How to Use Substack's Recommendation Network With a Non-Substack Newsletter

Aside from being free—even though free is economically unsustainable—the primary thing keeping a lot of Substackers on Substack is the recommendations network.

If other Substackers are recommending your newsletter, that can drive a lot of new sign-ups. I’m skeptical about the value of those, because Substack’s sign up flow makes it too easy to unintentionally subscribe to everything a particular newsletter recommends, but if you’re getting subscribers that way, you might not want to give that up.

Fortunately, you don’t have to. Here’s a quick guide on how to move your newsletter to different platform (like beehiiv, which is what I use here) while still getting new subscribers from Substack recommendations. It’s easy and, unless you’re getting a ton of subscribers that way, it’s free, too. (And it’s pretty cheap if you are.)

1) Sign up for Zapier

Zapier is a handy automation tool that works with many applications and websites, including many newsletter platforms. It doesn’t work with Substack, which generally doesn’t integrate with anything, but the good news is that doesn’t matter.

Zapier is free for up to 100 “tasks” a month. Every time an automation triggers is a task. What this means is that if you get 100 or fewer new subscribers from Substack recommendations in a month, Zapier will be free. If you get more, it’s $20/month for 750, and scales up from there. Unless your newsletter’s pretty big, you’re likely getting fewer than 100 a month. (Note this is email subscribers, not the new in-app “followers” Substack added, which is a way for them to try to further lock you into the platform.)

2) Set up a new mailbox in Zapier’s email parser

We’re going to be creating new subscribers at your newsletter by parsing the emails Substack sends you when you get a new subscriber from them. So before you start building your Zapier automation, you’ll need to create a mailbox to forward those emails to.

Head to Zapier’s email parser website and login with your Zapier credentials. Then click “Create Mailbox” and follow the instructions. You’ll end up with a new @robot.zapier.com email address. Copy that down.

3) Create an email forward

How to do this will depend on what you’re using for your the email address Substack is sending you new subscriber notifications at. I’m using Gmail, so I created a new filter with the parameters “subject:("New free subscriber") list:(<www.substack.com>)” and then told Gmail to automatically forward those to the email address of the Zapier mailbox created in step 2 above. If you’re using something other than Gmail, you’ll need to set up something similar.

4) Create a new automation

Now you’re ready to create the automation in Zapier. Log into the main Zapier website. Then click the big orange “+ Create” button in the upper left and select “Zaps.” You’ll get a screen that looks like this:

Ignore the Copilot section. Click the grey “Trigger” button and then select “Email Parser by Zapier.” A sidebar with further options will appear on the right. In “Trigger Event,” pick “New Email.” Then click “Continue” and then, in the “Mailbox” dropdown, pick the new email address you created in step 2 and that you started forwarding Substack emails to in step 3. Then click “Continue” and then test the trigger.

Now, back in that main screen, you’ll see the “Trigger” replaced with your new email parser setup. Next you’ll want to click on “Action” and search for your newsletter provider. You’ll again get the sidebar. In “Action Event,” you’ll choose the one that creates a new subscriber. How that’ll be phrased will be different depending on your newsletter platform, but it should be pretty obvious.

You might also have to pick an account, which will require letting Zapier connect to your newsletter service. Just follow the prompts.

Finally, you’ll get a new sidebar with a ton of options. You can pick which publication you want the subscribers to go to. You can also set any of the other options you want.

The important field will be “Email.” This is where you’ll tell Zapier how to get the subscriber’s email address from the notification Substack sent. Fortunately, Substack includes the subscriber’s email in the notification’s reply-to field, so that’s what we’ll use.

In the “Email” field in the sidebar, select “Email Reply To.”

You can test this all out again, and once you’re done with that sidebar, your “Zap” will look something like this:

Click “Publish” and you’re good to go.

5) Update your Substack newsletter

This part is important: Do not delete your existing Substack newsletter. That’s what people are recommending, and so you want to leave it where it is gathering subscribers from your recommendations. It’s just that now those new subscribers will also be subscribed to your newsletter at its new home, too.

I suggest updating the Welcome email Substack sends to new subscribers to mention that you’ve moved and that they’ve automatically been subscribed at the new location—and that they can unsubscribe at the bottom of any of your upcoming emails.

Then just stop publishing at Substack and write at your new newsletter. Those old recommendations will stay in place and continue to gather you subscribers, so you haven’t lost anything. But you’ll no longer be tied to publishing at Substack.