I stumbled onto something recently that I can’t stop thinking about.

It’s a new feature Substack quietly added — and if you’re publishing here regularly, this one’s going to save you real time.

It’s called Templates.

The Problem It Solves

If you’ve been on Substack for any length of time, you probably have a few things you drop into almost every post.

A custom divider image. A subscribe button. A “share this” graphic. A buy me a coffee link.

Maybe you’ve been doing what I was doing — storing everything in a folder, copying from a clipboard manager, then re-adding the links every single time.

It worked. But it was clunky.

Every time I inserted one of my custom images, I still had to go back in and manually add the link. Leave the editor, grab the asset, come back, repeat.

Not anymore.

What Templates Actually Do

Templates let you create reusable snippets right inside the Substack editor — complete with images, text, buttons, and links already baked in.

Once it’s set up, you click a single button, and it drops the whole thing in, exactly where you want it.

No leaving the editor. No hunting for the file. No re-linking.

Here’s how I’m using it:

* Custom divider. Instead of Substack’s default thin divider bar, I have my own branded divider image. One click. Done.

* Upgrade button. I created a custom image-based button linked to my subscribe page — a lot more eye-catching than the standard Substack button. It’s a template now.

* Share graphic. A bigger, more visual share prompt — with the share button already embedded in the template. The whole thing comes in at once.

* Buy Me a Coffee. My custom image, already linked. I insert it and move on.

How to Create One

It’s genuinely simple.

In the Substack editor toolbar, look for a tab that says Template. Click it, and you’ll see any templates you’ve already created — plus a + New Template button.

Click that, and it opens what looks exactly like a post editor.

Give your template a name (just for your reference — readers never see it). Then build whatever you want inside it: text, images, buttons, links. Format it exactly how you want it to appear.

Save it, and it shows up in your template list from that point forward. You don’t even have to save your images in the gallery.

Why This Is a Bigger Deal Than It Sounds

The real value here isn’t just convenience.

It’s consistency.

Every post gets the same branded elements, exactly the same way, every time. No forgetting to add the link. No slightly different version of the button depending on when you made it.

And because it lives inside Substack — not in a separate folder or a third-party clipboard app — there’s no context switching. You stay in the flow of writing.

I can see using this for recurring footers, standard CTAs, affiliate disclosures, section intros, podcast episode callouts — anything you find yourself building from scratch over and over again.

Try It This Week

Open a post you’re working on and look for the Template tab in your editor toolbar.

Even if you only create one template to start — maybe just a simple subscribe prompt or a divider — you’ll immediately see how useful this is going to be.

Substack keeps adding tools that make the writing experience cleaner and more professional. This one’s worth five minutes of your time. Watch the video to see it in action.

Let me know what templates you end up creating. I’m curious what people come up with.

Brian D. Smith is a grief guide, certified grief educator, and host of the Grief 2 Growth podcast. After losing his daughter Shayna in 2015, he has dedicated his work to helping others find evidence-based hope in the face of loss.

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