Substack upgrades native video player to support video podcasts and paywalls

It’s been nearly a year since Substack launched its native video player, and the newsletter platform is celebrating the anniversary with some updates. New features on Substack include support for video podcasts, AI-generated transcripts, and customizable paywalls.

Substack is already a valuable resource for writers and podcasts, who have taken advantage of the platform’s flexible financial terms. The new tools will expand monetization options for those creators. With video podcasts exploding in popularity, Substack is enabling direct, long-form uploads through its native video product. Those video podcasts can be equipped with “flexible” paywalls that allow viewers to watch a portion of the episode for free before they are prompted to subscribe.

All of Substack’s video posts (including podcasts) will now come with AI-generated transcripts, which can be included in the posts as well. The transcripts are linked to the attached videos, so that viewers can jump to a specific timestamp by clicking the corresponding line in the text.

“The Substack model puts creators in charge, giving them more ownership and control of their content and relationships. The model has already proven powerful for writing and audio, with the top publishers making millions of dollars a year,” reads a blog post

introducing the new features. “This model is central to our mission of building a new economic engine for culture, and it makes creators less vulnerable to the sometimes-fickle rules and algorithms of traditional social media.”

Substack’s newsletter format first rose to prominence among text-based authors, but the latest updates suggest that Substack also envisions itself as a video hub. Its show homepages have been redesigned to better support video podcasts, and its player is getting a fresh, wide-screen look that stretches across the top of posts like a banner. Substack is even highlighting a central destination where viewers can go if they want to watch the best videos from across the platform.

In total, Substack counts approximately 35 million active subscriptions, including two million paid subscriptions.