public / paid | Public / email-gated / paid |
| Discovery network | Yes — its superpower | No — you own distribution |
| Sell products, courses, downloads | No | Included |
| Community | Chat + comments | Members-only feed with host tools |
| Email capture on a sales page | N/A | Included, with welcome email delivery |
Competitor pricing is the typical public entry tier and drifts over time; check their site for current numbers.
Your subscriber list is exportable from Substack as CSV and yours to take. Import support is on the Otium roadmap; today you'd add subscribers via the capture flow.
No — 1% via Stripe Connect, plus a flat monthly plan. On a $5,000/mo paid newsletter the revenue share is $50 instead of Substack's $500, and the plan on top doesn't grow as the list does.
Yes, and that's the honest trade. Substack recommendations are worth real growth. Many writers keep a free Substack for discovery and run their paid tier and products on their own site.
Yes — monthly or yearly subscriptions with self-serve cancellation, on your own Stripe account.
free to build · a plan to go live · your own Stripe account
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