Why Substack Is So Much Better Than WordPress + AdSense
To Make Money With Blogging
Brought to you by SparkLoop* — the #1 newsletter recommendation engine
My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.
WordPress has been my go-to blogging platform since 2007. It’s a great platform, it has come such a long way since then.
But let’s be honest, it’s not easy to maintain.
Plugins. Updates. Broken themes. The occasional white screens of death. All for blogs that for most of my time with WordPress have never earned a significant amount of income, but always took a significant portion of my time.
Maintenance, legal considerations, updates, some codes here and there, new options, new features, complete redesigns. It’s been a lot.
So last year I did it. I moved everything to Substack.
And when I say everything, I mean my entire blog. All 500+ posts. The archives. The “greatest hits.”
Old ones that somehow still pull SEO traffic. All of it.
Now, I’m making more money in a month (or a week) than I ever did from AdSense in 15 years.
Plus: I have zero technical headaches. I simply write and publish. And I get a newsletter for free on top.
AdSense & Money
If you’re not getting millions of pageviews a month, AdSense is somewhat of a joke.
It feels like you’re “monetizing” your blog. But in reality, you’re cluttering your site with ugly banner ads for products I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot affiliate pole.
All for a few bucks a month. And most of that goes to Google anyways.
After some time, I had solid traffic. Nothing viral, but steady and consistent. And yet AdSense revenue was nothing to ride home about. Not worth the privacy compromise, not worth the ugly banners, and definitely not worth the hit to page speed.
Worse, I had little control.
I couldn’t choose the ads. Couldn’t really align them with my content. I was basically renting out my readers’ attention for pennies, while Google pocketed the dollars.
Move to Substack
Now, you can basically do all I am about to say about Substack with WordPress as well. Well, most of it.
But that still comes with all the hassle.
I originally signed up for Substack to test the waters. You know, post a few articles, send a newsletter or two.
But instead of seeing it as my newsletter option, I thought, “this is how blogging should feel.”
Writing, publishing, connecting with readers , sending emails. All without technical hassle, complicated backends, servers, setups, themes, plugins, and more.
Some legal considerations still apply, but Substack has stepped up their game lot in this regard, with custom cookie banners (for EU-users, specifically), and options for customized terms and privacy policies.
And the best thing to date: Substack is free.
Sure, if you want to connect a custom domain to your Substack like I did, it’ll cost you $50 one time, plus the hosting fees for a domain and webspace.
That’s it.
On WordPress, you already have to pay if you use the .com version and want some good features, plus hosting in some cases. Or you choose the .org version but then you have to set everything up yourself.
Substack Downsides
Substack is great, but not perfect.
Customization is limited. WordPress obviously excels here.
You can’t fiddle with ten fonts or redesign every button to match your brand palette.
But honestly?
For me, after customizing my brain out on WordPress, that simplicity and lack of customization options is a feature, not a bug.
Substack has this constraint that forces you to focus on writing good content and building an audience.
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How I Make Money on Substack
Okay, here’s what everyone really wants to know: “But how do you make money with it?”
If you don’t use ads, where’s the money coming from?
It’s not paid subscriptions.
Here’s how I monetize on Substack today:
1. Affiliate Links That Actually Convert
On my WordPress blog, affiliate links used to be buried in long-form content that rarely got read past the first scroll.
On Substack, the simple format + the newsletter option is perfect for subtle, well-placed affiliate links.
I use Gumroad affiliate links for products I already love and I actually earn commissions because people trust the recommendation. I also have many other affiliates partners that build cool tools that I love to recommend.
Not the AdSense crap that streams into your blog.
Affiliate links are native, relevant, and aligned with your message. You can change them. You can delete them. And if you do it well, it feels like a helpful recommendation, not a sleazy sales pitch.
2. SparkLoop Recommendation
Somewhat like affiliate links, but totally different.
SparkLoop is one of those tools that feels almost too good to be true. I plug in a couple of offers (aka, paid newsletters willing to pay for referrals), drop in a short line in my Substack posts.
Readers click, subscribe, I get paid.
Passive income. No popups, no gimmicks.
For me, that is a win-win-win: My readers get cool content, creators get new subs, I get paid.
No strings attached. If you don’t like the recommendation, simply unsubscribe.
3. Sponsored Content
On Substack, sponsored posts can be high-quality and your audience will actually read them.
Why?
Because the relationship is different. You’re in their inbox. You#re also getting different sponsor opportunities, because not many have realized the Substack potential. And those who have make some cool stuff oftentimes.
The key is being picky.
I still turn down a lot. When I do accept, I write the posts how I want them.
4. Paid Subscriptions
I have a few paid subscribers. That’s awesome. Because I rarely advertise my paid newsletter, and I publish almost everything for free.
What About WordPress?
As I said earlier, you can do almost anything with WordPress as well.
It is still a great platform, and for many use cases, it’s the better option, like complex websites (not only blogs), e-commerce, agencies, and more.
But for simple one-man shows, focused on writing? Substack clearly wins.
I don’t want to be a web developer. I don’t want to spend time fixing broken shortcodes or Googling “how to fix Jetpack plugin error 403” for the fifth time this month.
I want to write. Publish. Connect. And yes, earn money doing it.
Substack gives me all of that. For free.
The Tradeoff
Is Substack perfect? Nope.
I mentioned it already. The customization options are pretty bare-bones. If you’re a design control freak, you might twitch a little. There’s no plugin ecosystem. No native SEO tools. No sidebar widget circus. And only a few really useful extensions or add-ons.
But honestly? I like that.
If you write good content, you can be discovered. Substack’s built-in network and recommendation system are already doing half the job for you.
And the rest is happening on Substack Notes, another huge feature that WordPress lacks. Social media baked in.
Substack Is Blogging 2.0
Moving 500+ posts from WordPress to Substack wasn’t entirely error free. It took some time and some things didn’t work (like Feature Images).
But apart from that, the import tool for WordPress content (that Substack offers natively) is pretty handy.
WordPress is fine. But if you’re a blogger looking to simplify your life, grow your income, and enjoy the process again, Substack’s where it’s at 2025.
I now publish daily on Substack (but only email once a week) and I haven’t missed WordPress a single time.
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After reading your latest post today I have finally got the guts to migrate from blogger to substack all my posts from there.
I was just thinking of moving my WordPress blog posts to Substack. Then this pops into my feed. Must be a sign. Or the internet is stalking me again.
Nevertheless, I don't have 500+ WP posts, so migrating and editing shouldn't take too much time. I do appreciate the simplicity of Substack, so I don't mind giving up the vast customization options of WP.