Why Substack is Roaring Again and Why My Poem You’ll Like at The End
The Substack website stats is saying it wants to move up further
October is going to be massive month for many social site, and Substack is likely the underdog that will shock everyone in the market. (in a good way)
We’re in a cycle and so is Substack.
This is the 2nd month in Substack history that it had this kind of turn around in organic traffic.
Usually, what goes up most come back down, but there’s another saying in stock chart is what wants to go up most come back down to retest as suppose to go further into new all time highs.
Later you’ll see a chart that demostrate just that. Based on that chart (The 3rd image on this article)
It’s happening.
And it’s okay to scroll down there and come back up to finish the next part.
Substack beat Medium by 45M in total visits
Sounds like no match, now we know that they are different.
All other metrics are also way above Medium, as this is not a comparison article, but rather a growth breakdown of how Substack has grown as a platform since the last update I did back in late August.
I only used SE Ranking’s data, so we couldn’t compare the details of how Substack has improved in bounce rate, pages per visit, and average visit duration. This will be a good start for future reference.
There isn’t any absolutely similar website to Substack, which is the competitive edge they have. We have also mentioned before that Elon Musk once tried to buy Substack to combine with X-Twitter
If I have to say what it is like, it would be X-Twitter plus a newsletter, or Medium plus Threads.
There isn’t a platform out there willing to put it together at this scale of growth. Yes, Threads can come out or X-Twitter can also start a newsletter tomorrow, but the impact will be very different.
The ecosystem is just not ready or was not meant to be. Even if Medium came out with a similar note feature tomorrow, it wouldn’t have the same effect.
Substack newsletter is actually not as simple as it seems. The system behind it is complex to most writer that try to understand it.
You don’t, you just need to use it and go with what works for you better.
Yes, you can write it as a normal post, but you can also collaborate with others up to how many creators, I have no idea the limits.
Everything is a lot more interconnected than it seems.
With other platforms, everything is more of a single feature that has its own strength that when it works, it’s good, but when it doesn’t, it doesn’t do much.
In other words, there is no synergy and natural interlink of support.
Yes, notes and posts still flop every day, depending on the writer and the topic, but when it goes a bit above average, the algoritum will start working for you.
It’s a lot smarter and attractive to readers and writers.
In September, Substack actually had a big dip in traffic
Just back testing the support and now it’s finally ready for the next leg up.
It bounced right back up this month, and you can see that it’s likely going to break the all-time high as of today, the date is from 10/19/2025.
So if you are still sitting there thinking about whether Substack is the right place for you.
You should at least consider doing some warm-up, as you can always learn as you go.
For those that already on Substack or have just joined, they also feel it could be a good opportunity, while others are doing it as a main engine to fuel their traffic or as a digital storefront for their content.
In the past, I thought of Medium as my digital profile if one day I need to use it as a reference, but then I realized my progress has been somewhat inconsistent over there, even working more hours on it.
I’ll stick with and improve my Substack profile because at least I can show something was consistently working without me going to buy any ads or ask others to check out my stuff nonstop.
They do what they like and I share what I like, we meet at some odd corners.
The traffic distribution on Substack
So far, it’s still majority from the US.
We are continuously seeing other countries grow, with only India that is decreasing a bit.
Overall, this is a very healthy growth base on the inflow of user around the world.
Just incase you didn’t know you’re already a global creator.
I feel the user base is a little different everywhere. I see a lot of self-aware individual writers and creators. As the law of attraction says, the larger reader base is likely in this stats of my and status.
Even the gender is so balance that makes it an equiiliarum of thoughful users base minus trolls and bots.
That’s consisency right there.
People are trying their best effort to make it work for them. As we all know getting paid subscriber is hard and selling digital product might not be your thing.
Yet, there’s always a few slience reader that wants to pay you for your work.
This kind of guesture makes the platform feels real and alive, like who the heck will go pay for something that is already free.
Well, Substacker do, and they go for yearly plan most of the time.
What does the audience really look like?
From what we know or heard most platform have a huge news, media and techology niche that are the front runners of the site.
This is totally normal, but the phase of each platform is something that many newer creator have miss. Like who is at the end, in the middle and rising up?
Yes, it’s hard to tell, but the people on each platform will let you feel what it’s like over there.
Generally, Substack users are excited because that’s the place where they feel most comforatable expressing their thoughts and some hot mess.
Some have said Substack has no organic traffic, well there you go, 15% right below.
Organic search and traffic sources
What is exciting is the 70% of direct traffic, that means the users are coming back and retention is likely higher others at simliar scale.
Substack is still a small platform compare to any other platforms.
It’s not like a default place that people would go and say you need a LinkedIn accoun to for a job, or have used TikTok before to prove that you’re still young.
No body thinks of Substack is for something that they need until they come and write into the void and seeing someone quitely looking at their work, but won’t say anything yet.
It did feel like ghost or maybe bots stalking me for no reason, after a while you meet your first commenter or a paid subscirber, you realize all those number could of been real people trying to undersand what you have to say.
It doesn’t happen on eslatablish platforms, because each writer have to earn their trust and repuation on any niche they write in.
Maybe you can walk in with your PhD and get some traction, but your work and showing up consisently proves that you are the one they’re looking for.
The good thing is that you don’t need one to start on Substack.
Social media traffic to Substack
This part is interesting because normally, I see traffic from X-Twitter or other social platform is pretty even amount the teens percentage.
Actually the two best traffic giver is listed as the biggest traffic drive is very promosing like someone is moving their content and where they want to live online.
This only accounts for 5.26% of the total traffic to Substack, now when you look at the 15.95% of organic search traffic, that is no longer a small number.
It seems like there are creators contently promoting Substack on other platforms.
Getting people off of X-twitter is not that easy, somehow Substack is able to pull that off, which equals about 2 million visitors per month.
Don’t ask me how I did the math. 125.8M*0.0526*0.2959 = 1.957M
X-twitter uses are very familiar with the notes feature so they adpat much quicker than writer that only use Medium or a blog style platform.
The social aspect is gold.
Substack might seems small and somewhat less known
That is actually an edge and perfect to build within rather than going out to burn cash with ads and useless attraction.
From the 71.1% of direct traffic is a very good sign that user on deskop is enjoying the platform.
If the writer is happen, the reader will see better work being put out.
There’s excitment in everything we do, if we can’t feel it the reader can feel it, too.
We call it vibes, but it’s actually is a living emotional thought that we feel to lean in or move away from.
No, I’m not going to write a poem, but something tells me you need one.
The Lingering Lines
Here they come, watch me write my first note.
There they go, scroll by without me and my post.
No, they are reading, I can feel it with heart
pouring into the void, but not afraid of the dark.
My writing arc begin the day I start figuring.
Yes, digging myself a cart that fits those drafts.
They are not trash, yet, until I turn them into a
masterpiece that only 3 likes is enough.
You’re good enough, yes even if you began to doubt,
the moment you hit publish, edit, delete and faint.
It’s saint that you manged to made it through the
first day, weeks and months. A year gone by.
Your work is still online, not knowing who read it
is a super powerful way to say, “I’m allowing myself-
to set free of my thoughts and let it be meaningful to
someone”, someone who needs it today or that day.
I write for myself first because there’s nobody else
there most of the time, it’s just you and your thoughts.
You fought for the right to speak your mind without
keeping anything inside that wasn’t yours.
Thanks for Reading
My Gumroad.
This story was originally published on [Medium] and is cross-posted here for a wider audience.
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This was going so well, with some of the usual great analysis, until it descended into poetry Bin! It would be interesting to know how much traffic is coming from Bluesky - I avoid X/Twitter on principle, because of the politics of its owner. 😀
This was fantastic Bin! Really enjoyed and took a lot from it. Thank you for your stellar research.