Who actually pays for AI detectors?

Substack just rolled out a new feature that claims to flag AI-generated posts — and the money question is who covers the tab.

The tool scans for telltale patterns: the way LLMs repeat themselves, the flat tone, the overuse of transition words. It's not a perfect detector — nobody's is. But the bigger story is the pricing model. If Substack charges creators for using it, they're passing the cost onto the people they're supposed to be protecting. If they eat it, it's a tax on their own revenue. Either way, the platform is making a call about what kind of content they want to police.

This is the kind of decision that lands differently depending on your corner of the internet. For newsletter writers who lean on AI for drafts, it's a new overhead. For readers, it's a new signal — whether they trust it or not. And for Substack, it's a bet on whether they can build a moat around quality.

Why this matters for us: as more of our community turns to AI for the work they already do — the side-hustle writing, the small business copy, the stories we tell — who gets to decide what counts as authentic and who pays for that call is a question worth following.