A Red Flag with Substack’s Subscriber Count: The Mystery of Missing Subscribers
Is Substack Hiding Your Subscribers? Here’s What I Found
For nearly a year now, I’ve noticed an odd discrepancy between the total subscribers number on my Substack account and the actual math of subscriptions and unsubscriptions. After toggling on email notifications for every new subscription and unsubscription over the past few weeks, I realized something’s not adding up—and it’s not just happening to me.
For example, over the past 7 days, I had 52 new subscribers and 18 unsubscribes. Simple math, right? That should give me a net increase of 34 subscribers. But Substack’s total subscribers count? Only 16 more than the week before.
Now, this isn’t a one-off issue. I’ve seen this happen consistently, for nearly a year, and it’s becoming clear that something is amiss. After reaching out to Substack support multiple times for an explanation, I’ve received no response. No fixes, no answers.
The most frustrating part? The math is simple, and I’m seeing similar complaints from other creators. This isn’t an isolated case, and the fact that it’s been going on for so long without an official explanation raises some serious concerns.
So, I’m putting this out there to raise awareness. If you’ve noticed discrepancies in your subscriber count, I’d love to hear your experiences. Let’s share what we know and help bring attention to what feels like a major oversight, or possibly a deeper issue, with how Substack is reporting subscriber data.
Transparency is key when it comes to growing and maintaining an audience—and we all deserve to know exactly how many people are subscribing to our work.
If you’re seeing similar discrepancies or have had better luck reaching out to Substack support, feel free to share your thoughts below. We’re all in this together.
I've been writing on the Substack platform since 2021 and I can say that a given article doesn't always count all new subscribers. The platform is free to use and does offer a host of services . . . so you take what you can get. In some cases it could be that people are subscribing multiple times or subscriptions are coming through earlier essays. But I would agree it always seems a bit off.
Frankly my bigger concern is censorship. My series of essay, The Urgent Need for Global De-Islamification, got me permanently suspended from FacistBook after I'd been on the platform for 20 years. I was accused of violating Communist Community Standards for "hate speech." LinkedIn deleted my latest in the series for the same reason. But they didn't outright suspend me. To be clear there is nothing in these essays that can be described as hate speech. I'm just simply concerned about the spread of Islam and think we need to take measure to force Muslim assimilation. I live in Dearborn and have nothing against my Muslim neighbors. But the radicalization within my community must be stopped.
The Urgent Need for Global De-Islamification Part 7
Muslims want a Global Muslim Caliphate Antithetical to our Constitutional Republic
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/the-urgent-need-for-global-de-islamification-7c2
You might also want to start cross posting to PickAx which promises no censorship and just began a few days ago:
https://pickax.com/
Duke, may I suggest looking up Bill Rice …
https://substack.com/@billricejr
In addition to writing about Covid nonsense, he has a library of articles on this same issue. One of the thoughts is that it has to do with all of the lefties who have infiltrated the site. As much as you or I may see lower numbers, all of the new additions seem to have highly inflated numbers.
I think reading Bill might clear (if you want to call it that) things up.