The Brand Substack Directory

Somewhere around February 2025, I started noticing the brands I follow showing up on Substack. First The RealReal. Then Tory Burch, Loftie, Rare Beauty, Nanit. A year later it's a real wave, and I wanted to track it. So I built this, a working directory I update as new brands launch and existing ones evolve. Bookmark it, share it, send me the ones I missed.

Two categories here: brand-owned publications, where the company is the byline, and founder-led newsletters, where a named person is functionally the brand's public voice. The brands paying to sponsor independent newsletters get their own list, the Paid Sponsors directory, which is now live.

Maintained by Alexandra McCann for In House, a newsletter about how brands show up on Substack.

Brand-Owned Publications

The company is the byline. Editorial from in-house teams: product storytelling, cultural commentary, founder profiles.

Founder-Led Newsletters

A named individual is the byline, but the newsletter is functionally a brand channel, because the founder is the brand's public voice.

What didn't make this list

Brands paying to sponsor other newsletters. Vestiaire Collective, Free People, Net-a-Porter, Goop, and others show up on Substack by sponsoring independent creator newsletters. That's a different strategy with different economics, so it has its own home: the Paid Sponsors directory.

Newsletters about brands that aren't by brands. Link in Bio, ICYMI, After School, Feed Me, gr8 collab, Marketing Beast: these cover brand and creator strategy but aren't brand publications themselves. Excellent reading, wrong list.

Media brands on Substack. Billboard made the cut because it's operating editorially. Ad Age and others are evolving, and I'll track them as they commit.

Investment firms. VMG Partners and others are publishing on Substack, but they sit at the edge of what counts as a brand publishing for consumers. Watching whether this becomes a category of its own.