How to Grow Your Substack: From Discovery Tools to Bringing Your Own Crowd

You’ve launched your Substack.
You’re publishing regularly.
You’ve got a few loyal readers.

Maybe even a few paid ones.

Now comes the hard part: growth.

Let’s be honest—writing a newsletter can feel like shouting into the void.

You hit publish and hope someone, anyone, will read it, love it, and subscribe. But hope is not a growth strategy.

The good news? Substack growth isn’t shooting in the dark.

It just requires focus.
And while there’s no single magic lever, there are two core pathways that account for nearly every subscriber you’ll ever gain:

1. Within Substack

These are the built-in features Substack provides to help people find you inside the platform. These tools can build powerful momentum, especially once your newsletter has a few early wins.

2. Outside Substack

This includes everything you do to bring people in.

Both of these pathways work.
You don’t have to use every tool right away, but understanding these two categories helps you grow strategically, not randomly.

This article will give you a bird’s-eye view of both approaches. In future posts, we’ll dive into each strategy in detail, with examples, scripts, and step-by-step guidance to make them work for you.

Let’s get started.