What does it cost to build an app like Substack?
Sample range · freelance
$29k–$63k
An agency would be $51k–$138k for the same scope. This is a pre-computed sample, not your estimate. Your version is probably smaller.
Where the money goes
Why this kind of app is expensive
Sending email at scale that actually lands in an inbox instead of spam is an ongoing deliverability problem — reputation, bounce handling, and unsubscribe compliance never stop mattering.
A paywall has to split free and paid content cleanly across both the email and the web archive without leaking gated posts.
A rich-text editor good enough for professional writers to publish from is a real editor project, not a textarea, and payouts to thousands of individual writers each needing tax forms is a compliance system of its own.
The cheapest honest version of this idea is free posts only, no paywall, basic editor with no rich embeds. That lands nearer $20k–$44k.
Your app is not Substack. Get the range for what you are actually building.
Not open yet
Launching this weekend.
The free range, the $79 spec and the $199 execution pack all open then. Nothing to sign up for — come back and paste your idea.
Same maths, other archetypes