✨ Can you really make money on Substack as a 'normal' person in 2026?
Use my NEW Substack calculator to set your income goal, project your real take-home pay and work out the maths - no drama!
“The bestseller badges cannot be bought’.” Substack
Use my Substack calculator to work out your take home pay on Substack and let’s get you growing your subscription income joyfully and sustainably here on Substack.
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Hi Sparklers,
How are you?
A short one from me today reminding you of all of the WONDERFUL resources I have available if you want to monetise here on Substack. 2Over 400 of you have taken my free monetisation class which walks you through the four different types of monetisation models here.
Self development in real time in plain sight anyone? Oh and make it STRONG enough to cut through your ego!
Monetisation here on Substack is complex, we encounter all sorts of wobbles and mindset blocks. People inside of subscriptions behave in odd ways at times and can be very demanding on your time.
Then there’s the piece of ‘staying’ monetised on Substack and making it worthwhile. Your personal goals - getting to bestseller (101 paid subs) and dropping back loosing your badge.
Pushing and working hard on the wrong metrics and wondering why you nearly burnt out.3
Subscriptions don’t have to mean weekly or monthly output - you are building your indie Netflix not amazon love. 💖 Celebrate your archive (the old gold) and re-share it often - you worked hard on it!
Remember - JOYFUL, sustainable growth and connection always! 💫
Systems save your sanity - ask me more about mine in the comments below?
Let’s work out how much you could earn on Substack or do some planning around a sale?
Today a BRAND new Substack calculator I created that supports you to work out;
Your Substack income goal taking into account monthly, annual and founding subs (if you have them)
Where you’re at financially right now and how to scale to your goal taking into account stripe fees, stripe transaction fees and Substack’s 10% fee.
How running sales impacts your bottom line
Substack leaderboards and their relationship to income.
Here on Substack you can toggle through the paid bestsellers leaderboards and see authors, creatives, business owners making multiple 6 figures and even millions through paid Substack subscriptions. Substack take 10% of everything they earn.
If it helps you to think about your 10% pays for;
platform support
security and tethering to Stripe and the apple store
pushing your account out within the network
and lots more technical things I don’t really get.
Earning money on Substack through monetisation and where to start?
I stacked some of the top resources I have on Substack monetisation including monetising your newsletter, developing a patron model and growing a paid community or a membership model right here for you…
You’ve also go the Sparkle on Substack A-Z library of resources (nb replay classes only available to members)
My Substack income projection calculator is below for paid subscribers, I can’t wait to hear what you think of it. I don’t usually gate keep this stuff but I’ve had another educator steal my work (whyyyyyy would they need to?) and the only way I get to feel safe to carry on sharing right now is using a paywall.
Claire
P.S - currently exploring 🤖Claude ai in supporting your Substack and business? I’m running a free get-together for female founders today - https://luma.com/49ldienf - it’s not a class, it’s a colleague chat and there’s no replay.
You can unlock one paid post here for free if you haven’t already - feel free to make it this one. My gift!
