Podnews reports that Substack launched a new podcast tab in its app and announced that creators publishing podcasts on the platform collectively earn over $200 million per year.
Substack is moving to consolidate podcast discovery and monetisation in one place in its app. According to Podnews, "Substack has launched a new podcast tab in its app: 'a dedicated space where you can easily reach your existing listeners, and help new listeners find you'."
The move comes with significant revenue transparency. The company told Podnews that "creators publishing podcasts collectively earn over $200 million per year on Substack". The figure is what those creators earn on Substack in total, not podcast revenue as such, but it signals that the platform wants podcasters.
For African creators using Substack, the dedicated tab and headline payout figure create new visibility within the app's feed. The change also raises the profile of podcast monetisation as an expectation: creators may now perceive podcasting on Substack as a revenue avenue rather than a distribution-only channel.
Our read: African platforms such as Afripods will be asked what their creators earn. The $200 million is a benchmark, though with no creator count and no podcast-only share it is a loose one.
Substack has not detailed how many creators actively publish podcasts on its platform, or what portion of the $200 million total flows to African creators specifically. That data gap leaves room for speculation about true platform penetration in African markets, but does not diminish the visibility shift the dedicated tab provides.
Corrected 19 September 2026. The headline called the $200 million “podcast payouts”. Substack's figure is what creators who publish podcasts earn on the platform, not podcast income, and a paragraph on its revenue model that we could not source has been removed.