The Best Platform for Starting a Newsletter
Maybe it’s because of the crowd I’ve been hanging with lately (in the awesome Substack Writers Unite! Discord community) but I feel like newsletters are the buzzword of the year for many creatives. With the uncertainty of tomorrow, there doesn’t seem to be a better time than now to pound those keys and bare your soul to anyone willing to just subscribe. But where do you begin? Of course, you need to understand the true value of having an email list to deliver your newsletter to. That is your ticket to growing your brand, making sales, and above all control of your content.
You’ve likely done a lot of research on the pros and cons of having a newsletter and why you most definitely have something to say (even though you were skeptical at first). Let me take the guesswork out when it comes to what platform you should use moving forward.
Full disclosure: I am currently using Substack after a bad break-up with MailChimp but I will try my best to stick to the facts when delivering the pros and cons you need to consider before deciding on which one to go with.
Several of the most popular platforms to start your newsletter aren’t actually called that. They are actually marketing platforms, meaning they do more than just help you craft an email and send it. Their main goal and intent are to help you make sales and to give you all the tools (at a cost) you’ll ever need in order to facilitate and monitor those sales, person-by-person. So, when deciding which of the many I’m mentioning that you should go with, try to think about the future and what you may eventually want to incorporate into your brand? Are you all about sales, facts, and figures, or is it all about the content, look and feel of the newsletter itself? That’s not to say you can’t create an amazing newsletter with great content using MailChimp, just like you could totally get marketing insights from Revue or Substack. But one platform might just be better suited in one regard than the other.
Marketing Platforms
MailChimp | Probably the most widely used and well known within this area. I used MailChimp for nearly a decade and was the first I chose to use. However, in that time MailChimp has removed a lot of the key “Free” features they had and it doesn’t look like they are likely to come back. Below is an image of their FREE vs PAID options. A lot of what you see from the $9.99/m tier used to be available to free users. Also, not sure how going from being allowed to have up to 2k subscribers in the FREE tier to only allowing up to 500 in the paid option is a “better” deal especially if I have more than 500 then that monthly $9.99 cost practically triples in cost per month!?
The FREE version, while the best deal of the others because it offers up to 2k subscribers can actually feel very constricting. Especially for me because I know what I’m missing having used MailChimp for as long as I have. One thing to keep in mind is you can’t schedule your emails to go out. This is a real bummer especially if you want to make sure your email goes out at the same time every week. This can be key for consistency and keeping promises for your list. Having to set a reminder for yourself to log into MailChimp just to hit the send button is not ideal if you hope to send it early in the morning.
MailerLite | Probably the second most commonly heard platform. At least it was when I did my research as to which I should use. I compared MailerLite to MailChimp when it came to FREE features and the one that really made the decision for me was the subscriber count. MailerLite’s free version only goes up to 1k subscribers. See the pricing plan below.
And while MailChimp was the best bang for zero bucks before, I think MailerLite definitely has more free features that overshadow 2k subscribers, like being able to schedule posts and unlimited email sends.
If you’re looking for a simpler and much easier-to-navigate user interface than MailChimp, I would recommend MailerLite as it is definitely more user-friendly.
ConvertKit | For me, ConvertKit was always that platform that was for not only the most serious independent brand but one that was already making money. Why? Because ConvertKit did not have a “Free” version the way MailChimp or MailerLite did. And its base plan was $29/m. While that plan still exists, ConvertKit has changed and they now offer a free version.
I am testing it out now, but just looking at what they offer it looks like they have a lot of the best free bits of both MailChimp and MailerLite in their free plan. And like MailerLite they only go up to 1k subscribers for free.
Newsletter Platforms
TinyLetter by MailChimp | Until recently I didn’t know that MailChimp owned TinyLetter. I also had never heard of it. Or at least never to the point where I felt I needed to go investigate what it was. And thinking back on all of the newsletters I subscribe to (dozens) I can say with confidence that maybe one or two use TinyLetter as their platform. I can’t speak on the user experience or the platform itself but I can say its entire purpose is around creating a newsletter and building an email list. It’s not about marketing or selling, though you can turn your newsletter into a paid subscription model (like the others on this list) if you wanted to. That seems to be a prerequisite these days for all newsletter platforms to compete.
Revue by Twitter | Its slogan is “An editorial newsletter tool for writers and publishers.” Great in theory and in another time had I discovered this first there is a possibility that I would think of and use Twitter differently than I do now, and that I would’ve switched to Revue when I left MailChimp. But I’m satisfied with the choice I made. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some good that can come from Revue if you use it right. I honestly would recommend it for this one reason: They allow any Revue user to have a big ‘ole subscribe button right on their profile!
Substack | Still in its infancy, this newsletter platform is so much more than it seems. Combining parts of Patreon, Wordpress, and Mailchimp to make an experience unlike any other. When I was looking for a place to go after my decision to leave Mailchimp (a service I had faithfully been using for nearly a decade) I happened upon Substack and I was instantly hooked. What drew me in was the simplicity and in many ways it’s what keeps me using it nearly two years later. If you are fed up with the cost of a service like Mailchimp or Mailerlite or just confused by ConvertKit with all its bells and whistles, I recommend Substack as a means for growing your own community as well as a source of income (if that is what you are looking for).
Because it’s still very much “early days” for Substack and because it seems to be releasing new upgrades and adding new features to its arsenal, it’s difficult to truly say it’s the best. With so many new things to test and use there is always room for kinks and bugs to fix and this is something it seems Substack is dealing with on a daily basis. But for all the hiccups along the way, the ease of use, and ability to combine my Patreon, Wordpress, and Newsletter all into one convenient place cannot be beat. I’m not aware of any other service that does it and doesn’t charge a monthly fee for the privilege. That’s right, just to highlight two of what I deem to be the biggest draws for me when it came to switching to Substack:
It’s free to use, until you turn on the paid subscription aspect and even then you only pay a small fee from what you earn. There are no upfront costs.
Unlimited # of subscribers and unlimited # of emails can be sent to your list as often as you want.
What platform are you using to stay connected to your community? Are you thinking of trying something new and different? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts!