As TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, Substack tries to lure creators to its platform by doubling down on video. The company announced on Wednesday that it’s now allowing creators to monetize their videos on the platform, and letting them publish video posts directly from the Substack app.
Previously, creators have been able to share videos in Notes, which is Substack’s Twitter-like feed, but the Notes feature doesn’t support paywalls.
Plus, subscribers aren’t notified when a creator posts a Note. By publishing video posts, creators can now directly reach their audience and monetize their work.
Substack says that video creators who are worried about their future on TikTok can join its platform to build a subscription-based video business and that creators on Substack can reach their audience directly, without relying on algorithms.
Once creators publish videos, they can track post views, and new subscribers, and see the estimated revenue growth from new paid subscriptions driven by their posts. They also can monitor changes over time.
Currently, creators can only paywall entire video posts published in the app. In the future, Substack plans to enable creators to show specific portions of the video to free subscribers as a teaser.
The company says it’s committed to building tools to help video creators and will explore adding capabilities, such as tools to trim and edit videos, along with enhanced analytics to track video performance.
Substack added video back in 2022 and says adoption of the format has been growing.
The company notes that creators who have added video and/or audio to their Substacks grow their revenue more than 2.5 times as fast as those who haven’t.
The company also says that, in April 2024, over half of the 250 highest-revenue creators used audio and video. By February 2025, that number has surged to 82%. Plus, as of February 2025, the likelihood that subscribers (who came from audio and video creators) will pay for other Substacks has almost tripled, going up from 52% to 150% in just six months.
The changes announced today mark Substack’s latest efforts to court TikTok creators. Last month, Substack launched its $20 million Creator Accelerator Fund, which promises content creators that they won’t lose revenue by jumping ship to Substack. The company recently made livestreaming available to all publishers, too.
