The 3 Features That Could Make Substack Unstoppable

And why they're not here (yet)

Burk

Jul 08, 2025

Brought to you by WriteStack* — I am actually using the premium version right now, and I am loving it so far.

I’ve been running my Substack newsletter for quite a while now. From zero to 3000 subscribers.

Mostly organic, no gimmicks, no list buys, no TikTok dances.

Most of that growth comes from two places:

Medium
Substack’s internal discoverability and recommendations And Notes.

That’s what I love about Substack. It’s relatively easy to build an audience there. In comparison to most other email marketing and newsletter platforms.

But Substack isn’t flawless. Nothing is.

If Substack wants to really surpass ConvertKit, Beehiiv, Mailchimp, here are the three missing pieces, in my opinion.

(But I actually don’t think Substack even wants to compete with those platforms).

1️⃣ Email automation

Right now, you can send an email now or schedule it for later. That’s it. For any serious creator or business, this is very basic.

Automation matters in many ways:

Send a proper welcome series
Offer a free mini-course via email
Trigger different flows for different sign-up forms
Onboard customers if you sell stuff

Right now? Not on Substack. One welcome email. Have fun.

So I plug this gap with Gumroad.

My digital products and mini-sequences run there — Gumroad handles what Substack won’t. Not fancy, but it works. And it’s free.

The risk of email automation

Too much automation can bloat Substack. One reason writers love it is that it isn’t ConvertKit.

It’s simple. If they bolt on huge visual workflows, they risk confusing the average writer who just wants to write and hit “send.”

2️⃣ Customizable embed form

Next up: sign-up forms.

Substack’s current embed is a sad little iframe. You can’t match your website’s vibe, you can’t style it, you can barely get it to align properly.

Every other serious platform gives you a form that fits you. Substack gives you… a pretty much useless and extremely ugly iframe.

My solution for this is substackapi.com. It gives you a nicer-looking and customizable form. For free.

The risk of custom embed forms

Too much customization opens up room for broken forms, support headaches, spam sign-ups, and a messier user experience.

Substack’s approach means it just works.

If they loosen that too much, they’ll have to help people troubleshoot bot sign-ups, custom CSS chaos, and everything else.

But still, at least a clean, brandable embed should be in it 2025.

3️⃣ API access

There’s no API access.

An API would let Substack talk to Zapier, Make, Notion, your CRM, your e-commerce store. Basically, your whole workflow.

Want to tag subscribers, sync contacts, automate tasks? Not happening without an API.

The risk API access

An open API can invite security headaches, shady spam tools, and buggy third-party hacks.

It also forces Substack to support a developer ecosystem. Something they’ve mostly avoided so far.

If they half-bake this, it’ll suck. But if done well, it could be pretty cool for the ecosystem.

The bottom line

Substack’s internal growth engine is still its best feature. That includes Substack Notes.

It wants you to win by writing, it’s the place to be.

I patch it up with Gumroad, substackapi.com, and some other tools for now.

But I could see Substack adding some light versions of those 3 features in the future.