Does Substack have an official API?

Yes, since 2026. The Substack Developer API is a single read-only endpoint — GET https://substack.com/profile/search/linkedin/{handle} — that returns public profile data for verified creators who linked a LinkedIn account. Access requires agreeing to the API Terms of Use via a form and waiting 7–10 business days for approval, then generating a token under Settings → Developer API.

Can the Substack Developer API return my earnings or paid subscribers?

No. The documented response fields are identityHandle, profileUrl, leaderboardStatus, bestsellerTier, roughNumFreeSubscribers and followerCount. It exposes approximate free subscribers and followers only — no revenue, no payouts, no paid subscriber counts.

How do I get my Substack earnings programmatically?

Through Stripe. Substack pays creators via a Stripe account the creator owns, so payouts, charges and balance are all queryable with your own Stripe API key. Substack itself also shows lifetime earnings at yourpub.substack.com/publish/stats/earnings, but only in the browser.

What fees come out of Substack revenue before it reaches me?

Three layers: Substack takes 10% of each paid transaction, Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per card transaction, and Stripe Billing adds 0.5% on recurring payments. On a $10 monthly subscription roughly $8.27 reaches your Stripe balance.

Does Substack have an earnings API?

Substack finally shipped an official API in 2026 — and it can't see a cent of your revenue. The real earnings endpoint has been sitting in your Stripe account all along.

✓ Checked at the source August 13, 2026

Substack now has an official API — but not for earnings

Most answers on the web still say Substack has no API at all. That's stale: Substack published an official Developer API support article, last updated April 21, 2026. But the entire API is one read-only endpoint that looks up public creator profiles by LinkedIn handle. Nothing in it returns revenue, payouts or paid subscriber counts.

Your actual earnings are reachable programmatically anyway — because Substack pays you through your own Stripe account, and Stripe has one of the best-documented APIs in existence.

"Does Substack have an API?" used to have a one-word answer, and most of the pages Google serves for this question were written back when that answer was no. In 2026 it changed — just not in the direction anyone tracking their income was hoping for.

What the official Developer API actually is

The whole API is one endpoint:

GET https://substack.com/profile/search/linkedin/{linkedin-handle}

You give it a public LinkedIn handle; it returns any matching Substack creator profiles. That's the entire surface area. Here is every field the documentation lists, checked on August 13, 2026:

Field	What it is	Money-relevant?
`identityHandle`	The creator's Substack @handle	No
`profileUrl`	Link to the profile	No
`leaderboardStatus`	Rank, category label, paid/trending flag	Signal only
`bestsellerTier`	Bestseller badge tier	Signal only
`roughNumFreeSubscribers`	Approximate free subscriber count	No
`followerCount`	Substack followers	No

No revenue. No payouts. Not even paid subscriber counts — the one field with "subscribers" in the name is explicitly the free ones, and it's approximate. This is an API for verifying other people's credibility (think recruiters and ad buyers checking a writer's reach), not for reading your own business.

The friction is real, so don't budget an afternoon for it

Three gates before your first request

You must submit agreement to the Terms of Use via a form and wait 7–10 business days for approval, then generate a token under Settings → Developer API. The documentation itself sits behind a Zendesk sign-in wall (we had to read it through an archive snapshot), and hitting the endpoint without a token just returns a 404 — verified August 13, 2026.

The earnings API exists — it's just called Stripe

Here's what the stale answers miss. Substack doesn't hold your money: when you set up a paid publication, you connect a Stripe account that you own, and every subscription payment settles there. Substack's own dashboard sends you to Stripe to see your payouts.

What people wait for

A Substack earnings endpoint

Doesn't exist, isn't announced, and the one API Substack did ship in 2026 points the opposite way — outward at public profiles, not inward at your revenue.

What already works

Your own Stripe account

Payouts, charges, balance and subscription events for your publication, all queryable today with your own Stripe API key — no approval queue, no LinkedIn handles.

The browser-only alternative also exists: Substack shows lifetime earnings and per-payout breakdowns at yourpub.substack.com/publish/stats/earnings. Useful for a monthly glance, but there's no export and no endpoint behind it — if you want the number in your own system, Stripe is the door.

Know what's missing from the Stripe number

One honesty note before you wire it up: what lands in Stripe is net of nothing — it's gross charges, with fees taken out on their own schedule. Substack keeps 10% of each transaction, Stripe takes 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment, and Stripe Billing adds 0.5% on recurring charges. On a $10/month subscriber, roughly $8.27 reaches you. If you reconcile your tracker against Substack's on-screen "earnings" figure, expect the two to differ by exactly those layers.

Your Substack money is Stripe money. Sync it.

IncomeOS connects to your Stripe account, so the Substack payouts that land there show up next to everything else you earn — no waiting on Substack to ship an earnings endpoint.

Try it free Or self-host it free — MIT, your own database. See my real numbers.