Substack Proxies for Newsletter Teams

Substack turned the newsletter into a small business. A writer publishes posts that go out by email and live on the web, some free and some for paid subscribers, with Notes, chat and podcasts built around them. Teams have grown up around the bigger publications: an editor, a couple of contributors, someone handling growth. A ProxyMobile line is one modem with one AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon SIM in a US city, used only by you. For Substack it gives the publication's working sessions a stable US carrier address, and it lets the team see their own signup and paywall pages as a phone reader in a given metro would. This page is also clear about what a proxy has no effect on, which for a newsletter is quite a lot.

Email deliverability is not a network question

The first thing to know is that your newsletter is sent by Substack, from Substack's mail infrastructure, not from your computer. Whether a post lands in the main inbox or a secondary tab depends on Substack's sending reputation, the content, subscriber engagement and, if you use a custom domain, the DNS records Substack asks you to add. Your connection has no part in any of that. A writer who hopes a proxy will improve open rates should put that hope into a better subject line.

Similarly, paid subscriptions and payouts run through Substack's connected payment provider, with identity and tax checks that must match the real person or company behind the publication. A proxy has no role there and should never be used to misrepresent who or where you are.

Where the line earns its place

The practical value is session consistency. An editor who drafts at home, schedules from a café and approves contributor posts from a phone produces a patchwork of logins. Putting publication work on one sticky line in the team's metro gives Substack one familiar carrier address. A single Substack account can manage more than one publication, and contributors are invited to a publication rather than sharing a login, so a small team rarely needs more than one line.

Our lines hold the carrier IP until you press the rotation link. Keep the editing line sticky; there is nothing to gain by changing address during a writing session, and Substack's sign-in emails are easier to follow when the link opens on the same address that requested it.

• Editors and the owner: the publication's sticky line.
• Contributors: invited to the publication, on their own connections.
• Growth and analytics work: same line as the editor.
• Logged-out page checks: a separate line, rotated between checks.

Checking your own pages as a reader

Growth work on Substack often means looking at the publication the way a stranger does: the welcome page, the subscribe prompt, a paywalled post's preview, the recommendation screen after signup, and how all of it renders in a phone browser. Those are public pages, and checking them from a US carrier address in a clean browser profile is a realistic view of a mobile visitor. Rotate a testing line between checks if you want to see the pages without any cookie or subscriber history attached.

Keep this strictly to your own publication. Using rotation to read other writers' paid posts without subscribing takes income from them and breaks Substack's terms.

Media, podcasts and data

Most Substack work is light. Podcasts and video posts are the exception, and uploading an hour of audio or a video interview is where connection speed shows. A 4G line at 20 to 45 Mbps handles audio uploads without trouble; a 5G line at 50 Mbps or more is worth it for a publication that uploads video every week. Every plan includes 15 GB per day, which covers a normal publishing day and several large uploads.

Choosing a metro and getting help

Newsletters rarely care about geography, so pick the metro nearest the editorial team: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, North Carolina or Boston. A 4G monthly line is $70; 5G is $85 per month. Payment is by card, PayPal, crypto, Zelle or wire. If Substack's editor stops saving, open the ProxyMobile dashboard. A blank IP field means the modem is re-attaching to the carrier and should be back in a minute. Our support team answers 24/7 by email and Telegram bot.

Setting up a Substack proxy on ProxyMobile

1. Order a line in the editorial team's metro.
2. Save the proxy in the editor's browser profile and confirm the exit IP.
3. Sign in to Substack and open sign-in links inside the same profile.
4. Invite contributors to the publication instead of sharing the login.
5. Use a separate rotating line for logged-out checks of your own pages.

Substack proxy questions