Substack vs Patreon for podcasters: fees, listening and growth compared

Pick Substack if your show and a newsletter are one product: you want every episode to arrive by email with a written summary, and you want help getting found by other writers' readers. Pick Patreon if the show is audio-first and you want several tiers of perks, like bonus episodes, early access and ad-free versions, for people who already love the show.

Both take the same 10% platform cut for new creators, so the decision is about fit, not price.

Substack is free for free newsletters and free podcasts. When you turn on paid subscriptions it keeps 10% of subscription revenue, and Stripe charges card processing on top, roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents per payment.

Patreon charges a 10% platform fee to creators who publish a new page after 4 August 2025 (earlier creators keep their old plan), plus processing that starts at 2.9% plus $0.30 for US cards and PayPal. Both platforms' fees change from time to time; we checked these on 27 October 2026, so confirm on their pricing pages before you set prices.

Substack: paid subscribers can listen in the Substack app or add a private RSS feed to another podcast app; the link is in their welcome email and on each episode page. Substack can also sync free and paid episodes to Spotify. If Spotify doesn't show up as a listening option on your Substack, check that the Spotify sync is switched on in your podcast settings.

Patreon: patrons listen in the Patreon app, through a private RSS link in apps that support it, or on Spotify after linking their Patreon account there. On either platform, send every new supporter a short 'how to listen' note. A supporter who can't find the episodes won't stay a supporter for long.

Substack has discovery built in. Writers can recommend each other's publications, Notes works like a feed inside the app, and collaborations put you in front of another publication's subscribers. For a small show, trading recommendations with two or three similar newsletters is one of the cheapest ways to grow.

Patreon has very little discovery. People arrive because you sent them. That is fine for converting existing fans, but it won't find you new listeners.

Substack's paid model is simple: one paid subscription with monthly and annual prices, plus an optional higher founding-member price. Paid posts and paid episodes sit behind it. Patreon lets you build several tiers with different perks and prices, which suits shows that want a cheap supporter tier and a richer bonus-content tier.

Plenty of shows keep the public podcast on a regular host, send a free newsletter on Substack, and run paid perks on Patreon. If you are folding a show website into Substack to keep everything in one place, set up a custom domain first and keep your podcast RSS feed where it is unless you are sure about moving it. Our guides to publishing a podcast on Substack and using Patreon for a podcast walk through each setup.