Hire someone to set up your Substack in 4 sessions

Written by Carrie Loranger, Substack strategist and 18-year marketing director. Last updated September 21, 2026.

If you want someone to set up your Substack, you have four options: do it yourself with tutorials, hire a freelancer for the technical pieces, buy a self-paced course, or work one to one with a Substack strategist who builds it with you. I run the fourth one. The Substack Setup Sprint is a done-with-you Substack setup service: 4 live 1:1 Zoom sessions of 60 minutes each, spread over 2 to 3 weeks, for $1,397. You can see it at carrieloranger.com/setup-sprint.

What is a Substack setup service?

A Substack setup service is a paid engagement where someone with experience configures your publication with you: the homepage and About page, the settings and domain, paid tiers and pricing, the welcome email, post templates, and a plan for Notes and Recommendations.

The reason people buy one is rarely the buttons. Substack's settings take an afternoon to click through. What takes months is deciding who the publication is for, what it sells, and where a reader is supposed to go next. That is the part that costs you subscribers while you research it.

What are your options for getting a Substack set up?

1. Do it yourself

Free, and completely possible. Substack's own guides cover the mechanics. The cost is time and second-guessing. Most people I talk to have been at it for weeks and still have a default template and a description they wrote in four minutes.

2. Hire a freelancer

Marketplaces like Fiverr list Substack setup gigs, and they are cheap. You get the configuration done. You usually do not get the strategy, because the person setting up the paid tier has no view of what you sell after it.

3. Buy a course

Good value if you learn well on your own and have the hours. You watch, you pause, you build. Nobody is looking at your actual publication and telling you the tagline is too vague.

4. Done-with-you, one to one

Someone builds it alongside you in real time and explains why each decision is made, so you can run it yourself afterwards. This costs the most and takes the least of your time. The Substack Setup Sprint is my version of it.

What does the Substack Setup Sprint include?

Four 60-minute Zoom sessions, one layer per session, with homework in between that I review on the next call.

• Session 1, foundation: niche, positioning, title and tagline, homepage, About page, Welcome page.
• Session 2, structure: settings, headers and footers, custom domain, monetization setup, pricing for free, paid, or hybrid.
• Session 3, content: post templates, formatting, categories, and a publishing cadence you can keep.
• Session 4, growth: welcome email, lead magnet, Substack Notes, Recommendations, community, and a 3-week content runway.

You also get the session recordings, recap notes, the templates I use, and message support between calls.

How long does a Substack setup take?

The Sprint runs 2 to 3 weeks, because the homework between sessions is where your publication actually gets built. People who want it done in one sitting usually end up with a publication nobody has decided anything about.

How much does it cost to have someone set up your Substack?

The Substack Setup Sprint is $1,397. Freelance gigs cost less and cover configuration only. Courses cost less and cover teaching only. Pick by what you are short of. If you are short of time and want the decisions made with you, pay for the sessions. If you are short of money and have Saturdays free, do it yourself and use my free guides.

Who is the Setup Sprint for?

Creators, coaches, consultants, and solopreneurs who are launching or relaunching a newsletter and want it built for subscribers and paid tiers from day one.

It is not for you if you want someone to write your posts. This is setup, not ghostwriting. It is also not for you if you would rather learn at your own pace, because the sessions are live and scheduled.

Questions people ask before they book

Can someone set up my Substack for me?

Yes, and I would push you toward done-with-you instead of done-for-you. You are going to publish in this thing every week. If you were not in the room when the decisions were made, you will be paying someone every time you want to change a button.

I already have a Substack. Can you fix it instead?

Yes. Relaunches use the same four sessions, and they usually move faster because the writing already exists. If you only want a diagnosis and a plan you can carry out yourself, the Substack Newsletter Audit is the smaller option: a recorded review of your publication with a 90-day action plan, at carrieloranger.com/substack-audit.

Do I need to turn on payments before we start?

No. Substack payments run through Stripe and we set that up in session 2, when your pricing is decided. Plenty of people finish the Sprint with paid tiers configured and switched on later.

Will this get me subscribers?

The Sprint builds the publication and the growth plan. The posting is yours. What a good setup changes is the conversion rate of the readers you already get, which is why I fix the homepage and the welcome email before anyone talks about traffic. More on that in your Substack homepage is a sales page and how to build a paid Substack with conversion built in.

What if I am not sure Substack is the right platform?

Then book a 60-Minute Clarity Call first, a single paid call to decide what to build before you build it, at carrieloranger.com/clarity-call.

Book a Setup Sprint

The Substack Setup Sprint is a done-with-you Substack setup service, 4 live 1:1 sessions over 2 to 3 weeks, $1,397, and you finish with a publication that is ready for subscribers and paid subscriptions. Spots are limited because the calls are mine. Claim a Sprint spot here.

About the author

Carrie Loranger is a Substack strategist and 18-year marketing director (Fortune 500 and B2B) known for helping writers turn one newsletter into a portfolio of paychecks. Her publication 9-To-Thrive is a Substack Bestseller and a Top 50 Substack Business publication with 12,200+ subscribers, and she has helped hundreds of writers set up, grow, and monetize on Substack. She created the Portfolio of Paychecks system, her 9-step path from setup to multiple offers.