Does Substack train on your data?
Substack's help centre says neither it nor Pangram, its AI-detection vendor, uses publisher content to train generative AI models. A toggle asks outside crawlers not to either.
No opt-out found in this policy
"Neither Substack nor Pangram uses publisher content to train generative AI models."
- 10 Sept 2026
- All accounts
- global
- Saved by hand — not re-read automatically
- 55EE4CB9…CCB9
How we read it: Resolved from UNCLEAR on 10 September 2026 on a help article updated the same day, saved by hand because the help centre answers 403 to readers that are not browsers; the privacy policy, last updated 14 May 2026, is silent. The sentence is about publisher content, the posts and newsletters, and about "generative" models; readers' data and other kinds of model are not addressed. The toggle in publication settings, "Tell AI tools not to train their models on your content", is a signal to external crawlers that only those which respect it will honour. Substack was written to on 2026-08-24 and did not reply. B because it is an undertaking.
What each plan can refuse
The same questions, asked of every plan we could identify. Every cell comes from a quoted clause or a documented search - see the evidence above.
- Nothing to switch off
- Not stated
- 18 / 100
- Not stated
- Unknown
How to opt out of Substack AI training
Plan by plan, from what Substack's own policy says about refusing. Where it publishes the steps, they're listed here with the limits they carry. Where there's nothing to switch off, or nothing graded, this says so instead of inventing a menu path.
All accounts
Nothing to switch off: Substack's policy says training is off here.
What this policy has done since we started watching
1 change detected since 1 Aug 2026. Each one is a diff between two archived copies, and each links to the passage that moved.
Vendor response
We wrote to Substack on 24 Aug 2026, quoting the clauses above and inviting a correction. Nothing has come back. That's published because a company declining to comment on its own policy is something a reader should know, and because the invitation should be on the record whether or not it's taken up. Any reply goes here, word for word.
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Substack is graded B, and a company that's earned that can say so with the verdict itself. The image below links back to this page and shows the live grade. If the grade changes, the badge changes the same day, wherever it's embedded. It's free and it isn't for sale.
