Steady

What Is Steady?

European independent media has a funding problem that Steady was built to solve. Founded in Berlin in 2016, Steady Media GmbH arrived before "creator economy" was a phrase anyone used, and before Substack had established its dominance in the English-language market. The founding team — which included journalists and media entrepreneurs with direct experience of the revenue collapse hitting legacy publications — designed a platform specifically for the European context: native EU VAT handling, SEPA direct debit, and a commission model rather than a SaaS subscription.

The result is a platform that has quietly become the largest creator membership community in Europe, with 150,000+ paying supporters across thousands of projects and €20M+ paid out to creators since launch. The biggest names in German independent journalism — Übermedien, Krautreporter — built their subscriber bases here. So did hundreds of independent podcasters and niche newsletter writers across the DACH region.

Steady occupies a specific position in the European newsletters market. It is not a general email marketing tool and is not competing with Brevo or Mailchimp for campaign-blast use cases. It is a membership infrastructure platform: the place you go when you want readers or listeners to pay a recurring subscription for your independent content, and you want someone else to handle the billing, VAT, and payment logistics.

The backers include Müller Medien — one of Germany's largest media groups — and IBB Ventures, the investment arm of Investitionsbank Berlin. A Google Digital News Initiative grant provided early-stage funding, though Google holds no equity stake.

Key Features

Membership and Paywall Infrastructure

The core of Steady is membership tier management. Creators set their own pricing — typically a handful of tiers at different price points, e.g., a €5 supporter tier and a €15 premium tier. Subscribers pay monthly or annually, and Steady handles the entire payment flow including dunning, payment retries, and cancellation.

Paywalled content is the other half. Posts, articles, and newsletters can be marked as subscriber-only, public, or available to specific tiers. The gating is enforced at Steady's level, not through client-side JavaScript tricks. A WordPress plugin lets creators embed the paywall on external sites, so a creator with an existing WordPress blog can add a Steady membership layer without migrating their whole site.

Newsletter Publishing and Email Delivery

Steady includes a newsletter editor and handles email delivery directly. The free tier covers up to approximately 12,000 emails per month under fair-use terms — enough for most independent publishers at early stages. There is no separate email service account to manage or configure. You write in Steady's editor, choose whether the post is public or subscriber-only, and send.

The email delivery infrastructure is not best-in-class by deliverability specialist standards, and Steady does not publish specific deliverability metrics. For creators whose primary concern is reaching members reliably, this is adequate but not exceptional.

Podcast Hosting with Spotify Open Access

Steady generates a podcast RSS feed automatically from uploaded audio, making it compatible with any podcast app. Subscriber-only episodes are gated: non-paying listeners receive a preview or a paywall prompt depending on the app.

The genuinely differentiated feature here is Spotify Open Access integration. Through this partnership, Steady subscribers who are also Spotify users can listen to paywalled episodes directly inside the Spotify app without leaving it. The authentication handshake between Spotify and Steady verifies subscription status in the background. For German and Scandinavian podcast listeners in particular — where Spotify has very high penetration — this is a meaningful conversion tool.

EU VAT Management

For independent European creators, VAT compliance across member states is a genuine operational burden. When a French subscriber pays a German creator €10/month, the correct French VAT rate applies and must be remitted to French tax authorities. Registering for VAT in multiple EU countries individually is expensive and time-consuming.

Steady handles this entirely. It acts as the merchant of record, applies the correct VAT rate per subscriber's country, collects it, and remits it to the relevant authority. Creators see their net revenue; the VAT machinery runs invisibly. This is one of the clearest practical advantages Steady has over US-based competitors like Substack, which leave European VAT compliance as the creator's problem.

Payment Methods

Steady accepts credit and debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and SEPA direct debit. The SEPA option is meaningfully important for German and Dutch subscribers who are culturally resistant to entering card details online. A Substack or Patreon page that only accepts cards leaves money on the table in the DACH market; Steady does not.

Pricing

Steady costs nothing to join as a creator, and nothing to publish on. The commission model means your first euro in costs is directly proportional to your first euro in earnings: Steady takes 10% of gross membership revenue, plus payment processing fees of approximately 1–3% depending on method, plus applicable VAT.

At small scale — say €500/month in membership revenue — this amounts to €50 plus processing fees. At larger scale, the commission compounds: a creator earning €5,000/month pays roughly €500–650 to Steady per month before receiving the rest. There are no paid plan options that reduce the commission rate.

This compares unfavourably at high revenue to platforms with fixed monthly fees. A creator earning €10,000/month might pay Steady €1,000–1,200 in combined commission and fees, where a self-hosted Ghost instance at €36/month would cost a fraction of that. The trade-off is that Ghost requires technical setup and maintenance; Steady requires nothing except content.

EU Compliance & Privacy

Steady Media GmbH is incorporated in Berlin and is subject to GDPR as a German data controller. A Data Processing Agreement is available for creator accounts, and Steady's privacy documentation lists its sub-processors.

Here is where transparency matters: Steady hosts member data on AWS infrastructure in the United States. AWS is listed explicitly as a sub-processor alongside Google, Stripe, Cloudflare, and Help Scout. This means that subscriber email addresses, payment history, and content interaction data are stored on servers outside the EU.

For most independent newsletter writers and podcasters, this will not be a dealbreaker — Substack, Patreon, and most alternatives are US-hosted with no EU data residency option at all. But Steady's German incorporation can create a misleading impression of EU data residency that the AWS hosting reality does not support. Creators who are marketing themselves to audiences on the basis of European data sovereignty — journalists covering surveillance, data rights advocates, security researchers — should be aware of this gap and disclose it to their subscribers accordingly.

The EU VAT management, which handles GDPR-adjacent compliance burdens, should not be conflated with data residency. Steady handles tax compliance impressively; it does not handle data residency.

Who It's Best For

Steady works best for German, Austrian, and Swiss independent journalists, podcasters, and newsletter writers who want a professionally managed membership platform without upfront cost or technical complexity. The DACH market concentration means the platform has genuine network effects and cultural credibility in that context.

It also works well for any European creator who is specifically trying to avoid the operational complexity of EU VAT registration. If your content is good enough to attract paying subscribers across EU member states, Steady's VAT handling alone justifies the commission.

It is less suited to English-language creators building a global audience, who will find Substack's discovery features, larger reader base, and equivalent commission model more compelling. It is less suited to high-revenue creators (above €3,000–5,000/month) for whom the 10% commission makes a self-hosted solution like Ghost or Keila economically attractive.

Multi-author publications, teams, and media organisations with complex workflows will find Steady limiting. There is no multi-author mode, no role-based editorial workflow, and limited content export if you decide to migrate. Larger independent media operations in Europe often use Steady alongside a separate CMS rather than as their primary publishing system.

The Verdict

Steady is the most credible European alternative to Substack for independent creators in the DACH market, and the EU VAT handling is genuinely better than anything US competitors offer. The 150,000+ paying supporter base and €20M+ creator payouts demonstrate real traction rather than aspirational positioning.

The honest limitations are worth naming. AWS hosting undercuts the European-sovereignty narrative that Steady's German incorporation implies. The feature set is thin relative to what Ghost or even Substack offers at comparable scale. The 10% commission is fair when you are earning nothing, and expensive once you are earning well. And the DACH concentration that gives Steady its network effects also limits its utility for creators targeting international audiences.

If you are a European independent journalist, podcaster, or newsletter writer starting out — particularly in Germany or the wider DACH region — Steady is an excellent first platform. Start free, validate that people will pay, and revisit the economics once you are earning enough that the commission rate becomes the conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Steady free to use?

Yes, Steady is free to publish on. You can create a project, publish posts and newsletters (up to approximately 12,000 emails per month), and host a podcast at no cost. Steady only charges a 10% commission when your members pay for a subscription, plus payment processing fees (1–3%) and applicable VAT. There is no fixed monthly fee.

Where is Steady data hosted?

Steady Media GmbH is a German company under GDPR jurisdiction, and a Data Processing Agreement is available. However, actual member and content data is hosted on AWS infrastructure in the United States. Steady lists AWS as a sub-processor. This is an important caveat for creators whose audiences have strict data-residency expectations — EU incorporation does not equal EU data hosting in this case.

How does Steady compare to Substack?

Both platforms charge approximately 10% on membership revenue with no fixed monthly fee. Steady handles EU VAT for European creators automatically, which Substack does not. Substack has a larger global audience, stronger discovery features, and better content export. Steady has stronger DACH-market presence and broader payment options for European subscribers including SEPA direct debit.

Can I host a paid podcast on Steady?

Yes. Steady includes native podcast hosting with a generated RSS feed. Individual episodes can be subscriber-only, and through the Spotify Open Access integration, paid episodes can be listened to directly within Spotify by subscribers who authenticate. This is a meaningful differentiator, especially in markets like Germany and Scandinavia where Spotify has dominant podcast app market share.

Does Steady handle EU VAT for memberships?

Yes. Steady collects and remits VAT across all EU member states on your behalf. When a subscriber in France pays for a German creator's membership, Steady applies the correct French VAT rate, collects it, and remits it to the relevant authority. This removes a significant compliance burden for independent creators who would otherwise need to register for VAT in multiple countries across Europe.