How I Earn Money on Substack in 2026

Last year I made money on Substack five ways.

This year it's four.

I dropped sponsored sections. Didn't like them. Felt forced.

The bigger shift: I stopped thinking about open rates and started thinking about Google.

Most of my readers now come from search, not email.

That changed everything. Search traffic feeds digital product sales, affiliate clicks, paid subs, and tips. None of them huge. All of them compounding. An email gets opened once. A post that ranks gets read for months.

That's quite a difference.