Migrate from Substack to PencilBooth

Many artists join Substack hoping for exposure or income, but the reality is harsh: discovery is limited, they take 10% of your revenue, and you’re supporting a platform that profits from outrage and divisiveness. PencilBooth is built different. We don’t charge monthly subscription fees or take a cut of your income. After your first 250 emails you only pay a small markup on email costs, meaning more of your money stays yours, and your work lives in a space built with artists in mind.

PencilBooth now has a simple one-click import feature from Substack. Easily bring over all your posts and Subscibers and see how things look before making the switch.

Like other platforms that offer a similar service, there are a few separate steps to follow:

1. Export your data from Substack

To get your content and subscriber list:

Log in to Substack
Go to Dashboard → Settings → Import/Export
Under Export your data, click New export
Download the zip file once it’s ready (it includes both your posts and your subscriber list)

Tip: Substack has both account settings and publication settings. You want the publication settings

2. Import your archive into PencilBooth

Log into your PencilBooth account and click your username dropdown where you will see the Import form Substack option:

Choose the Substack zip file and then click upload.

Give it a moment! Your past emails will now appear in your takes list.

3. Review your subscribers and takes.

All subscribers and their status (paid or unpaid) will be imported into your audience list. If you are keeping paid subscriptions, you will need to disconnect the subscription from Substack - more on that below.
All your previous Substack issues will be visible in the takes screen as previous issues. We preserve your formatting as best we can, but feel free to tweak posts after import by editing and re-saving them.
Paid posts will not appear in your visual archive unless it is being viewed by a paid subscriber. If you wish to change this, you will need to delete the paywall divider in the individual take.

4. Transfer your paid subscriptions

Both Substack and PencilBooth use Stripe, which makes this part easier.

Connect your Stripe account to PencilBooth
Make sure to use the same Stripe account you used with Substack
Your paid subscribers status will transfer over without needing to re-enter payment info.

Note: To manage paid subscriptions on PencilBooth, you’ll need to enable Stripe billing from your Settings.

5. Disconnect Stripe from Substack, then Ask Substack to remove their 10% cut

This step is only relevant if you are moving paid subscribers. Important note though! If you don't disconnect Stripe from Substack, your customers may get billed twice, so follow these instructions clearly!

Substack takes 10% of your revenue. Even if you stop publishing there, they’ll keep skimming unless you ask them to stop.

Send a message to Substack support requesting they:

“Disconnect Stripe from my publication and remove the 10% application fee, without cancelling or refunding any existing subscriptions.”

You’ll first go through a chatbot, then a human should follow up via email.

If you prefer to handle it yourself, make sure to disconnect Substack through your Stripe dashboard, not from within Substack. Disconnecting via Substack can accidentally cancel and refund your active subscribers, which could prevent them from being transferred over to PencilBooth. Instead, log in to Stripe, go to Settings → Installed Apps, and remove Substack from there.

6. Cleaning up or deleting your Substack account

Before you delete your Substack account, double-check that your images have fully migrated (we automatically rehost them to ensure they don’t break).

Once you’re confident everything looks good:

You can safely delete your Substack account or
Keep it open (but unpublished) to redirect any latecomers

Tip: If you weren’t using a custom domain on Substack, consider keeping the account open to catch lingering link clicks. Just delete old posts and manually sync new subscribers to PencilBooth every so often.

If anything isn't working how it should, email us at team@pencilbooth.com and we'll get it fixed up!