As I’m new to posting on LinkedIn and starting from scratch, I spent some time this morning reading recent posts about hashtag #Substack.

Here are the three biggest misconceptions I keep seeing:

#1 “Is Substack the right platform?”

Many beginners compare Substack to tools like KIT or beehiiv.

My answer: they are all good. With any of them, you own your audience and your attention. But Substack has one big difference.

It has a built in audience of 20M+ monthly users you can reach through Substack Notes, their internal social network. No other email platform has this yet.

Recommendations are another growth lever. KIT has started adding similar features.

For many writers in the Online Writing Club, Notes is now the number one growth engine.

#2 “What is the ROI of Substack?”

Substack takes a 10% cut. Stripe fees are still there, but the rest is yours. Compare that with traditional ESPs. With KIT and my 20,000+ subscribers, I pay a noticeable amount of money every single month, even when I run no paid campaigns.

On Substack, I can earn money with every email I send without paying a dime.

#3 “Substack isn’t working.”

When I see posts like this, I often check the person’s activity. Most of the time I notice the same pattern. They wrote a few posts and stopped.

They do not recommend writers in their niche. And they are not active on Notes, which is the main growth layer of the platform.

Hope this helps.

And if you wonder who I am to say any of this:

I’m currently a Top 15 hashtag#International Substack writer who wants more people to start their own email lists in 2026.

Because owning your audience and attention is one of the most powerful things you can do online.