“My recommendation: If you're building a proper brand around your newsletter, use your own domain for the main website and landing pages, embed Substack's signup form, and let Substack handle subscriber management and email delivery.”
+ custom domain support
“Substack supports custom domains, for example:”
+ subscriber management and email delivery
“let Substack handle subscriber management and email delivery.”
+ embeddable native signup form
“Then embed Substack's native signup form directly into the page.”
− one-time custom domain fee
“Cost: Substack charges a one-time $50 USD fee to connect a domain you already own.”
− limited embed styling customization
“You cannot directly customize the form's fonts, colors, or button styling.”
− no official subscriber API
“Substack doesn't offer a generally available official API for directly adding subscribers through your own server-side form.”
− emails sent from @substack.com address
“even with a custom domain, Substack still sends newsletter emails from an @substack.com address.”