Hunter vs Substack
Side-by-side plans, pricing, and feature gates for Hunter and Substack, verified . Hunter is primarily lead generation; Substack is primarily email marketing.
Plans side by side
Every published plan from each vendor, with the headline monthly anchor price. Some prices scale with subscriber count or seats; full detail lives on each tool's page.
Hunter
- Free
50 search credits per month for testing
Free - Starter
2,000 credits/mo, auto-verification, AI Writing Assistant
$34/mo - Growth
10,000 credits/mo, 10 email accounts, expanded AI
$104/mo - Scale
25,000 credits/mo, 20 email accounts, unlimited Signals
$209/mo - Enterprise
Custom credits and dedicated account manager
Custom
Substack
- Standard
Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue
Free
When Hunter wins
- Founders doing personalized B2B outreach to small lead lists
- Agencies running outreach campaigns for SMB clients
- Sales teams wanting an email-finder and verifier in a single tool
Where Hunter is the wrong fit
- Enterprise sales orgs that need ZoomInfo-grade data depth
- Teams that don't run cold outreach (use a CRM instead)
- Buyers who want unlimited credits at any price (use ZoomInfo or Apollo Unlimited)
When Substack wins
- New writers with no list yet who want platform-driven discovery
- Writers who would rather give 10% of revenue than pay a flat $20-100/month with no readers
Where Substack is the wrong fit
- Established creators with a paid list above ~5,000 subscribers; the 10% share exceeds what Kit, Ghost, or beehiiv would charge in flat fees at that scale
- Operators who want full control over deliverability, subscriber data, and migration optionality
- Brands needing automations, segmentation, or marketing tooling
Common questions
- Is Hunter cheaper than Substack?
- Both Hunter and Substack have free or custom entry pricing, so a direct entry-tier price comparison is not meaningful.
- Does Hunter or Substack have a free plan?
- Both have free plans. Hunter: 50 search credits per month for testing. Substack: Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue.
- Are Hunter and Substack in the same category?
- No. Hunter is primarily a lead generation tool; Substack is primarily a email marketing tool. They overlap on use case but sit in different primary categories, so the comparison is between adjacent tools rather than direct competitors.
- Which has more plans, Hunter or Substack?
- Hunter ships 5 plans; Substack ships 1. Hunter's longer ladder gives more granular upgrade steps, which can mean smoother price escalation as your team scales.
- Where can I see alternatives to Hunter or Substack?
- Each tool has a dedicated alternatives page on TierGauge with ranked options and verified pricing: /alternatives/hunter for Hunter and /alternatives/substack for Substack. Alternatives are derived from each tool's editor-flagged competitors plus same-category tools we track.
Hunter: https://hunter.io/pricing · Substack: https://substack.com/going-paid
Last verified . Pricing changes between refreshes; confirm at the vendor before purchasing.