Substack Terms of Use

These terms govern what you can do on Substack and what Substack can do with your content and account. You keep ownership of what you post, but Substack gets a permanent, irrevocable license to modify and reproduce it, and Substack can remove your content or terminate your account at any time for any reason. If something goes wrong, you can recover no more than $100 (or what you paid Substack in the past year), and you must resolve disputes individually through private arbitration in San Francisco—not in court and not as part of a class action.

The Substack Terms of Use establish the contractual relationship between Substack and its users, setting out the rights each party holds over user-generated content, the conditions under which Substack may terminate or suspend accounts and remove content, and the financial and procedural limits on user recourse. Users retain ownership of their original content but grant Substack a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and worldwide license to translate, modify, and reproduce that content for platform purposes. Substack's aggregate liability is capped at the greater of $100 or fees paid in the preceding twelve months, all indirect and consequential damages are excluded from Substack's liability, and users are required to indemnify Substack—including for consequential damages—against claims arising from their use of the platform. All disputes must be resolved through individual JAMS arbitration in San Francisco County, California, with a class-action waiver barring any representative proceeding.

For an individual user, this document means that content you post stays yours in title, but the license you grant Substack to modify and reproduce it cannot be revoked. Your account and content can be removed at any time without cause, and your financial recovery from Substack for any harm is capped at $100 or fees you paid in the past twelve months—with no recovery available for lost data, lost income, or other consequential losses. If you have a dispute with Substack, you must bring it as an individual claimant through JAMS arbitration in San Francisco County; you cannot join or lead a class action. The one concrete action available: if Substack notifies you of a change to the Terms by website notice or email, that notification is your signal to review the updated Terms before continuing to use the platform.