Substack warns email is becoming less reliable for creators (update*)

Hannah Oladele | Apr 23, 2026

Creators should not rely on email as a long-term distribution channel, Substack has said, as inbox platforms increasingly filter content and distort engagement signals. Mills Baker, head of design at Substack, said email is becoming “less deterministically reliable” as a way to reach audiences, pointing to spam filtering, privacy changes and the growing role of AI.