How to add Substack to your website
Substack is a newsletter platform with built-in subscription and payment handling, used by writers, commentators and anyone running a paid or free newsletter. Here's how to put it on your own website, which embed option to pick, and what goes wrong.
Quick answer
Get the code from your Substack settings, where an embeddable subscribe widget is provided. For most people the right choice is the subscribe widget — an iframe with an email field and subscribe button. Paste it into a code or embed block on your site — not a plain text field — then place it beside your main call to action and test the whole flow on a phone before relying on it.
Substack: which option to use
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Subscribe widget | An iframe with an email field and subscribe button. |
| Link button | A button pointing at your Substack subscribe page. |
| Custom form | Your own styled form posting to Substack, which some publishers prefer for design consistency. |
Step-by-step
- 1
Find the code or link in your account
Substack keeps this in your Substack settings, where an embeddable subscribe widget is provided. Copy what you need before touching your website — most of the time people lose is spent hunting for the snippet, not installing it.
- 2
Pick the right option for the job
The table above is the decision. Subscribe widget: An iframe with an email field and subscribe button. Link button: A button pointing at your Substack subscribe page. Choosing before you paste saves rebuilding the section later.
- 3
Paste it into a code or embed block
This needs an HTML, code or embed block — not a plain text field, where the code will simply appear as text on your page. On Adviita, ask the AI editor to add an embed section and drop the code in. On WordPress use a Custom HTML block, on Squarespace a Code block (Business plan or above), and on Wix an Embed HTML element.
- 4
Put it where the decision happens
An email list is the only audience you own outright — no algorithm sits between you and it. A widget three scrolls down does a fraction of the work of the same widget beside your main call to action. Decide what the page is for, then place it at the point the visitor is deciding.
- 5
Check it on an actual phone
Most visitors to a small business website arrive on a phone, and embeds are where mobile layouts break. Open your live site on your own phone and confirm it loads, fits the screen without sideways scrolling, and does not push your contact button out of view. Third-party embeds are also the most common cause of a slow page, so if it noticeably delays loading, consider a plain link instead.
- 6
Test it end to end before you rely on it
Run through the whole flow yourself as a customer would — submit a real entry — and confirm what should happen actually happens. Broken embeds fail silently, and the first person to notice is usually a customer who has already given up.
Tips & best practices
- ▸Substack owns the relationship and takes a percentage of paid subscriptions. Export your list regularly so you are not locked in.
- ▸The embed widget is styled by Substack and hard to change — a plain link often looks better on a designed site.
- ▸Substack pages rank on substack.com, not on your domain. Your own site should still exist for search.
- ▸Re-test the embed after any change to your site, your plan, or the connected account — third-party widgets break quietly and nothing tells you.
Common questions
Should my newsletter live on Substack or my own site?
+−
Substack is excellent for getting started and for payments, but its pages build substack.com's search presence rather than yours, and it takes a percentage of paid subscriptions. Many publishers run both — Substack for delivery and payments, their own site for the pages they want to rank.
How do I add a Substack signup to my website?
+−
Copy the embeddable subscribe widget from your Substack settings and paste it into a code block on your site, or simply link a styled button to your Substack subscribe page. The link approach usually looks better because the widget's styling is fixed.
Do I need a developer to add Substack to my site?
+−
No. Every option here is copy and paste into a code or embed block, which every mainstream website builder provides. The only genuine blocker is a builder or plan that does not allow custom code at all — Squarespace, for instance, requires a Business plan or above for code blocks.
Will adding Substack slow down my website?
+−
Any third-party embed has some cost, because it loads code from another company's servers. One is usually unnoticeable; four or five on the same page is where small business sites become visibly slow. If page speed matters to you, prefer a plain link over a script wherever the option exists, and keep embeds to the pages that genuinely need them.