Medium Alternatives: What Substack, Ghost, and beehiiv Actually Fix
Writers leave Medium over three documented specifics: a custom domain that only works with an active paid membership, a Partner Program where Medium alone decides how much a story earns, and a subscriber-list export that can come back empty for anyone who subscribed after April 2025. These are in Medium's own help center, not outside opinions. Substack, Ghost, beehiiv, and running your own site each answer a different piece of that. Here's what each documents, sourced from the vendor's own pages, with no ranking - which fits depends on which of the three is your actual problem.
Does Medium let me use my own domain for free?
No. Medium's help center is direct about the requirement: "In order to set up a custom domain, you must: Have an active Medium membership subscription" (Medium Help Center, "Setting up a custom domain for your profile or publication", checked September 2026). You also need to already own the domain itself, and Medium supports only one per profile or publication - a top-level domain or a subdomain, never a subdirectory like yourdomain.com/blog. The part worth noticing: your domain staying pointed at your writing depends on an active paid subscription, not a one-time setup you complete and forget.
Who actually decides what a story earns on Medium?
Medium, alone, under terms it can change at any time. The current Partner Program Terms state that for a locked (paywalled) story, "Medium will pay you a portion of revenues received by Medium from membership fees, as determined by Medium" (Medium Help Center, "Medium Partner Program Terms", checked September 2026, effective June 1, 2026). The same terms give Medium latitude most writers don't expect: "Medium reserves the right to adjust at any time the factors by which story performance and revenue are determined," and separately, "Medium reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Partner Program, or any portion thereof, at any time and without advance notice to you." Medium also "reserves the right to unlock a story at any time, which will end that story's ability to generate revenue." None of this means the program doesn't pay - it does, above a stated $10 USD threshold - but Medium, not a fixed published rate, sets and can change how much any story is worth.
Can I get my subscriber list off Medium?
Partially, and the limit is dated. Medium's account-data export gives you "your personal data and stories as HTML files in a .zip archive" through Settings - a genuine content backup (Medium Help Center, "Export your account data", checked September 2026). The email list is separate and narrower, and Medium's own Audience Stats article states a real cutoff: "You can also export a list containing the emails you imported, as well as the emails of users who subscribed to you before April 2025, when we rolled out changes to the email subscriptions." The same article adds the consequence directly: "If your list only includes users who subscribed after April 2025, the export will be empty" (Medium Help Center, "Audience stats", checked September 2026). A writer who built their following mostly after that date may see real subscriber numbers in Medium's dashboard and still get an empty file trying to take the list elsewhere.
What does Substack offer instead?
Substack answers the domain and export questions differently, though not for free. Connecting your own domain is a documented, one-time $50 fee, not an ongoing membership requirement: "We require that your Substack publication be hosted by a subdomain such as 'www.'" (Substack, checked September 2026). On payment for writing itself, Substack takes a flat, published cut rather than a discretionary pool. Substack's own support page states: "Publishing is free on Substack — no matter how many subscribers you have!" A paid subscription still costs the creator "10% of each transaction," on top of Stripe's own processing fee (Substack, checked September 2026). Substack's own export produces "your posts, subscriber list, and related statistics" as a downloadable zip, with no dated eligibility cutoff documented (Substack, checked September 2026). Our Substack alternatives guide covers what people leave Substack itself for, if its 10% cut or fixed design system turn out to be your next problem instead.
What does Ghost offer instead?
Ghost removes the membership-gated domain question outright: a custom domain is free on every Ghost(Pro) plan, including the entry Starter tier, and self-hosting the same open-source software gives your own DNS no plan gate at all (Ghost, Pricing, checked September 2026). On payment, Ghost replaces Medium's discretionary revenue-share model with a fixed cut: Ghost's pricing page lists a "0%" transaction fee on paid subscriptions from the Publisher plan up - the same 0% applies to self-hosted Ghost, since it's identical software, per Ghost's own comparison, which rates "Product features" as "Identical" between the two (Ghost Developer Docs, "Hosting Ghost", checked September 2026). Ghost's export is a single JSON file covering settings, posts, pages, tags and members, with the member list also available as CSV (Ghost, "Exports", checked September 2026), with no dated eligibility cutoff documented. Ghost(Pro) isn't free either - its hosting docs list plans "From $15 /mo" - so the tradeoff is a subscription to Ghost instead of Medium, or your own server cost if you self-host. If Ghost against Substack specifically is the decision in front of you, our Ghost vs Substack comparison puts the two head to head.
What does beehiiv offer instead?
beehiiv takes a similar approach to Ghost on payment: "beehiiv takes zero revenue share, so you keep 100% of your subscription earnings (minus Stripe's industry-standard processing fee)" (beehiiv, "Paid Subscriptions", checked September 2026) - a fixed cut rather than a pool Medium determines case by case. On domains, beehiiv's pricing page lists custom domains as included on every tier it shows, including its free Launch plan (beehiiv, Pricing, checked September 2026) - no membership purchase required to point your own domain at the newsletter. beehiiv's export splits subscriber data into a "Quick Version" (email, status, tier) and a fuller "Full Version" with custom fields and statistics, plus a posts export covering "all posts; published, archived, and in draft" as CSV, with download links valid for 24 hours (beehiiv, "Exporting post content or subscriber data from beehiiv", checked September 2026), with no eligibility cutoff by subscription date documented.
What does running your own site actually mean?
This option isn't one vendor's product - it's a domain, hosting, and a mail-sending tool you assemble and control end to end, with none of the three Medium-specific limits above, because none of them are Medium's rules to begin with. Self-hosted Ghost, covered above, gets you most of the way there in one system, since it's the same open-source software as Ghost(Pro) with full server access and no plan-based domain gate. A more piecemeal version - a site built any way you like, paired with a separate email tool - trades a bundled product for full control of every layer: backups, deliverability, and uptime become your job instead of something built into a subscription price.
If the site itself is what you want full design control over and you already work in Figma, Figment's Figma plugin publishes a Figma design as a live website - but it has no Partner Program, subscriber list, or paid-membership system, so it only ever covers the site half of this option, not the earning or list-building half.
Capability comparison
| Medium | Substack | Ghost(Pro) / self-hosted | beehiiv | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom domain requirement | Active paid Medium membership | One-time $50 fee | Free on every plan; your own DNS if self-hosted | Included, including on the free Launch plan |
| How writer payment is set | Medium alone, "as determined by Medium," adjustable at any time | Fixed, published 10% platform cut | 0% platform fee (Publisher plan and up; same for self-hosted) | 0% platform fee on the paid Scale plan and up (plus Stripe's own processing fee) |
| Can the earning program itself be changed or ended without notice? | Yes, per Medium's own Partner Program Terms | Not documented as a discretionary program the way Medium's is | Not applicable - no separate "program," the fee is a fixed plan term | Not applicable - no separate "program," the fee is a fixed plan term |
| Subscriber/list export | Emails imported or subscribed before April 2025 only; empty if all subscribers joined after | Posts, subscriber list, and stats as a zip, no dated cutoff documented | Single JSON (settings, posts, pages, tags) plus member CSV | Subscriber CSV (Quick/Full versions) and posts CSV |
| Self-hosted option | No | No | Yes, identical features to Ghost(Pro) | No |
Which should I actually pick?
- Fix the domain problem: Ghost or beehiiv include a custom domain with no ongoing membership tied to it; Substack's is a one-time fee instead of Medium's recurring requirement.
- Fix the problem of Medium deciding what you earn: Ghost and beehiiv both publish a fixed 0% cut instead of a Medium-style discretionary pool; Substack publishes a fixed 10%.
- Fix the list-ownership problem: Ghost, beehiiv, and Substack all document a subscriber export with no dated cutoff like Medium's - though always test your own export before assuming it's complete.
- Want a documented self-hosted path: Ghost is the only one of the three with self-hosting as a stated, feature-identical option.
- Want full control of every layer: build your own site and pair it with a separate mailing tool, accepting that backups, deliverability, and uptime become your job instead of a subscription line item.
Bottom line: the domain requirement, the discretionary Partner Program terms, and the dated export limit are three separate, documented reasons people leave Medium - no single alternative here fixes all three except assembling your own site and list. Ghost and beehiiv remove the domain gate and the discretionary payment model at once; Substack trades Medium's adjustable revenue share for a fixed, published cut instead.
