Guides · Newsletters
Find Substack newsletters for a sponsorship shortlist
Collect public audience indicators, compare recent posts and prepare the questions that matter before agreeing to a placement.
A useful sponsorship shortlist starts with audience fit. Subscriber numbers help you narrow the field, but they do not tell you who will read your message, click it or buy.
This workflow uses Substack Scraper to collect public indicators, then turns them into a shortlist you can check with each publisher.
Collect a manageable first sample
- Open the Actor and review its current pricing and run limits.
- Set What to get to Newsletter finder (by category) (
mode: "newsletters"). - Choose a category such as
Technologyin Categories (categoryNames) and setmaxNewslettersPerCategoryto20. - Optionally filter by language, keywords or minimum subscribers. Start without a subscriber minimum if you want to retain publications with undisclosed audience size.
- Run, inspect
SUMMARYand export the dataset to Excel or CSV. A CSV can then be imported into Google Sheets.
Rows include the publication name, URL, author, language and public audience indicators where available. subscribers can be a range such as 10K+; it is not an exact count. paidTier is descriptive text from the source. Missing values mean unknown, not zero.
A publication may appear in more than one category. Deduplicate by URL before counting your shortlist; output collected in separate categories or runs may still incur result charges.
Separate a useful signal from a conclusion
| What you can observe | What it helps with | What still needs checking |
|---|---|---|
| Topics and recent titles | Initial relevance to your offer | Reader roles, location and actual interests |
| Public audience range | Approximate scale | Current active audience and comparable campaign results |
| Paid subscription indicators | Whether a paid offering is visible | Open rates, clicks and sponsorship availability |
| Reactions and comments | Visible discussion around particular posts | Reach and commercial outcomes |
No one of these indicators proves value for your campaign. A small specialist publication may fit better than a large general one, but that is a hypothesis to test.
Compare recent posts
Switch to Posts from publications. Paste a few shortlisted URLs, choose newest first, set maxPostsPerPublication: 20 and, if useful, postedWithinDays: 90. Leave includeContent off when metadata is enough.
Compare topics, publication rhythm and the distribution of reactions across several posts. Check unusually popular posts individually rather than treating one outlier as normal performance. Metrics are snapshots from the source; they do not include private email analytics.
Cost example: at $1.50 per 1,000 results, 200 newsletter rows cost $0.30 in result charges. Adding 20 posts for each produces up to 4,200 rows in total: $6.30, before startup or other applicable charges. The count can vary with available posts, filters and duplicates.
Open Substack ScraperAsk for the missing evidence
Use the publisher’s stated sponsorship contact. Ask for formats, price, audience location and recent campaign measurements with their definitions. Agree on which outcome you will measure before paying. Public subscriber ranges alone are not a media kit.
The Actor reads public responses without a subscriber login. It does not unlock paid articles. Reusing article text is a separate decision from collecting metrics: check permission and source terms for your intended use.
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