Note: Interested in a feature where free and paid subscribers can refer their friends to your Substack and get rewarded? Check out the subscriber referrals program here.
Yes! With our gift subscription referral program, paid subscribers can bring new readers to your publication by gifting them access to your paid content for a limited time.
How do I turn on the gift subscription referral program?
Navigate to your publication's Settings and scroll to the Referrals program section. Slide the toggle to the right next to "Enable paid subscriber gifts".
Slide the toggle next to "Enable gift promotion emails" and Substack will send emails about this program to your paid subscribers about the program.
In the paid subscriber gifts section, you can customize how many gifts each paid subscriber will be given, the number of months each gift will last for, and the number of days before new paid subscribers will get their first gift to give.
- New paid subscribers– Next to "time to first gift", enter the number of days a new paid subscriber will have to wait before they get their first gift to give.
- Current top paid subscribers- will receive the gift subscription email on an ongoing basis based on their engagement with your publication.
How can my subscribers refer their friends to my publication?
New and top paid subscribers will receive an email with a link to a Gift Rewards page on their Substack account.
On the Gift Rewards page, referrers can send up to three gift subscriptions (one free month of paid subscriber benefits) with a personal message and view who has accepted a gift subscription. If they send out the initial three offerings and they're redeemed, the referrers may receive an additional three gift rewards to give away.
If you'd like to disable referrers from receiving a re-up of gift subscriptions once their initial gift rewards (the number you entered next to "Gifts per user") have been shared, slide the toggle next to "Enable re-up referral emails" to the left.
What do gift subscription recipients need to do?
No credit card is required in order for the recipient to claim their gift and cancelling a subscription isn't necessary.
When a gift subscription is ending and the recipient hasn't added a payment method and converted to a paid subscription, they'll automatically become a free subscriber.
Tip: We'll send reminder emails to recipients before their subscription is expiring and nudge them to add a payment method to keep their paid access. A link to continue their subscription will be in these emails.
Where can I see who is sending gift referrals?
Head to your Stats dashboard and select on Gift Referrals. Click on each category to see least to greatest or vice versa.
You can also view on your Subscribers dashboard who the recipients in the referral program are. Set a filter as "Subscription type is Gift". These subscribers will appear as "Gift". Other paid subscribers will appear as well under this filter as "Monthly Gift" and "Yearly Gift".
Note: "Monthly Gift" and "Yearly Gift" subscribers are different from the referral program as these subscribers have been gifted paid subscriptions and count towards your ARR whereas recipients in the referral program have been gifted trials to your publication.
To opt of the Referral program, follow these steps here.