Substack Growth Update: May 2026

What I published, what grew, what I learned, and what I'm trying next.

Welcome to my first ever Substack Growth Update post.

I’m already publishing monthly income reports in my blogging business, but as Substack is where I spend most of my time online now and what I’m growing, it makes sense to review my progress every month.

Plus, I love writing these updates, and that’s why The $1K Newsletter (a section inside The 2-Hour Blogger) exists - so I can document my journey while growing my Substack in public.

For now, I’ll keep these updates rather short. Curious to see how they evolve in the future. Once I monetize, they may be combined with my monthly income reports, which are paywalled.

For now, it’s all free. I hope you use this as motivation to keep working on your Substack no matter what the numbers are saying. It’s also great for accountability. Seeing me put in the work month after month can keep you accountable.

I’d love for you to leave a comment and share how your month was.

And who knows, maybe you too start writing update posts like this :)

Also, imagine how cool it will be to refer people back to the first monthly updates once I’ve turned Substack into a full-time business 😍

Dreaming big is a must around here, by the way!

So, the current outline of these articles looks like this:

🏆 Wins

📊 Stats

💌 New Subscribers

📚 What I Published

🚀 Growth Moves

💡 What I Learned

🎯 What’s Next

Let me know if you’d want me to talk about something else, or if you have any ideas on how to make these reviews better.

Okay, let’s dive in. Here’s how May 2026 looked like for me on Substack:

🏆 Wins

I was consistent. I showed up on Substack almost every day of the month, engaged with others, learned more about the platform, published content, shared Notes, and improved my profile and publication.

I started scheduling Notes for the whole week.

This is the second week I’m doing it, and I plan to turn that into a weekly practice. It really saves me time and increases my chances of getting in front of more people.

I treated Substack like a real business, before making money from it just yet. I think that’s key. (By the way, I just earned my first ever income from Substack in the beginning of June. Can’t wait to tell you all about it in a future post. Stay tuned!)

I merged my 2 publications into 1 so I could focus fully on my publication and newsletter. Took me a bit to figure out how to do this in the most effective way possible, but it worked out well. I turned that second publication into a section of my main one. I wrote all about it here.

I turned on paid subscriptions.

Quietly. Behind the scenes. Without a big, loud launch.

I’m not saying that’s the right move for you too, but it’s what I chose. Mostly because I already have exclusive content ready to be shared with paid members and want to build my premium archives.

And no, I don’t have paid members just yet, and that’s totally normal. I’m not promoting actively, I’m still creating my Substack strategy, and I’m building the habit of publishing a free and a paid post weekly.

But finding the courage to have a paid tier so soon is the win here. And so is to publish paid posts and learn as I go.

Okay, listing my wins actually felt really good and motivated me to keep going! Highly recommend you do that too.

If you feel like, share them with us in a comment.

📊 Stats

Traffic

Traffic Sources

Open Rate

💌 New Subscribers

At the time of writing this, I have 264 subscribers on Substack. All are free.

Here’s the growth rate:

Free net growth (new free subscriptions vs unsubscribes)

Network effect

📚 What I Published

In May, I published a total of 13 posts, 3 of which were for paid members.

I Asked 7 Bloggers How They Get Traffic. Here’s What Stood Out

Blog Income and Traffic Report [November 2023]

When The Initial Momentum on Substack Wears Off…

How I Use ChatGPT as an Assistant in My Blogging Business

Your Substack About Page Checklist (Don’t Publish Without This)

From Blog to Brand Deals: How to Get Sponsors for Your Blog

Full Breakdown of My Blog Earnings This Month (+ a Viral Pin, Email List Clean-Up & Content Strategy)

Running a Blogging Business While 9 Months Pregnant: A Day in My Life

I Interviewed 100+ Bloggers (Some Earn 7 Figures). Here Are The Questions Worth Asking

How I Merged My Two Substack Newsletters Into One Publication (Step by Step with Screenshots)

Behind the Scenes of a $650 Sponsored Post (From Pitch to Payment)

Notes vs Articles: What Actually Brings Subscribers

The Passive Income Blog Boss [Free Course for Bloggers]

🚀 Growth Moves

Recommended each other with a few creators.

I love the Recommendations feature, it’s so powerful. I’m not using it for random people and newsletters, though. And I’m just beginning to include it in my growth strategy.

If you’d like to recommend the 2-Hour Blogger, feel free to do it. I’d love to check out your newsletter and maybe recommend it too.

Message me if you’re up for this.

Next, I studied the success of profitable Substack newsletters.

I’ll keep doing it. I’m so passionate about this business model and want to learn from those who’ve already mastered it to some extent.

I also apply many of their strategies quickly and see what works.

I was part of the group chats of big publications.

It’s just 2-3 chats now, but it’s quite helpful.

I connect with others through that, answer questions and can get new subscribers just from engaging in a thread, and also use the chance to ask the admins a question when presented with the opportunity.

One question, in particular, was directly answered by a Substacker earning 7 figures. Now that’s something.

In these chats, we’re also often invited to share our latest post or Note. That’s an awesome opportunity and I often take advantage of it. This helps you get discovered, and discover new people on the platform.

It’s also great for accountability. People share their wins or frustrations, but everyone keeps growing their Substack.

I updated my bio multiple times and am finally happy with its latest version.

Same goes for the publication’s homepage, my About page, the menu, and just how things are structured overall.

I will keep tweaking these when necessary, but the foundation is now built.

I realized I could publish my freebies as new posts on Substack, and grow my newsletter thanks to that. The first one I published was my free blogging course.

💡 What I Learned

1. There’s no competition on Substack. We can all support each other and grow together, even if we write about the same topic.

2. A lot is happening in subscriber chats. Join the conversation.

3. Engagement Notes (such as those inviting everyone to share their work or link to their publication) can easily get a lot of attention, and even many new subscribers, but that might not be the best for your Substack growth. These are often not the right subscribers for you, they don’t care about your content, and many of them subscribe to everyone just so they can get the same in return. That’s not the kind of energy we want in our business.

🎯 What’s Next

So that’s how May looked like for me.

Here’s what I’m focusing on in June:

• Finalizing the details around what earned me my first money on Substack. Can’t wait to share;

• Updated one of my freebies for bloggers. Will publish it as a new post, and add it to the Welcome email for new subscribers;

• I’ll keep scheduling Notes for the whole week. I do it on Sundays;

• Preparing some round-up posts (with tips from expert bloggers) and will start publishing them;

• I plan to reach 500 subscribers;

• I plan to have my 1st paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading this far!

Over to you now. Tell me:

• What was your biggest win this month?

• What’s one thing you’re focusing on next month?

• What’s a recent lesson you’ve learned as a Substack creator?