This guide provides a detailed breakdown of how to interpret your Substack publication's performance metrics. We'll cover the key sections to monitor, explain each metric, and offer insights to help you grow your audience and engagement.

1. Home: Your Publication's Dashboard

Your Home page offers a high-level overview of your Substack publication's performance, including subscriber growth, engagement, and revenue (if applicable). It's your central hub for monitoring key trends.

Key Metrics on the Home Page:

• All Subscribers: Your total subscriber count. The green or gray number indicates the net subscriber change (new subscribers minus unsubscribes) over the last 30 days.
• Subscribers from app: The number of free and paid subscribers who subscribed directly through a Substack platform, such as the mobile app, Notes, or the leaderboards. This helps you understand the effectiveness of Substack's own discovery tools.
• 30-Day Views: The total number of views your publication received across all platforms in the last 30 days. The green or gray number represents the change compared to the previous 30-day period.
• 30-Day Open Rate: The average percentage of subscribers who opened your emails in the last 30 days. The green or gray percentage indicates the change compared to the previous 30-day period. Note that this rate might appear low immediately after sending an email, as it takes time for the data to fully populate.

For Publications with Payments Enabled:

• Paid Subscribers: Your total number of paying subscribers. The green or gray number shows the net change in paid subscribers over the last 30 days.
• Gross Annualized Revenue (ARR): Your estimated annual revenue based on your current subscriber base and pricing. The green or gray number represents the change in ARR over the last 30 days. This metric assumes your current mix of monthly and annual subscriptions remains constant.

Learn more about your Substack Home

2. Posts: Deep Dive into Individual Post Performance

The Posts page provides detailed insights into the performance of each individual post, including viewership, engagement, and subscriber acquisition.

Clicking on a specific post reveals a comprehensive summary of its metrics:

Key Post Metrics:

• Total Views: The total number of times a post has been viewed across all platforms (web, email, and the Substack app). Multiple views by the same person are counted.
• Free Subscription: The number of new free subscribers gained from this post.
• Paid Subscription: The number of new paid subscribers gained from this post.
• Recipients: The number of subscribers who received an email or mobile app notification for this post (subscribers receiving both are counted once).
• Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who opened the email or mobile app notification for this post.
• Link Clicks: The percentage of openers who clicked any link within the post, along with the total click count for each link.
• Traffic Sources: The origin of your post's traffic, showing where your readers came from. Learn more about traffic sources.

Guide to your Substack Posts page

3. Subscribers: Understanding Your Audience

The Subscribers dashboard provides a comprehensive view of your subscriber base and its growth.

Key Subscriber Metrics:

• All Subscribers: Your total number of subscribers (free and paid).
• All Followers: Your total Substack audience, including followers of public admins and your subscribers (who are followers by default). This metric helps gauge your overall reach on the platform.
• Paid Subscribers: Your total number of paying subscribers, including gifts, complimentary, and free trial subscriptions. Clicking the "Paid subscribers" tab on the graph provides a more detailed breakdown.
• Gross Annualized Revenue (ARR): Your estimated annual revenue, as explained in the Home section. Learn more about changes to ARR.

4. Stats: In-Depth Performance Analysis

The Stats page provides a deeper look into various aspects of your publication's performance, including traffic, emails, pledges (if applicable), subscriber reports, and network effects. For paid publications, it also includes an Unsubscribes tab.

Traffic

The Traffic section analyzes the total visits to your publication and their sources.

• Visitors: The total number of unique visitors to your Substack publication (any page, not just the homepage).
• Source: The origin of your traffic, such as social media, search engines, or other websites. Parenthetical notes like "(post)" or "(about)" indicate the specific page type visitors landed on.

Emails

The Emails section provides a detailed table of metrics for each email post you've sent. You can sort this table by clicking on the column headers.

Key Email Metrics: Title, Send Date, Audience, Deliveries, Opens, Open Rate, Free Subscriptions, Paid Subscriptions, Likes, Comments, and Shares.

Unsubscribes (Paid Publications Only)

This section lists the reasons given by paid subscribers for unsubscribing, along with their email addresses and unsubscribe dates. This data can provide valuable feedback for improving your publication.

Subscriber Report

The Subscriber Report offers insights into the health of your paid subscriptions.

Key Subscriber Report Metrics:

• Subscriber Retention: Measures how well you retain your paid subscribers over time.
• Paid Growth Rate: Tracks the growth of your paid subscriber base.
• Audience Insights: Provides information on where your Substack is read geographically.

Learn more about the Subscriber Report

Network

This section shows how many subscribers discovered your publication through the Substack network.

Subscriber Acquisition Channels:

• Substack app: Subscriptions originating from the Substack app, Notes, or leaderboards.
• Other Substack network: Subscriptions from Substack features like Recommendations and promotions.
• Substack saved credit cards: Subscriptions facilitated by existing Substack payment information.
• Substack existing accounts: Subscriptions from users with existing Substack accounts.
• Imported accounts: Subscriptions from imported email lists.
• New accounts: Subscriptions from readers who came directly to your publication.

Reader Sharing

This tab reveals the impact of your readers sharing your posts. It shows the number of visitors, free subscriptions, and paid subscriptions generated from each subscriber's shares. You can filter this data by time period.

Note: This tab only displays data from January 2022 onwards. You can also email subscribers directly from this list.

This comprehensive guide should equip you with the knowledge to effectively analyze your Substack metrics and make informed decisions to grow your publication. Good luck!