Your First 100 Substack Subscribers: Where They Come From and How to Keep Them (Updated: Sept 2026)
Your first 100 Substack subscribers come from five places:
The people who already know you
Substack Notes
The platforms you're already on
Other writers
Search.
None of them require a following, a budget, or a viral moment. What they require is a clear description of what you write, a personal ask, and a publishing rhythm you can keep.
I first wrote this post in early 2025, and I’ve updated the article in September 2026. Since then, Substack's Notes feed has become a real discovery engine and Recommendations have become the closest thing the platform has to compounding growth, so I've updated it to reflect what's working now.
If you're staring at your dashboard wondering how anyone gets to 100, you're not alone. Everyone starts at zero.
Where Your First 100 Subscribers Actually Come From
Here's the realistic breakdown. The ranges below are typical for a solo writer starting with no audience, and they overlap — some readers arrive through two doors at once.
1. Friends, Family & Your Inner Circle (10–30 subscribers)
Your first subscribers are often the people who already care about you. A personal email or text that says, "Hey, I just launched a Substack, want to check it out?" does more than any announcement post. You don't need to beg. Just invite.
Make a list of 20 people and send them each a two-line message this week. Then add the link to your email signature, drop it in the group chats you're already in, and mention it in conversation.
You can also:
Share the link in group chats
Add it to your email signature
Mention it in conversation (yes, IRL)
2. Existing Platforms (20–40 subscribers)
If you post on Instagram, X, Threads, or LinkedIn, or you have a blog or email list, use them. Share a thoughtful excerpt and invite people to read the full piece. Most importantly, say why the newsletter is worth subscribing to. What's in it for them?
Tips:
Put your Substack link in every bio and pinned post.
Share post highlights in Instagram Stories with a link sticker.
Turn one good line from a post into a standalone post on X, Threads, or LinkedIn.
Use Substack's built-in share tools. Posts and Notes now export cleanly to other platforms, so this takes less time than it used to.
3. Substack Notes + Comments (10–30 subscribers)
Substack Notes is the platform's short-form social feed, where writers post standalone thoughts and readers discover publications they don't yet follow. This is the section that has changed most since 2025. The feed now shows readers plenty of writers they don't subscribe to, which means a brand-new publication can reach strangers without a following anywhere else.
What works:
Reply to other people's Notes with something real, not "great post."
Restack work you genuinely like. A restack is Substack's repost, and it's the actual reach mechanism: when you restack a writer, your Notes start showing up for their readers.
Write Notes that stand on their own. A small story, an observation, one clear idea. Excerpts from your posts are fine occasionally, but they read as promotion.
Add a photo now and then. Roughly a third of Notes now include an image or video, and Substack built a visual feed to surface them.
Notes is a conversation. Show up a few times a week, and people click through to your profile. That's where a clear publication description does the rest.
4. Shoutouts & Collaborations (5–15 subscribers)
Recommendations is the Substack feature that lets you endorse other publications on your subscribe page and in your welcome flow, and lets them endorse you. Set it up on day one. Recommend a handful of publications you actually read and let those writers know. This is the closest thing Substack has to growth that runs in the background.
Then reach out. You don't need a big name, just another writer in your space who likes your work.Ask a writer you admire if they’d consider restacking your post
Ask a writer you admire if they'd consider restacking a post.
Collaborate on a joint post or interview.
Offer a guest piece or contribute a quote.
Substack is also rolling out Creator Match, a feature that pairs you with publications whose readers overlap with yours. It's in beta as I write this.
This is the slowest source on the list and the highest quality. Readers who arrive through another writer tend to open more and stay longer than readers from anywhere else.
5. Search (1–5 subscribers)
Substack posts show up on Google, and increasingly in AI answers from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. It's a long game. Early on, it won't bring a flood, but evergreen posts (how-tos, guides, your actual point of view) add up, and now they pay off in two places instead of one.
Just make sure to:
Edit the SEO title and meta description in post settings before publishing.
Use the words a reader would search in your headline and first paragraph.
How do you keep the subscribers you have?
ou worked to get them. Keeping them is simpler than growing, but it isn't automatic.
Consistency matters more than frequency
You don't need to publish weekly. You need to publish on a schedule you can actually keep, tell readers what that schedule is, and then keep it. Monthly and reliable beats weekly and gone by March.
Know what people come to you for
Your voice, your perspective, your guidance, your stories. Whatever it is, lean into it and say it plainly in your publication description. Clarity builds trust, and a dialed-in message is the single biggest reason readers stay.
Create connection
Substack is intimate by nature. Use that.
Reply to comments.
Ask your readers questions.
Thank new subscribers in Notes.
Share behind-the-scenes occasionally.
If live conversation is your thing, Substack Live and Chat are built in now. No extra tools.
Readers want to feel part of something, not just consume it.
What should you set up before you start promoting?
Three things, in this order.
Your welcome email. It's the first thing subscribers receive. Make it warm, personal, and clear: what you write about, what to expect, and how to reach you.
Recommendations. Don't wait until you feel established. Five minutes, day one.
Your SEO title and description. Sixty seconds per post. A small habit that pays off long-term.
One thing I'd stop doing: obsessing over tags. Tags organize your homepage. They don't move visibility, and time spent on them is time not spent on Notes.
Do you need to spend money to reach 100 subscribers?
No. Substack is free to publish on, and every source above costs time, not dollars. Substack does offer a paid boost option for posts, but I wouldn't touch it before 100 subscribers. You don't yet know which post is worth boosting or who your reader is, and paid reach on a publication nobody has heard of mostly buys unsubscribes.
If you're building a newsletter as part of a wider business and want help fitting it into the rest of your marketing, that's the kind of thing I do in a 1:1 working session.
Your starting checklist for this week
Rewrite your publication description so it says what you write and who it's for in two sentences.
Set up your welcome email.
Recommend three publications you actually read.
Text or email 20 people a two-line invitation.
Post in Notes three times: one reply, one restack with a comment, one standalone thought.
Fill in the SEO title and description on your most recent post.
Final Thought: Make It Matter
Your first 100 subscribers are often your most loyal. Treat them like gold. Speak to them like real people. Deliver what you promised. Show up even when it feels quiet.
Building a newsletter is not about explosive virality. You want to build resonance, trust, and compounding value over time with your audience.
So if you're sitting at 24 subscribers right now? That's not small. That's everything. Keep going.
Do you want help with your strategy? Book a 1:1 working session with Justine.
FAQ
How long does it take to get 100 Substack subscribers?
For most solo writers starting from zero, somewhere between one and four months. It depends almost entirely on how many people you ask directly and how often you show up in Notes. Writers who text 20 people and post in Notes several times a week tend to cross 100 in weeks. Writers who publish and wait tend not to.
Is Substack Notes worth it for a brand-new publication?
Yes, and more than it was a year ago. The Notes feed now surfaces writers a reader doesn't follow, so a new publication can reach strangers without an existing audience. The tactic that matters most is restacking work you like, which puts your own Notes in front of that writer's readers.
Should I make my Substack paid before 100 subscribers?
No. Keep everything free while you're building the list. A paywall at this stage shrinks the audience you're trying to grow, and you don't yet have enough readers to know what they'd pay for. Turn on paid once you have a consistent rhythm and a clear sense of what your most engaged readers want more of.
Do Substack posts show up on Google?
Yes. Substack posts are indexed by Google and increasingly cited by AI answer tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Search is slow early on, but evergreen posts with clear titles and a filled-in SEO description accumulate readers over months. It's worth the sixty seconds per post even if it brings nothing this month.
What's the biggest mistake new Substack writers make?
Waiting to feel ready. Writers hold off on Recommendations until they have "enough" subscribers, hold off on Notes until they have something profound to say, and hold off on texting friends until the third post is perfect. The first 100 come from asking, and asking works better before you feel ready than after.
Justine Harrington is the founder of Solas Growth and has spent a decade running search and growth campaigns for small businesses; she also writes two Substack publications of her own.