Substack is adding three sponsorship formats that let brands fund paid access, unlock individual paywalled posts and sponsor themed collections of creator work. The formats are part of the platform’s native Sponsorships programme, which is still being tested with a limited group of publishers and brands.
The update gives participating publishers another revenue route alongside subscriptions, but it is not yet a self-serve sponsorship marketplace open to every Substack creator.
Upgrade, Unlock and Masthead work in three different ways
Upgrade lets a brand fund one month of paid access for a publisher’s free subscribers. Readers can experience the paid publication without paying for that month and can choose to become paying subscribers afterwards.
Unlock allows a brand to sponsor a single paid post and make it free for everyone to read. Substack says the publisher is paid for the work while the post reaches readers who would otherwise have hit the paywall.
Masthead is a broader brand-led format. A brand works with writers and creators around a theme, with the resulting work collected in a dedicated destination on Substack, closer to a digital zine than a standard newsletter ad.
The sponsorship programme is still limited
This is an important restriction for creators reading the announcement. Substack says it is currently bringing small groups of Bestsellers and brands together while it tests the programme. Its Creator Kit, which signals interest in sponsorship opportunities, is available to Bestsellers and publications with at least 100 paid subscribers.
Publishers opt in to sponsorships and can indicate the types of brands and formats they are willing to consider. Substack still handles the matching for now. The company has not announced a public rollout date for the broader partnership marketplace or published a standard sponsorship fee structure for creators.
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Kantar will measure larger sponsorship campaigns
Substack is also adding independent Kantar studies for large-scale campaigns. The surveys are designed to measure changes in brand awareness, perception and consideration, giving advertisers more than clicks and impressions to judge creator partnerships.
For publishers, the bigger change is that Substack is building sponsorship revenue into a platform that has historically centred its creator business model on paid subscriptions. TCI has previously looked at how Substack’s sponsorship push could add brand revenue for writer-creators without replacing reader payments.
For now, the opportunity is narrower than the headline announcement may suggest: the formats are real, but access remains controlled while Substack expands the programme.
