Right now the node focuses on Notes and reading data through the (unofficial) API. Creating newsletter drafts isn’t supported yet. That said, it’s definitely on my radar - I plan to extend the node with more features.
Do you already have a workflow in mind where this would be useful? 🙂
I'll let him chew on it when he's back from holiday but we have automations for LinkedIn & so it's inevitable we'll have some from Substack & cross platform
It makes sense. Once you're using LinkedIn automation, Substack and cross-platform solutions seem like a natural next step. I'm curious to see what kind of workflow you create 😃
Thanks Gunnar! 🙌 ActiveCampaign + automation sounds like an exciting combo. Totally agree - n8n gives so much flexibility compared to Zapier, especially once you start self-hosting or extending it with custom nodes. Curious - have you used it in any of your workflows yet, or still mainly on Zapier/ActiveCampaign?
Thanks so much, Robin! 🙌 I’m curious - are you thinking about automating something similar, or do you already have a workflow in mind you’d like to try?
Hey Jakub, I am basically interested in tools that can be of help to online entrepreneurs wanting to build more visibility and trust. I have been testing Writestack for a while and exploring Substack Pro Studio and analyzing the pros and cons of their approach. Your app, takes a smart different approach and could soon become something that anyone can use. For now, although your explanations are very clear, it's a bit too nerdy for the average non-techy person. Just too many things to do to make it run. But given the approach you have taken may have some key advantages.
My use case is one that sits in the middle between wanting to automate, but not wanting to lose my unique voice, spontaneity and not ending up as most of those using automation on Substack now: they feel fake, lame, even when their words or ideas are good, they do sound robotic, artificial, not genuine.
I know this is a difficult obstacle to overcome, but I look forward to automation systems that truly reflect my voice, attitude and idiosyncrasies, so that I can extend myself without sounding artificial.
In the end: automation is good, but needs to be paired with ways and methods that allow us to remain true to who we are. When everyone looks perfect, I smell plastic.
Thanks a lot for such a thoughtful message, Robin 🙏 You’ve nailed one of the key challenges: automation should extend our voice, not replace it with something plastic. I really like how you put it. When everything looks too polished, it starts to feel artificial. I’m curious, since you’ve been experimenting with Writestack and Pro Studio, what are your feelings about those tools? What are the pros and pain points you see at the moment?
Jakub, thanks for asking. Here my initial impressions:
1) Both are the first tangible working attempts at automating Substack Notes and at giving some analytics data to start understanding what works better and what doesn't.
2) Writerstack is much more refined UI-wise and usable than Pro Studio. Both are in their early stages and are changing / improving rapidly.
3) Pro Studio has some interesting analytics
4) Writestack is an ongoing subscription cost. Studio Pro is a one-time purchase.
5) Studio Pro has complementary tools that can be bought to further understand data and what works.
6) Writestack has a good note generation facility, with multiple abilities (generate Notes from your Substack publication analysis, from specific files you upload, from specific articles you have published on SS.
7) Pro Studio is much more rudimentary on this front and requires more manual work and the use of a separate AI of your choice to actually generate the content.
8) Finn Tropy the guy behind Pro Studio is very friendly and humble. He appears also to be quite insightful in his data analysis.
9) Orel Zilberman the guy behind Writestack is also very friendly and open to feedback and suggestions. He is somewhat more commercially-oriented than his competitor which has its pros and cons.
Thanks a ton for laying this out so clearly, Robin. That’s one of the best side-by-side impressions I’ve seen of these tools. Super helpful for me to understand how people are evaluating this space. I find your points about the trade-offs really interesting - subscription vs one-time cost, depth of analytics vs smoother UI, content generation vs manual control. It almost feels like two ends of a spectrum. Out of the things you listed (analytics, note generation, UI simplicity, cost model) - which one feels most critical to you right now as a creator?
Out of water, food, sunshine and some social life what do I consider most critical to a healthy human life? :-)
That’s kind of an impossible question to answer, in the sense that a healthy life does require all of of those elements in appropriate amounts.
All those factors, namely analytics, note generation, UI simplicity are to me vital. Cost could be the temporary variable, in the sense that in temporary absence of alternatives I’ll use whichever has the 3 basic elements well developed over the one that costs less.
I obviously prefer the one-time cost approach much better than having to pay a monthly subscription.
In fact I would personally favour a one-time cost sales strategy paired with with the ability to buy credits for AI Note Generation.
Cool, Jakub. I think a lot of Substackers will like it. Recently, I started going deeper into n8n, so many interesting things we can do with it. This piece is very inspiring.
Thanks a lot, Luan! 🙏 Totally agree - n8n opens up so many creative possibilities once you dive in. Excited to see what you’ll build with it - keep me posted! 🚀
Very cool. I keep going back and forth... n8n or web app. You may have just inspired me to use n8n with this Substack node, at least for prototyping, anyway. What does your n8n setup/hosting look like? I was thinking about using Railway. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Kurt! 🙌 I run n8n on my bare-metal Kubernetes cluster and even built an n8n Kubernetes operator to make deployment/management easier. Railway’s great for quick prototyping, but I prefer self-hosting for full control and integrations. 🚀
That’s impressive, Stefan! Talos Linux + Hetzner Cloud sounds like a powerful combo. Cutting costs by 80% is huge! Was it mainly infra/ops savings or developer time too?
Hey Jakub, thanks for the kind words and the great question! Coming from you, it means a lot.
The 80% cost saving is a mix of both. The infra/ops savings are massive due to Hetzner's price-performance, and Talos keeps the OS lean and secure. But the real "unlock" was in developer time. Using N8n as the automation brain allowed me to build, as a solo founder, what would normally take a small team.
It's a core part of the philosophy I'm exploring in my Substack, "Forged in Fire". In fact, I just published my manifesto that tells the whole story of this 9-month journey. Would love for you to read it if you have a moment.
That's a fantastic question, Jakub. Honestly, the hardest part wasn't the technical side, it was the solitude of innovation. It's those moments where you search for a solution and Google returns a blank page, forcing you to create the path yourself.
That process of forging solutions in the dark is what I documented throughout the 10 hours of video.
Thanks again for asking, it gives me a lot to reflect on.
Awesome! 🚀 Glad to hear the Substack node worked smoothly on Railway. It’s open source too, so if you ever feel like contributing, that’d be amazing. I’d love to hear more about your experience with Railway - and also curious, what are you planning to build next?
Cool, thanks. I got spoiled managing K8s (and other stuff) on AWS, so most everything else seems like a step backward or feels like handcuffs. AWS has its own handcuffs, including the costs, but it's quite the playground.
I have a backlog of ideas, but I've been meaning to build my own Notes scheduler for some time, and then probably blog/newsletter aggregation and curation after that.
Totally get that - once you’ve had the AWS playground, everything else can feel a bit restrictive 😅 (and expensive in its own way). A Notes scheduler sounds like a perfect starter project for n8n + Substack node - quick win, immediate value. The aggregation/curation idea is awesome too, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. Curious: do you see yourself keeping this as a prototype in n8n or eventually hardening it into a full web app?
I'll have to see which of my ideas should be a web app and what I have time for. Of course, a hybrid is always possible, but this may require thinking more in terms of systems as opposed to apps. I'll give some thought to the right tool for the right job and we'll see what happens.
This looks so fun to tinker around with! I’m excited to try this out as a way to keep up my consistency. Plus, I can spend more time reading other peoples’ work if I get this all down!
Love that, Noah! 🙌 Automating the busywork so you can focus on reading and creating is exactly the point. Can’t wait to hear how it works out for you! 🚀
The pleasure’s all mine, Kunlun! 🙏 Glad the guide helped - there’s a lot you can do with the Substack API once you know where to look. 🚀 I also wrote about how I reverse-engineered it here: https://iam.slys.dev/p/no-official-api-no-problem-how-i
The pleasure’s all mine, Jenny! 🙏 I’m just glad I could share something useful. Excited to see what you might build with it. Let me know your workflow idea! 🚀
We need a way to create newsletter draft on this substack node. Is it possible?
If not any plan to add this in node?
Right now the node focuses on Notes and reading data through the (unofficial) API. Creating newsletter drafts isn’t supported yet. That said, it’s definitely on my radar - I plan to extend the node with more features.
Do you already have a workflow in mind where this would be useful? 🙂
Oh yes, creating a newsletter latest edition using n8n. All automated.
So excited I've Restacked & shared with my Ops lead 🤞
That’s awesome, Chris 🙌 thanks for the Restack and for sharing it with your Ops lead - do you already have some ideas brewing on how you might use it?
I'll let him chew on it when he's back from holiday but we have automations for LinkedIn & so it's inevitable we'll have some from Substack & cross platform
It makes sense. Once you're using LinkedIn automation, Substack and cross-platform solutions seem like a natural next step. I'm curious to see what kind of workflow you create 😃
Excellent! Working professionally im marlering automation at ActiveCampaign, I can vouch for n8n as a clever alternative to Zapier.
Thanks Gunnar! 🙌 ActiveCampaign + automation sounds like an exciting combo. Totally agree - n8n gives so much flexibility compared to Zapier, especially once you start self-hosting or extending it with custom nodes. Curious - have you used it in any of your workflows yet, or still mainly on Zapier/ActiveCampaign?
well done man..
I like how detailed it is..
Thanks a lot, Sharyph! 🙌 Glad the details helped - are you working on any workflows or automations yourself right now?
I needed this thank you
Glad it was helpful, Alexander 🙏🏻 Curious - what are you going to automate?
Great job Jakub. Thanks for sharing it!
Thanks so much, Robin! 🙌 I’m curious - are you thinking about automating something similar, or do you already have a workflow in mind you’d like to try?
Hey Jakub, I am basically interested in tools that can be of help to online entrepreneurs wanting to build more visibility and trust. I have been testing Writestack for a while and exploring Substack Pro Studio and analyzing the pros and cons of their approach. Your app, takes a smart different approach and could soon become something that anyone can use. For now, although your explanations are very clear, it's a bit too nerdy for the average non-techy person. Just too many things to do to make it run. But given the approach you have taken may have some key advantages.
My use case is one that sits in the middle between wanting to automate, but not wanting to lose my unique voice, spontaneity and not ending up as most of those using automation on Substack now: they feel fake, lame, even when their words or ideas are good, they do sound robotic, artificial, not genuine.
I know this is a difficult obstacle to overcome, but I look forward to automation systems that truly reflect my voice, attitude and idiosyncrasies, so that I can extend myself without sounding artificial.
In the end: automation is good, but needs to be paired with ways and methods that allow us to remain true to who we are. When everyone looks perfect, I smell plastic.
Thanks a lot for such a thoughtful message, Robin 🙏 You’ve nailed one of the key challenges: automation should extend our voice, not replace it with something plastic. I really like how you put it. When everything looks too polished, it starts to feel artificial. I’m curious, since you’ve been experimenting with Writestack and Pro Studio, what are your feelings about those tools? What are the pros and pain points you see at the moment?
Jakub, thanks for asking. Here my initial impressions:
1) Both are the first tangible working attempts at automating Substack Notes and at giving some analytics data to start understanding what works better and what doesn't.
2) Writerstack is much more refined UI-wise and usable than Pro Studio. Both are in their early stages and are changing / improving rapidly.
3) Pro Studio has some interesting analytics
4) Writestack is an ongoing subscription cost. Studio Pro is a one-time purchase.
5) Studio Pro has complementary tools that can be bought to further understand data and what works.
6) Writestack has a good note generation facility, with multiple abilities (generate Notes from your Substack publication analysis, from specific files you upload, from specific articles you have published on SS.
7) Pro Studio is much more rudimentary on this front and requires more manual work and the use of a separate AI of your choice to actually generate the content.
8) Finn Tropy the guy behind Pro Studio is very friendly and humble. He appears also to be quite insightful in his data analysis.
9) Orel Zilberman the guy behind Writestack is also very friendly and open to feedback and suggestions. He is somewhat more commercially-oriented than his competitor which has its pros and cons.
Thanks a ton for laying this out so clearly, Robin. That’s one of the best side-by-side impressions I’ve seen of these tools. Super helpful for me to understand how people are evaluating this space. I find your points about the trade-offs really interesting - subscription vs one-time cost, depth of analytics vs smoother UI, content generation vs manual control. It almost feels like two ends of a spectrum. Out of the things you listed (analytics, note generation, UI simplicity, cost model) - which one feels most critical to you right now as a creator?
Out of water, food, sunshine and some social life what do I consider most critical to a healthy human life? :-)
That’s kind of an impossible question to answer, in the sense that a healthy life does require all of of those elements in appropriate amounts.
All those factors, namely analytics, note generation, UI simplicity are to me vital. Cost could be the temporary variable, in the sense that in temporary absence of alternatives I’ll use whichever has the 3 basic elements well developed over the one that costs less.
I obviously prefer the one-time cost approach much better than having to pay a monthly subscription.
In fact I would personally favour a one-time cost sales strategy paired with with the ability to buy credits for AI Note Generation.
Cool, Jakub. I think a lot of Substackers will like it. Recently, I started going deeper into n8n, so many interesting things we can do with it. This piece is very inspiring.
Thanks a lot, Luan! 🙏 Totally agree - n8n opens up so many creative possibilities once you dive in. Excited to see what you’ll build with it - keep me posted! 🚀
Very cool. I keep going back and forth... n8n or web app. You may have just inspired me to use n8n with this Substack node, at least for prototyping, anyway. What does your n8n setup/hosting look like? I was thinking about using Railway. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Kurt! 🙌 I run n8n on my bare-metal Kubernetes cluster and even built an n8n Kubernetes operator to make deployment/management easier. Railway’s great for quick prototyping, but I prefer self-hosting for full control and integrations. 🚀
👉 Kubernetes setup guide: https://iam.slys.dev/p/how-to-bootstrap-an-edge-kubernetes
👉 n8n operator: https://github.com/jakub-k-slys/n8n-operator
What use case are you thinking of tackling first?
I used Talos Linux and Hetzner Cloud to reduce our cost by 80% with this we were able to save a lot of money and time
That’s impressive, Stefan! Talos Linux + Hetzner Cloud sounds like a powerful combo. Cutting costs by 80% is huge! Was it mainly infra/ops savings or developer time too?
Hey Jakub, thanks for the kind words and the great question! Coming from you, it means a lot.
The 80% cost saving is a mix of both. The infra/ops savings are massive due to Hetzner's price-performance, and Talos keeps the OS lean and secure. But the real "unlock" was in developer time. Using N8n as the automation brain allowed me to build, as a solo founder, what would normally take a small team.
It's a core part of the philosophy I'm exploring in my Substack, "Forged in Fire". In fact, I just published my manifesto that tells the whole story of this 9-month journey. Would love for you to read it if you have a moment.
Thanks again for the engagement!
I’ll definitely check out Forged in Fire. Curious, what was the hardest part of those 9 months for you?
That's a fantastic question, Jakub. Honestly, the hardest part wasn't the technical side, it was the solitude of innovation. It's those moments where you search for a solution and Google returns a blank page, forcing you to create the path yourself.
That process of forging solutions in the dark is what I documented throughout the 10 hours of video.
Thanks again for asking, it gives me a lot to reflect on.
Initial test of the Substack Node worked great with my new n8n implementation on Railway! Time to experiment some more.
Awesome! 🚀 Glad to hear the Substack node worked smoothly on Railway. It’s open source too, so if you ever feel like contributing, that’d be amazing. I’d love to hear more about your experience with Railway - and also curious, what are you planning to build next?
Cool, thanks. I got spoiled managing K8s (and other stuff) on AWS, so most everything else seems like a step backward or feels like handcuffs. AWS has its own handcuffs, including the costs, but it's quite the playground.
I have a backlog of ideas, but I've been meaning to build my own Notes scheduler for some time, and then probably blog/newsletter aggregation and curation after that.
Totally get that - once you’ve had the AWS playground, everything else can feel a bit restrictive 😅 (and expensive in its own way). A Notes scheduler sounds like a perfect starter project for n8n + Substack node - quick win, immediate value. The aggregation/curation idea is awesome too, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. Curious: do you see yourself keeping this as a prototype in n8n or eventually hardening it into a full web app?
I'll have to see which of my ideas should be a web app and what I have time for. Of course, a hybrid is always possible, but this may require thinking more in terms of systems as opposed to apps. I'll give some thought to the right tool for the right job and we'll see what happens.
This looks so fun to tinker around with! I’m excited to try this out as a way to keep up my consistency. Plus, I can spend more time reading other peoples’ work if I get this all down!
Love that, Noah! 🙌 Automating the busywork so you can focus on reading and creating is exactly the point. Can’t wait to hear how it works out for you! 🚀
Wow! I didn’t know there is a Substack API. Thank you so much Karo for restacking it! And thank you Jakub for sharing the detailed guide.
The pleasure’s all mine, Kunlun! 🙏 Glad the guide helped - there’s a lot you can do with the Substack API once you know where to look. 🚀 I also wrote about how I reverse-engineered it here: https://iam.slys.dev/p/no-official-api-no-problem-how-i
Wow great!! Thank you! I will check it out!
I can't wait to implement this! You're so kind to share it with us, thank you! 🤗
The pleasure’s all mine! 🙏 Can’t wait to see your implementation - keep me posted! 🚀
That's incredible action speed Jakub! It's also incredibly generous for you to create and share a public node like that!
The pleasure’s all mine, Jenny! 🙏 I’m just glad I could share something useful. Excited to see what you might build with it. Let me know your workflow idea! 🚀