On Substack, you are in charge of your newlsetter. You work for yourself at the rate you set. It is up to you to make your newsletter prosper, or not (with foundational help from Substack.) On Medium, Medium is in charge of their website. You work for them (at an arbitrary, unknown rate.)

I make more with 12 paid subscribers on Substack than I do on Medium with 2.7k followers. And my stories get hundreds of reads on Substack compared to a handful on Medium. I don't do any outside promotion of my Substack and it grows organically (currently 1375 subscribers.) It takes longer to grow an audience on Substack, and many writers give up after a few months because they didn't get rich or famous in that time. Many of the followers on Medium are "follow-for-follow" hacks (or bots) that never read your stories.

You probably won't earn much on either platform unless you are already famous. But I know every one of my stories are going to all of my readers on Substack. I can't say that about Medium, where they get dumped in with an ocean of content and I have to hope someone finds them and reads them.

Medium is easy. It is fine if you like cranking out stuff for pennies or claps. Or as a creative outlet. It is great for that. But it will never be more than that for most writers (unless you write about writing or how to "make it" on Medium.) Susbstack offers a better chance at success, but requires effort and doesn't guarantee anything. They are apples and oranges. Pick your poison. 🤓