How to Export Your Substack Subscribers (2026): Step-by-Step

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How to Export Your Substack Subscribers (Step-by-Step Guide)

Last updated: March 2026

Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you sign up through them, NewsletterPick may earn a commission. This guide contains no fluff — just the steps.

Exporting your Substack subscribers takes about 5 minutes. Here’s exactly what you get, how to do it, and what to do with the file afterward.

1. What You Get When You Export

Substack’s export is a ZIP file containing several CSV and HTML files. The most important file for migration purposes is subscribers.csv.

Fields included in the subscribers export:
– email — subscriber email address
– name — subscriber’s name (if provided)
– subscription_type — free, paid, or comp (free, paid, and subscription status confirmed)
– stripe_subscription_status — active, canceled, past_due (for paid subscribers)
– subscriber_since — subscription date (confirmed field)
– email_disabled — whether email sending is disabled for this subscriber (e.g., bounces)
– country — subscriber country if available

What’s also in the export ZIP:
– Post content (your newsletter archives in HTML format)
– Subscriber notes and metadata
– Substack may update export fields periodically — check your actual ZIP for the latest contents

What’s NOT in the export:
– Individual open rates per subscriber (Substack doesn’t expose per-subscriber engagement data in exports)
– Click history per subscriber
– Payment/billing details for paid subscribers (Stripe handles payments separately)
– Comment history

2. Step-by-Step: How to Export

Path in the Substack dashboard:

  1. Log in to your Substack account at substack.com
  2. Click on your publication name in the top-left corner (the dropdown menu for your publication)
  3. Go to Settings (gear icon or Settings menu item)
  4. In the Settings sidebar, click “Exports” (Substack occasionally reorganizes the dashboard — if not found here, look in Publication Settings)
  5. On the Exports page, click “Start new export”
  6. Substack will prepare your export in the background — this usually takes a few minutes for smaller publications, longer for large ones
  7. Check your email — Substack sends you a download link when it’s ready
  8. Click the download link in the email (or refresh the Exports page — the download will also appear there)
  9. Download the ZIP file to your computer

Alternative path if you can’t find Exports:
– Try: Dashboard → Settings → Publication Settings → scroll down to find Export or Data section (verify at vendor site)

Screenshot descriptions for the article:
– [SCREENSHOT: Substack Settings page with Exports option highlighted in sidebar]
– [SCREENSHOT: Exports page showing “Start new export” button]
– [SCREENSHOT: Completed export with download link]

3. What the CSV Contains (And What’s Missing)

Open your subscribers.csv in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers. Here’s what you’ll find:

The most important columns for migration:
– Email — this is all you strictly need to import to a new platform
– Subscription type — lets you identify paid vs. free subscribers (important if you’re migrating paid subscribers separately)
– Subscriber since — useful for segmenting “long-time readers” vs. recent additions
– Email disabled — filter these out before importing; they’ve already bounced or opted out of email

What you should filter before importing:
– Remove rows where email_disabled = true — these contacts have hard-bounced or have delivery problems
– Remove rows where subscription_type = “unsubscribed” if any appear — you cannot email unsubscribed contacts
– Optionally: remove subscribers added more than 12–18 months ago who have never engaged (Substack doesn’t give you this data directly, but if you’re migrating after a long period of Substack use, consider a re-confirmation campaign)

What’s missing that you’d want:
– Open rates per subscriber — you can’t tell which subscribers were engaged readers vs. people who signed up and never opened an email
– Click history — no data on which links subscribers clicked
– Referral source — where each subscriber came from (organic, paid, recommendation)

The lack of engagement data is the biggest gap. If your list hasn’t been cleaned recently, consider doing a re-engagement campaign on your first send at the new platform rather than mailing your entire historical list cold.

4. What to Do With the CSV

Once you have your CSV, you have two primary options:

Option A: Import to beehiiv
1. Go to your beehiiv dashboard → Audience → Subscribers → Import
2. Upload your subscribers.csv
3. Map the email column to beehiiv’s email field
4. Choose confirmation settings (recommend: send a re-confirmation if list is older than 6 months)
5. → Full migration walkthrough: How to Migrate from Substack to beehiiv

Option B: Import to Kit
1. Go to your Kit dashboard → Subscribers → Import subscribers
2. Upload the CSV
3. Optionally map the subscription_type field to a Kit tag so you can segment paid vs. free
4. Map additional fields to Kit custom fields as needed

Option C: Import to MailerLite
1. Go to MailerLite → Subscribers → Import subscribers
2. Upload CSV and map fields
3. MailerLite will run a duplicate check automatically

Important for all platforms: Most email platforms will check for existing subscribers and skip duplicates automatically. If you have an existing list on the new platform, the import won’t create duplicate contacts.

5. What Happens to Your Substack After You Export

This is the most misunderstood part: exporting your subscribers does NOT affect your Substack.

After you export:
– Your Substack newsletter is still live
– Your subscribers are still subscribed to your Substack
– Your content archive is still accessible
– New subscribers can still sign up on Substack

Exporting is a copy operation, not a move. You can have the same subscriber list in both Substack and another platform simultaneously. People will receive emails from both until you:
1. Stop sending on Substack, or
2. Ask subscribers to update their preferences

What we recommend: Keep your Substack live as an archive. Don’t delete it. If you built any Google-indexed content there, it has ongoing value as a traffic source. Simply stop sending new issues on Substack once you’ve set up and tested your new platform.

For paid subscribers specifically: Paid subscribers have an active Stripe subscription that runs through Substack. Exporting doesn’t cancel their subscription. If you want to migrate paid subscribers to a new platform, you need to communicate directly with them about the transition, set up paid subscriptions on the new platform, and either let existing Substack subscriptions expire or ask subscribers to re-subscribe.

6. Bottom Line + Next Steps

The export itself: 5 minutes, all in Settings → Exports. You get a CSV with email, subscriber type, and subscription date.

What the export gives you: A clean subscriber list to import anywhere.

What it doesn’t give you: Engagement history, payment details, or referral source data.

Next steps:
1. Export your list (this guide)
2. Decide which platform to move to → Substack Alternatives
3. If moving to beehiiv → Full migration guide: Substack to beehiiv
4. Keep your Substack live as an archive

Pricing verified March 2026. Check vendor site before purchasing — email platform pricing changes frequently, especially at subscriber milestones.

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