Substack’s 10% revenue share is pushing high-earning writers toward alternatives, with notable departures and quiet platform exploration continuing through 2026, according to reporting from Internewscast and platform analysis from TechBullion.

Last October, Culture Study creator Anne Helen Petersen moved from Substack to Patreon, saying she didn’t want to be on a platform that had been “steadily — and not so stealthily — enshittified.” Status reported that The Bulwark, Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo and Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me have quietly explored moving to another platform.

The math explains the restlessness. Substack’s own calculator estimates that a newsletter charging $10/month with 10,000 subscribers costs $15,900 per month in platform and processing fees — and $79,500 per month at 50,000 subscribers, nearly $1 million per year. Many rivals charge flat monthly fees instead: Ghost starts at $15/month for 1,000 members with website, newsletter and custom domain, while Beehiiv is free to 2,500 subscribers with Scale plans around $49/month.

Substack launched in 2017 as a writer-first platform and built its moat on network effects — recommendations, the Notes feed and a reader app. But as newsletters became businesses rather than side projects, the commission model that felt fair at $1,000/month in revenue feels punitive at $100,000/month.

For creators, the pattern mirrors what happened with Patreon and OnlyFans: platforms that win on simplicity eventually face competitors that win on economics, and the largest earners move first.

The takeaway for creators: reassess your platform annually as your revenue grows. The best platform for starting a newsletter is rarely the best platform for running a six-figure one — and switching gets harder the longer you wait.