Substack has grown to over 35 million paid subscriptions, and a lot of newsletter writers are asking the same question: can I actually make money with affiliate marketing here? Yes, but there are rules, platform quirks, and a few things that work way better for newsletter audiences than they do anywhere else.

Substack affiliate marketing is a real income stream, but it works differently than blog or YouTube affiliate marketing. The platform has its own policies, your readers behave differently than search traffic, and some affiliate program types are basically made for newsletter audiences while others fall flat. This post covers what you need to know to do it right.

Quick note before we get into it: if you’ve been building an email list but haven’t thought seriously about affiliate monetization yet, this guide on monetizing a small email list is worth reading alongside this one. A lot of what applies there applies directly to Substack.

Does Substack allow affiliate marketing?

Substack doesn’t explicitly prohibit affiliate marketing, but it does prohibit content that exists purely to sell or promote products without genuine editorial value. The platform’s content guidelines focus on authenticity, which means affiliate links are fine as long as the content around them is real and useful, not just a thin wrapper around a sales pitch.

A few things to know about how Substack actually handles links:

• You can include affiliate links in both free and paid posts.
• Substack does not strip or redirect affiliate links, so your tracking works normally.
• Some affiliate networks (Amazon Associates in particular) have terms that restrict where you can share links. Amazon specifically prohibits sharing affiliate links in email newsletters, including Substack. Check your program’s terms before you start.
• Substack’s own “Recommendations” and partnership features are separate from third-party affiliate programs and have their own rules.

The practical answer: yes, you can do affiliate marketing on Substack. Just make sure the content earns its place and you’ve read the affiliate program’s own terms, not just Substack’s.

FTC disclosure rules for Substack newsletters

The FTC rules apply to Substack the same way they apply to blogs, YouTube, podcasts, and every other platform. If you get paid a commission when someone clicks your link and buys, you have to say so. There’s no newsletter exemption.

Put a short disclosure near the top of any issue that contains affiliate links. Something like: “This newsletter contains affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.” One sentence is enough. You don’t need a legal document.

You can also disclose inline, right next to each link. Something like “this is an affiliate link” in parentheses is fine. A lot of newsletter writers do both, and honestly that’s the safest approach.

What you can’t do is bury the disclosure at the very bottom in tiny text, or only disclose on your website while leaving the newsletter itself clean. The FTC cares about whether readers can actually see and understand the disclosure before they click, not whether it technically exists somewhere.

Disclosure mistakes are some of the most common errors affiliate marketers make, and they can cost you more than just FTC headaches. The full breakdown of what to avoid is in Affiliate Marketing Mistakes That Kill Your Commissions, which covers the disclosure errors and a dozen other traps that quietly hurt your results.

Which affiliate programs work best for Substack audiences

Newsletter audiences convert differently than search traffic. Someone landing on your blog post via Google is often in research mode. They want information and they might buy eventually. A Substack subscriber already trusts you, they’ve already opted in, and they’re reading your recommendation in their inbox like they’d read a tip from a friend.

That trust difference changes which affiliate programs actually pay off.

Programs that work well for newsletter audiences:

• Software and SaaS tools with recurring commissions. Newsletter readers are often other creators or entrepreneurs. If you’re recommending a tool you actually use, they’ll sign up. And recurring commissions mean you get paid every month they stay subscribed.
• Courses and digital products from creators your audience already knows. Substack readers follow ideas and voices, so if you’ve reviewed a course and it’s genuinely good, a straightforward recommendation carries a lot of weight.
• Books. Seriously. Newsletter readers buy books at a higher rate than most audiences. Amazon Associates may not allow newsletter links (again, check their terms), but other bookseller programs and direct publisher affiliate programs do.
• High-ticket offers with longer decision cycles. Because you can follow up. Unlike a blog post that gets one shot at converting someone, a Substack newsletter lets you mention an offer across multiple issues, tell a longer story, and give readers time to decide.

Programs that tend to underperform:

• Low-margin physical products (unless your audience is specifically interested in physical goods).
• Generic product aggregators and comparison sites.
• Programs with very short cookie windows (24 hours) where readers might buy two days later and you get nothing.

For a broader look at how to pick the right affiliate programs for your audience, this guide on turning your content into an affiliate machine has a solid framework that applies to newsletters too.

Where to place affiliate links in a Substack newsletter

Placement matters a lot more in email than on a blog. Nobody scrolls a newsletter the way they scroll a website. Readers move through it roughly linearly, and their attention drops off toward the bottom.

Contextual links inside the editorial content. This is the strongest placement. If you’re writing about a topic and a product or service is genuinely relevant, link it naturally inside the paragraph. “I’ve been using for the past three months and it’s the best option I’ve found for X” with an affiliate link on the tool name. The recommendation fits the content, so it doesn’t feel like an ad.

A dedicated section at the end of the issue. A lot of successful newsletter writers use a short “from our sponsors” or “tools I use” section at the bottom where affiliate recommendations live. This separates the editorial content from the promotion and keeps the main content clean. It converts less than contextual links but it’s consistent income and readers know what it is.

Full issues dedicated to a review or recommendation. If you’ve used a product long enough to actually have opinions about it, a dedicated review issue works really well. It’s basically a product review post in newsletter form. Give the good and the bad, be specific about who it’s right for, and the affiliate link at the end feels earned.

What doesn’t work: dropping three or four affiliate links in a row with no context, or writing a newsletter that’s clearly just an ad with some editorial dressing around it. Readers aren’t stupid. If they feel sold to, they unsubscribe.

Writing review-style affiliate content is a skill, and it applies directly to newsletters as well as blogs. The Review Post Pro tool is trained on 300+ top-ranked review posts and helps you write the kind of specific, honest, conversion-focused recommendation that works in any format, including Substack issues.

How to write affiliate recommendations that don’t feel gross

The number one mistake affiliate marketers make in newsletters is treating their subscribers like search traffic. Blog readers are skeptical strangers. Newsletter subscribers are warm leads who already like you. You don’t have to convince them you’re credible, they already believe that. What you have to do is not break it.

Only recommend things you’ve actually used. This sounds obvious, but it’s easy to rationalize recommending something just because the commission is good. Newsletter readers will eventually buy it and find out it’s mediocre. That’s a subscriber relationship problem, not just a refund problem.

Be specific. “This is a great tool” is worthless. “I use this to batch-schedule three weeks of content in about 90 minutes on the first Sunday of the month” is useful. Specific details are the difference between a recommendation that converts and one that gets ignored.

Mention the downside. If there’s something the product doesn’t do well, say so. “The mobile app is clunky but the desktop version is excellent” is more trustworthy than a glowing review. Readers know nothing is perfect, and acknowledging flaws actually increases credibility.

Mention your affiliate relationship upfront. Not at the bottom, not in fine print. Say it early and move on. Most readers don’t care that you earn a commission. What they care about is whether the recommendation is honest.

If you want to get good at this across platforms, the mistakes affiliates make on social media covers a lot of the same credibility traps that apply in newsletters too.

Building a resources page to complement your Substack

Your newsletter is a great traffic source, but it’s not a great repository. Readers can’t search through your back issues easily, and affiliate links buried in issue #47 don’t generate passive income six months later.

A resources page on your own website fixes this. It’s a standalone page that lists all the tools, books, and services you recommend, with affiliate links, and it works around the clock whether you sent an issue today or not.

Every time you mention a product in your Substack, you can add a line like: “You can always find my full list of recommended tools at .” That single sentence, repeated consistently, can turn a modest newsletter into a meaningful passive income stream.

There’s a full breakdown of how to build and optimize a resources page in this guide to creating a profitable resources page. It’s one of the most underused strategies in affiliate marketing and it works especially well when you have a newsletter audience driving traffic to it.

A resources page can make $10,000+ per month in passive affiliate income from a single page, and it pairs perfectly with a Substack newsletter that regularly points readers to it. The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Resources Page covers exactly how to build one that converts, including the five keys that separate high-earning pages from ones that just sit there.

Growing your Substack audience to increase affiliate income

Affiliate income from newsletters scales with your subscriber count, but not only with your subscriber count. A newsletter with 2,000 engaged subscribers who trust you will consistently out-earn one with 10,000 subscribers who barely open the thing.

So the goal is growing the right audience, not just a big one.

• Substack Recommendations. When another writer recommends your newsletter to their subscribers, those new subscribers already know what kind of content they’re signing up for. They convert much better. Build real relationships with writers in adjacent niches and recommend each other’s work.
• Cross-promotion through guest issues. Writing a guest issue for another Substack puts you in front of an audience that’s already opted into newsletter reading. They’re much more likely to subscribe and stay than cold social media traffic.
• Consistent publishing. Engagement is partly habitual. Readers who expect your newsletter on a specific day and get it reliably are more likely to open it. Open rates directly affect affiliate click rates.

The point: don’t just focus on growing your list. Focus on building the kind of relationship with subscribers where they actually read what you send and trust what you recommend. That’s what makes affiliate marketing work in a newsletter.

If you’re still building your subscriber base and wondering whether it’s worth doing affiliate marketing yet, this post on whether you need an email list to succeed at affiliate marketing covers when to start and what size actually matters.

What to do next

If you’re new to affiliate marketing on Substack, start here:

1. Add a short disclosure to any issue that contains affiliate links. Do it in the first paragraph, not the footer.
2. Pick one product or tool you’ve genuinely used and write a dedicated review issue about it. Be specific and honest.
3. Build a resources page on your own site and start linking to it from your newsletter. This is where the passive income actually comes from.

That’s three things. Start there and see what converts before you build a whole affiliate strategy around it.

If you want a full system for affiliate marketing, not just newsletter-specific tactics, the Affiliate Marketing QuickStart Guide is a free download that walks through the whole process from scratch, including how to get accepted into programs and the copy-paste email templates that make outreach easy.