The company said on Wednesday it was debuting a feature that allows writers to paywall their entire Chat or select threads, making them available only to paid or founding members. The rollout comes 18 months after Substack launched Chat as a means for writers to communicate directly with their most loyal readers.

The company believes paywalled Chats will keep conversations intimate and troll-free, and will make a great paid incentive to readers. According to Substack, data shown by the company reveal that active Chat participants are 12% likely to retain subscriptions.

Writers can paywall an entire Chat, or paywall specific threads within a Chat. Paywalling a Chat means free subscribers and non-subscribers will be nudged to subscribe to become paid subscribers to view that Chat.

Substack is also improving the Chat interface to better handle large group Chats. The company is rolling out search for Chats, which will make it easier for people to find old threads. It also includes thread notifications and new reply badges so that no one gets lost in a conversation. Substack will also upgrade its back-end systems to load new Chats and replies in real-time, making it easier to stay up-to-date on conversations when discussing live matters.

When the company initially released Chat, Substack anticipated getting to profit from the mess after Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. The company still views Chat as a choice over Twitter-now X-as it noted in its latest blog post: "many readers prefer the simplicity of Substack Chat to other platforms." From there, it quoted a paid subscriber who said that chat is great as a substitute for X.

Chat isn't the only Substack feature trying to take on X; the company released a Twitter-like "Notes" feature last year. In the service's version of a Tweet, Notes lets users share posts, quotes, comments, images, videos, and more. Short-form content is shown off in a dedicated feed.