👋 Hi Reader,

As you are aware, there has been a lot of hue-and-cry about Substack’s paid subscriptions routing through the Apple in-app payments for the iOS app. But the noise just got louder with creator-side payout receipts now floating in the wild.

​Tyler Denk, the founder of beehiiv, talked on his LinkedIn post where he showed a screenshot of an App Store payout to a creator, where the difference between the gross earnings and net payout was almost 50%.

Unprecedented? Hardly

This is not an isolated instance. Apple has been accused of taking their pound of flesh from app and game developers for in-app subscriptions (Epic Games, Hey.com) See the tweet below from Basecamp co-founder David for further reading.
​

DHH @dhh Wow. I'm literally stunned. Apple just doubled down on their rejection of HEY's ability to provide bug fixes and new features, unless we submit to their outrageous demand of 15-30% of our revenue. Even worse: We're told that unless we comply, they'll REMOVE THE APP. 12:34 AM • Jun 17, 2020 3269 Retweets 12488 Likes Read 868 replies

​

Be informed that this only happens on the Substack iOS App. According to Substack’s official documentation, the only cuts that happen on earnings on their Web App or Android App is the Stripe and Substack fees, which in comparison, is loose change.

Why am I talking about this now?

What this means for you as newsletter creators, is to watch closely how your demographic spread of subscribers currently are. A quick look at the traffic sources section on the Post Summary should give you this information.

I am aware that the traffic sources section does not segment as well as a proper analytics dashboard would, but this should help you get a pulse check on where you get most of your readers consuming your content.

The sooner you are able to keep your options to go paid handy, the better your prep for moving to a better email provider could be. Regardless of where your subscribers consume your content, Substack would still allow you to back up your email list, should you choose to migrate.

Talking of migrating, the reason I quoted Tyler above, is Beehiiv seems to be promoting a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions, which means a larger portion of your gross earnings comes to your pocket.

I will report on that, as soon as I find out more.

Going from free to paid for your top subscriber fans? Let us know if you are anxious of preparing for that move, we at LetterStack can help.

Let us know by hitting ‘Reply’ on this email, or send a note to marketing@letterstack.co.

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