On 15 June Substack launched the next phase of its native sponsorships programme. Seven brands, from Uber to Balenciaga, are paying to appear directly in individual authors’ newsletters. Which partnerships go ahead is decided by the author, not the platform.
Chief executive and founder Chris Best announced the new phase on 15 June. Among the first partners are Yahoo Scout, Whatnot, Granola, Balenciaga, T-Mobile, Polymarket and Uber. “These forward-thinking brands recognize that some of the most interesting conversations happening on the internet are driven by writers and creators on Substack,” wrote Best in a blog announcement.
The entry ticket is Creator Kit
The programme was kicked off by Creator Kit, a built-in media kit that authors publish as a signal that they are open to brand partnerships. Substack made it available to so-called bestsellers, meaning publications with a paying audience. The kit is meant to be the entry gateway to a wider partner platform through which authors connect directly with brands.
Dan Robbins, Substack’s first Head of Brand Sponsorships, has taken over leadership of the new business. He has senior roles at Roku, PayPal and Nielsen behind him.
The model rewards trust, not performance
“Other platforms have built a model that rewards performance. We're building one that rewards trust,” Best wrote. In his view, sponsorship adds to the direct relationship between author and audience rather than replacing it. “Sponsorships, when correctly aligned, can amplify the value of the direct relationship between publisher and audience.” On performance platforms, the algorithm and the advertiser decide where ads go. Here, the author approves which brand is attached to their name.
The foundation remains paid subscriptions
Substack is building the programme on the base it already has. Through subscriptions, more than 100,000 publishers earn money on it, the ten largest creators together make over $100 million a year, and subscribers number in the tens of millions. According to Dan Robbins, brands are putting millions of dollars into creators in total.
“Subscriptions remain the foundation of creator businesses on Substack. These are first steps towards a broader brand partnership platform, but the ambition is very much just in line with Substack's ethos of independence, of ownership, of direct relationships,” Robbins said.
European authors get the infrastructure
Some creators arranged brand collaborations themselves even before, among them Emily Sundberg with her newsletter Feed Me and Lenny Rachitsky, as Variety recalled. Now they also get the platform’s tools. For European authors, and for brand directors looking for a channel beyond performance advertising built on tracking users, this is sponsorship tied to a declared relationship with the audience, not targeting through third-party data.
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