I Hit #1 Rising on Substack: 30 Substack Perks That Get You Paid Subscribers
No-nonsense, straightforward, proven bingo ideas
I’m jumping out of my skin excited.
This week, I reached #1 on the Substack Rising list, part-time.
See it for yourself:
Well, I'm the part-time one managing this while juggling a job and a full life.
I’ve never previously been close to the top of that list. Especially since I don’t have any real rhythm or so. I post when I find the time. Most of the time in the evening after putting the kids to bed or early in the morning when the neighbor’s rooster wakes me with his crowing…
But let me make one thing clear, I don’t actually want to be up here celebrating all by myself, because that wouldn’t be much fun.
Alright, let's go ahead and celebrate this amazing moment together.
This week I'm going to share your posts from Notes with my 36,000 subscribers. If you'd like to take part, simply leave your link in the comments or reply and I'll include you.
Let's get you some exposure.
As soon as I began to rise, my inbox was filled with the same questions appearing in a hundred different forms:
how do you do this? Did you make any money? How can I rise?
On this Friday Live there are two points to discuss:
🟠How to make the things you offer with your paid services genuinely worth the money (that's by using the list which comes later).
🟠We're also getting around to discussing the new Substack AI policy, since you've been asking me about it based on my viral post.
We'll gather at 2 p.m. in Berlin, 1 p.m. in London, 8 a.m. in New York and 5 a.m. in LA. For those on the west coast, I know that 5 a.m. is harsh, that's why we always have replays.
I'll see you at the live event on Friday. So join the Club today for only $7 or $70 for an all-access pass to celebrate one year of the Substack Bookstore for indie publishers with me
What “rising” on Substack really means
Rising on Subsatck simply means that you’re attracting more paid subscribers than other writers on the platform. For every of the 31 categories, of which 2 are new, there are rising leaderboards.
Here’s example from wonderful category #Parenting on Substack:
So all you need to rise is to attract more paid subscribers.. but of course this sounds easier as it is.
I teach writing online, write and sell books, start an email list and run Substack, so my field constantly sees people leave. Those who come to learn achieve their goal and then move on.
A newsletter covering topics such as yoga or politics or gossip or horses will keep readers for years.
Two weeks ago I said that I'd return and look more closely at the financial aspect of writing on Substack. Here I am carrying out that promise.
To you, 'being paid to be yourself' might seem like an additional hundred dollars a month going towards your bills.
It could be a community that really supports you.
Or perhaps you'd like the entire package, the Bestseller badge and the glass box full of cash (that’s why I created this featured thumbnail haha). We'll look at all of that.
30 paid subscriber perks on Substack you need to know in 2026
You could also call it paid-perk bingo :) because from the Club members I know the same list applies to all areas of interest and categories on Substack
If you look at any paid tier that is functioning well, whether it's yoga, finance, horses, politics, or food, you'll notice that it's always only a small number of ideas that are being used.
That’s why I often call it: paid-perk bingo which is hopefully a relief for you, since it shows that the Substack success wasn't due to some clever perk that no one had ever considered.
You can do BINGO too!
⚠️Very important: there's no need to attempt to create all thirty!
Pick your 2 to 6 that fit and feel good.
You can also find the full list in our Online Writing Club Resource Vault.
The list is arranged in order from those easy to launch down for newbies and part-time writers to the more substantial and personal ones.
Quick to launch paid Substack perks
A paid chat is a chat room for members in which they talk to you and to one another. This is the quickest way of building a deeper connection with your subsribers. Here’s an example of my own Club Chat where we celebrate Heartcentered Connections’ 79th birthday together.
Parts of the Chat are free. Others are for paid subscribers only, e.g. when I share Zoom links to attend our Friday Live sessions.
For co-working (writing) sessions, the cameras are on and the timer is running with everybody working side by side. Similar to Twitch where you can look above someone’s shoulder and see how the person is actually doing what she’s doing, you can offer co-writing sessions or sessions where you all do yoga together, draw or make photos, edit… whatever fits in your category.
With early access, users have to pay in order to read a post first, while everyone else gets to read it later and needs to wait. Especially people in the #Politics or #Gossip category are telling me: people will pay so as to avoid the waiting!
Paid DMs is another way to make people upgrade. Jo Thompson from The Gardening Mind doesn’t offer the DMs to everyone, only her paid subscribers as you can see in the screenshot today.
⚠️Nice side effect: less stress and more time for the people who really sustain you!
Live (video) streaming that’s available only to paying members, allowing to teach or answer questions. Substack’s livestream is free and super easy to use. YOu can start it and select “paid subscribers”. So only paid subscribers get an email notification and will see you in the Notes feed.
Here’s an example from one of my latest livestreams with AI Ethics professor and Substacker Dr Sam Illingworth:
Bonus or ad-free version of the podcast, which includes extra episodes, longer cuts, or the ad-free version, the upgrade is only available for paid subscribers. If you already have a show on Substack, Spotify and Apple, it's simple to upgrade and get full access to even MORE. Some YouTubers told me they are taking their recorded videos now on Substack telling their YouTUbe followers to get on Substack to go even deeper or get that specific question answered.
Book series that require payment. I love this so much because you can serilaze your book on Substack and see wheteh people would actually pay for it. These paid series are multi-part series that only members can access. The people who subscribe stay until the finale. One post/chapter links to another and you need to stay paid to read the whole series. Anna Vatuone is a great example for this:
She also got a book deal with Lonely Girl:
Member spotlights is something I reallly love. I do it in form of a guest post. Every paid subscriber can share a guest post which I’ll geature in my newsletter. My friend and Substack for Authors (Aug 4-6, 2026) co-host Fleur Hull from the Substack Bookstore is doing this as one key paid perk. She highlights a member's book to her audience and at the same time act as a driver for their growth.
Jo Taylor is a great example of this. Her book, Margaret of Thibodaux, had been quietly sitting on Amazon for months. Fleur featured her novel…
and then the sales incrases. That’s why Jo is one of more than hundred testimonials for our support for indie and published authors
With 900+ reviews, this is where it stands today on Amazon:
⚠️Evergreen :) At the bottom of each post there is a paid section: you can offer your story or essay for free and then put the how-to, the template, and the more in-depth content behind the Substack paywall.
Put trust at the top and value at the bottom. This particular one converts steadily and quietly.
A bit more effort, a lot more value
Audio narration is pretty cool and you can make it an exclsuive perk for paid subscribers only. It means you read each post out loud. Examples are Walter Rhein or Dr Donna Blevins.
Their voice makes their posts personal. Nice side effects: both also have some kind of podcast as Substack treats the audio file as podcast.
A discount code on the items you yourself offer. For many inside the Club this means a discounted rate on products, coaching, or merch. Food blogger from the Dinner Done Club Jen Chapin is proof it works. She’s giving 50% off her physical eal planners.
You can also give discounts on all digital products, such as planners, calendars, mini courses, workbooks. I offer discount on the Substack for Authors Summer Camp:
Want to join the Summer Camp. Use CELEBRATION and join us!
Templates and swipe files are just a ready-made version of what you teach. Customers pay for the shortcut. You can repurpose what you shared in our latest post and transform this into a template or swipe file to go through. Many are then talking about their “x vault”, resources, archive, library. Jen Chapin has weekly and bonus meal plans, recipes and so on:
In a Book Club like the one NYT bestselling author Evelyn Skye has, you choose the book, all the members read it and then meet to discuss it. It's very little effort but gives book lovers a strong sense of belonging and satisfied the need of a deeper connection with a group of people as in creative, inspired ALIVE from Evelyn’s Book Club:
The Connection hour is a more or less informal Zoom session with no set agenda. I do this every Friday inside the Club. It's in this setting that our members get to become friends, connect with each other, connect and collaborate:
Want to join our Substack Lives on Friday? I send an email on Thursday and a reminder on Friday. The Zoom is also in the Club Chat.
Reader question column: Members ask questions, and you answer the best ones in a recurring post. Their questions become your content. Casandra Campbell with her paid FAQs is a great example for this:
A subscriber-only AMA: a special area in which members who have paid can ask you any questions and receive answers that are tailored to them. Justin Welsh used to do this once per week. For 30 minutes his paid subscribers could ask questions and he was answering them with the help of AI (and his wife) very quickly.
⚠️Hint: doesn't have to be live, merely text or recorded ones will do, too.
Here’s also Justin’s funnel for you to steal:
Office hours are a weekly or monthly thing many offer. It’s super easy to set it up. Can be done via Zoom or a Substack live that’s only for paid subscribers. I reommend the livestream if you want to talk and just see text in the Chat and answer the Qs. If you really want to engage with a circle of people Zoom is the tool to pick. I love it as it deepens my relationhisp (as in the funnel from Justin Welsh) with my audience. Foryoga teacher Jo Hutton it’s actual yoga classes happening in the Zoom Studio.
Work audits involve you looking at a member's real work and then telling them what needs to be improved. People respond to this type of upgrade most quickly since it's directly about them.
Live group coaching involves joining a regular call where the members bring in their actual problems and you work through them openly. Psychotherpist Ellen Scherr offers this and calls it: Around the Kitchen Table.
Workshop by a guest expert is somethign that worked pretty well for me in the beginning. Justin Welsh also did it and then offred 2x per month a live workshop. What you need to keep in mind is it’s time-consuming. My tip is doing it via Zoom as you can all connect. What I love is having a specialist give a lesson during a hands-on session. My members pick up some practical knowledge and I got a chance to stop being the only one speaking. Often the experts, however, didn’t share tangible tips. It still was amzing offering these Masterclasses and got me lots of new paid subscribers who wanted to meet speakers like Colette Jane Fehr, LMFT, LMHC and many more.
Pre-recorded Masterclass videos your subs can watch at any time. You can record them once and then earn from them repeatedly. That’s what I really love. Bestselling author and mortality coach Karen Salmansohn does this perfectly with her video courses on broken hart recovery, anxiety cure and rejiggering your life:
Another example is yoga teacher Jo Hutton from the UK with her yoga classes for beginners
An opportunity feed is a continuously updated list of jobs and positions in your field as Karolína Lehotská with her GIS jobs is doing so well:
She just became a Substack bestseller. CONGRATS
High-touch: Founding tier
A consultation can consist of a private appointment of between 15 and 60 minutes, held once or multiple times per year. It’s in itself sufficient to warrant the initial price.
Direct access means having a dedicated manager or a priority inbox where your subs actually get back to you. You can do this via the DMs on Substack. It can also be via WhatsApp or voice messags, which I really like.You're offering a sense of closeness, and that sense of closeness can't be expanded.
Draft read-throughs. We have some editors in the Club who offer monthly line edits carried out on one person's article before it’s published. Feedback on your subscriber’s actual work is more valuable than any template. This also works with design, artwork, painting but of course also with gardening.. you name it.
A piece made specifically for someone, e.g. a print or a postcard with a commission included in a membership. As author you can share your book with a signed postcard for your readers. Each new member receives a genuine card in the form of a handwritten note. As an artist you can send a postcard you designed.
A cohort or bootcamp refers to a group that pursues a single objective over a defined period of time and it's the fact that they start on the same date that gives the group its identity. The Substack for Authors Bootcamp from Fleur Hull is a great example for this. It’s a standalone but she could also make it a paid perk.
👉🏻👉🏻You can use CELEBRATION to get it for a suuuuuper affordable price, https://substackauthor.com/
Meeting face to face means bringing people together in person and no one cancels a membership which includes dinner… or yoga. Solopreneur Justin Welsh did exactly this and met people from all around the world while traveling with his wife. Jo Hutton is offering yoga retreats and can also give specials to paid members.
A space off Substack is smart. I did this right from the start in 2024 with my community on Circle. It can also be Discord, Skool or your own community. However, it can be exhausting hosting yet another community. My tip is to use the Chat feature on Substack. But if you know you want to have no strings attached to Substacka and build your own thing I think it’s smart to have your own community.
I know this was a looooooooooooooooong list and as always it’s already past midnight here in Germany.
Before I say goodnight, you can find the list with the paid perks bingo for Substack in our resources as checklist.
Let me know in the comments what else you’d like to have!
Oh and if you’re an author… come join our Substack for Authors Summer Camp starting Aug 4. We’re already 27 authors. Let’s commect, colaborate. All authors will be featured by Fleur and me in the newsletters.
I’ll share with you how I got my book deal and what you can do to be visible. Fleur will help you with being seen on Amazon (KDP), get reviews and how to get start writing or serializing your novel on Substack. Come join the summer fun!
Authors, this is the link to join our Substack for Authors Summer Camp with Fleur Hull starting Aug 4. Use Fleur's code: CELEBRATION, please, to get a huuuuge discount. It's suuuuper affordable, authors. So join us and 27+ others: https://substackauthor.com/
Hurrah, another of your great accomplishments, Kristina :-)