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11 Newsletter Websites That Successful Creators Swear By
Why These 11 Websites Offer the Best in Class Newsletter Services
Linda Hwang
June 9th, 2024
“Now people want to know how, and there are a lot of amazing social media newsletters in the space,” Jack continued.
Jack wanted to make sure his newsletter wasn’t full of fluff. His goal was to offer advice people could take action on immediately.
As a content creator or consumer, a newsletter is a great way to share new ideas, products, trending industry news, and advice to your community.
With so many websites great for hosting newsletters, knowing what’s best for you can be difficult.
It’s okay, that’s why we’re here.
We will examine eleven of the top newsletter websites, breaking down their features, what stands out, price, and ease of use.
Whether you're a business guru, a creative soul, or someone in between, this article will light your path to newsletter nirvana.
Research your competitors.
You may be wondering why they would need one.
Today, over 4.37 billion people use email. Email is becoming more dominant over time.
An email newsletter is a publication that offers regular communication to subscribers. Newsletters play a critical role in digital marketing, especially email marketing. Often, businesses use an email newsletter to share helpful information about their company or topics related to their business that solve their customers’ problems.
A consistent email newsletter helps you as a content creator or business owner because it’s a commitment to creating content regularly.
“[Whether] you have one subscriber or ten million subscribers, you are committed to it. I have to show up every Thursday with the newsletter, even though it’s not the best time for the last couple of weeks for me to do it,” explained BenGingi, a co-creator of YASSSletter, a gastronomic newsletter on beehiiv.
“People are waiting to get it every week for the recipes they will make with their family that weekend. So, we are very committed.”
There are so many great options for websites for newsletters; which one is the best one for you?
That’s the million-dollar question, and we got an answer for you!
Selecting the perfect newsletter platform is like choosing the right gear for a journey. You need reliability, ease of use, and features that match your mission.
Our selection criteria focused on these aspects, pricing, and unique offerings that set each platform apart.
Let's explore!
beehiiv: Monetization, Usability, and Customization
beehiiv buzzes to the top with its sweet monetization options, intuitive design interface, and customization capabilities that let your brand personality shine.
Whether you’re a small business or content creator on a tight budget, beehiiv offers a great pricing structure unseen in the email marketing platform world—up to 2,500 contacts on their free plan, Launch.
Stand out with beehiiv's unique features like integrated advertising tools, 3D analytics tools, and subscriber segmentation.
“I’ve tried various platforms like MailChimp and MailerLite, but they all had limited features and capabilities. beehiiv makes it seamless and marries well with blog publishing,” toots Dave Schools, founder of the Entrepreneurship Handbook newsletter.
Schools continued, “This email newsletter-sending process is like no other platform. I also looked at Substack, but beehiiv was advanced with built-in growth. beehiiv is my growth engine.”
How to Start Using beehiiv
Visit beehiiv's website and click the 'Sign Up' button.
Choose your plan based on your needs.
Customize your profile and set up your newsletter template.
Import your subscriber list or start building a new one.
Create and send your first newsletter!
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an artist's palette of newsletter tools, offering vibrant features for creators and entrepreneurs.
Great for businesses looking for complex, commerce-based automation, selling digital courses or products, and deploying custom landing pages and funnels. ConvertKit offers responsive newsletter templates that are easy to customize with your font, color, and alignment of choice.
If you are a business offering products, they provide unlimited newsletter product pages that are fully personalized to match your brand. You can set up automated funnels to pitch your newsletter to your fans with audience growth and email tools.
They offer a limited free plan, but their Creator plan starts at $9/month for up to 300 subscribers and offers excellent automation features.
Some top creators and celebrities like Ali Abdaal and Mandy Moore use CovertKit.
“[ConvertKit] was better than MailChimp. But even then, it was still complicated, and I just didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know how to do any of the automation stuff,” said Dakota Robertson, Wrongs to Write newsletter creator.
“But it was just really complicated trying to figure out how to do everything,”
Mailchimp
The mighty Mailchimp is the Swiss Army knife of newsletter services.
A popular entry-level marketing automation platform known for its ease of use and affordability. It offers a range of features, such as email marketing, landing page creation, and audience segmentation.
If you’re looking for an email marketing tool for one-off email blasts or promotional or e-commerce emails, then Mailchimp is a great tool to help you with your business needs.
When it comes to pricing, Mailchimp offers a variety of plans to fit different needs and budgets.
The free plan suits users with smaller subscriber lists, while paid plans provide more advanced features and functionalities, such as advanced segmentation, retargeting ads, and A/B testing.
Substack
As one of the most prominent email service providers (ESPs), Substack is a big player in the newsletter space, with 500,000 paying subscribers and millions of readers in 2023.
If you’re looking for a great way to be part of an ecosystem for writers, a simple platform without any bells and whistles, and your content being responsive and accessible through a mobile app, then Substack is the platform for you.
Publishing is free on Substack, no matter the number of subscribers you have. Substack will have a 10%+ processing fee for each transaction if you enable a paid subscription to your publication.
“I don’t remember when I first started hearing about [beehiiv]. It started bubbling up in my Twitter feed, you know, pretty active on people starting to use it or shifting over from Substack,” relayed Jon Finkel, creator of Books & Biceps newsletter, about his move to beehiiv from Substack.
“A bunch of DMs said you should do it over here,” he concluded.
AWeber
Known for its stellar customer service and robust automation tools, AWeber helps small businesses craft effective email campaigns without needing a tech wizard on staff.
The platform is an excellent choice for those who want a full-featured email platform that’s super simple and provides additional valuable tools. Trusted by over one million customers, AWeber is loved by people for its pricing, high deliverability rates, and integration abilities.
AWeber offers a free plan for up to 500 subscribers, but it has limited features (1 email page, one landing page, and basic email support). Their next plan is the Lite plan, which is $12.50 monthly.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor's design-forward approach brings beauty to the inbox.
If you’re looking for a platform that offers automated customer journey and life cycle emails, a way to sell digital courses and products, and non-profit and fundraising communications, Campaign Monitor is the platform for you!
They offer segmentation features, A/B testing, integrations, analytics, automation, transactional emails, and dynamic content.
Campaign Monitor offers a “free trial” but only allows users to send one email to five subscribers. The next plan is the Lite plan, which costs $11 monthly for up to 500 contacts.
Ghost
Ghost is an open-source alternative to platforms like Substack and Medium. Being “open-source” means users have complete ownership of their data and content. For those who prefer ultimate control—Ghost is the platform for you!
The platform allows creators to transform their audience into a thriving business, focusing on building a membership service for their content. So, suppose you are heavily into blogging and web-first content, custom self-hosted solutions, educational content, or sharing knowledge. In that case, Ghost can help you excel in providing content to your audience.
It offers users a variety of templates, allowing more freedom and creativity in email layouts and design.
Ghost combines a modern and highly efficient framework with a website, CMS, newsletter platform, and paid subscription launch capability.
Ghost offers a 14-day free trial, then its next plan is $9 per month for 500 members.
Why Trust Me
Linda Hwang has extensive experience in B2B marketing and previously worked at a renowned international facilities management company. She played a crucial role in creating effective content and social media marketing plans there. Now, Linda is a marketing consultant who helps small businesses create compelling brand stories.
Mailmodo
Mailmodo injects excitement into email marketing with interactive AMP emails.
Described as the “new-age” email marketing tool that helps you create and send app-like interactive emails to help you get higher conversions and return-on-investments (ROI). Say goodbye to static newsletters and hello to engaging, actionable content that boosts engagement rates and delights subscribers.
With Mailmodo, you can create stunning no-code emails, integrate with 1,000+ tools, segment your audience, trigger customer journeys and automation, improve deliverability and open rates, and so much more—sitting at 4.6 stars on Capterra with 77% of their users likely to recommend the platform.
Mailmodo offers a 21-day free trial. The next plan is Lite, which costs $39 monthly for up to 2,500 contacts.
Flodesk
Flodesk marries elegance with efficiency, offering a flat pricing model that appeals to creatives and entrepreneurs alike.
How much, you ask? $35 per month.
Whether you are a beginner or an expert, you can use Flodesk to grow your business with an intuitive email builder and create beautiful templates you can customize and share.
Flodesk features campaign analytics, scheduling, contact management, event-triggered actions, and landing pages/web forms.
GetResponse
If you’re looking for marketing automation that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, GetResponse may be a good platform.
Like its competitor, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse offers a suite of email marketing tools to deliver tailor-made offers to your contacts when they are most active.
They offer useful features such as autoresponders, unlimited landing pages, and segmentation, along with excellent spam check features to improve the chances of your emails hitting user inboxes.
They also offer good audience segmentation features, allowing you to send better-targeted emails to your subscribers.
On the popular software review site Capterra, GetResponse received 4.2 stars—68% of the users would recommend using the software.
GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial where you have access to premium features. There are some limitations with the free trial, like webinars, messages, landing pages, marketing automation, and chats.
They offer four different plans, with the most affordable starting at $15.60 monthly.
Omnisend
Specializing in e-commerce, providing omnichannel capabilities and automation workflows that turn browsers into buyers, Omnisend is an all-in-one platform making waves.
It's the secret power for online stores aiming to supercharge their sales through targeted, personalized newsletters.
With Omnisend, you can create personalized campaigns, automate your marketing, and analyze your results to optimize your strategy. Omnisend also provides one of the best subject line testers for marketing, providing users with insights to achieve better email performance.
Omnisend offers a free plan for up to 250 contacts with limited capabilities.
The next plan is Standard, which costs $16 monthly and allows up to 500 contacts.
How to Choose the Right Website for Newsletters?
Comparing website platforms for newsletters is challenging. Each platform has strengths, features, and tools to solve specific user problems.
The best tip for choosing the right website for your newsletter is to know your business goals and strategies.
Once you have solidified those goals and strategies, you can consider how they fit with these factors: customization, monetization, user authentication, and customer domains.
Customizing your newsletter or monetizing for growth becomes easier when you have a plan. You can make tweaks to maximize effectiveness in each factor.
Customization
Your newsletter should reflect your brand's soul.
Look for platforms that offer extensive customization options, allowing you to tailor every aspect of your newsletters to resonate with your audience.
Finkel, creator of Books & Biceps, said, “Just like authors spend significant time making sure we get the cover of our books right, newsletter creators have the same chance to make a powerful impression with their landing page and email design,” Finkel says. “The Design Lab makes that possible to do on your own, even if you’re not a great designer.”
Monetization
Different platforms offer various pathways to gold.
Whether through subscriptions, advertisements, or sponsorships, select a platform that aligns with your monetization strategy and helps you achieve your financial goals.
One of the tips creator of Future Social, Jack Appleby, provided was “Monetization: diversifying income streams.”
He shared, “Because [of my background], I am using the advertising model for sure. Since my audience are marketers looking to me to understand how to do social media or branded content, many of the partnerships I pursue are very creative branded content opportunities.”
“What really excites me are the brands I work with, where they want to do very creative executions,” he continued.
From ad placements to affiliate marketing, beehiiv provides various ways for creators to generate revenue from their content.
“We do boosts. We do word-of-mouth. We are active on social media. We are experimenting with our premium subscription, which we started in June,” offered Dave Schools, the creative mind behind Entrepreneurship Handbook.
User Authentication
From Cybersecurity Ventures, it is projected that by 2025, cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually.
Why be part of the statistics?
For newsletter services, user authentication is crucial in safeguarding subscriber data and enhancing trust.
Imagine user authentication as the bouncer at the door of your newsletter service, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive information. This security measure helps prevent unauthorized access, protecting your reputation and subscribers' privacy.
By implementing robust user authentication methods like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and robust password policies, newsletter platforms can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches, bolstering subscriber confidence in your commitment to their security.
Custom Domains
A custom domain acts like your digital signature, instantly recognizable and distinctly yours.
It reinforces brand consistency across all communications and lends an air of professionalism that free domain names simply can't match.
Moreover, emails sent from custom domains are less likely to be flagged as spam, ensuring your carefully crafted messages reach your audience.
If you’re using beehiiv as your platform of choice, you can use your own domain name instead of the beehiiv subdomain. To connect your domain, follow these simple steps:
Log into your beehiiv account.
Go to the ‘Settings’ tab on the beehiiv dashboard.
Click ‘Publications.’
Click ‘Domain.’
Scroll down to ‘Verified Domains’ and ‘Add Custom Domain.’
Enter the domain URL and click ‘Add Domain.’
After you add the domain, you will need to configure a web domain, a redirect domain, and an email domain.
Sounds a little overwhelming?
Well, you’re in luck! beehiiv created a step-by-step video on how to do it.
Final Thoughts
These eleven platforms can help you create websites for your newsletters, making it easier than ever to find a home for your content.
It is also clear that choosing the right platform is pivotal.
Your decision should align with your specific needs, goals, and the unique voice of your brand or business.
Among the stellar platforms we've discussed, beehiiv emerges as a standout contender—especially noted for its monetization capabilities, user-friendly interface, and deep customization options.
“What I loved about beehiiv right away was how simple the interface was. And, I mean, the level of support is fantastic too. beehiiv does everything I need,” said Dakota Robertson, founder of Capital Creators and Wrongs to Write newsletter.
Robertson continued, “I don't need this crazy stuff or these extra features that I just never use. beehiiv is very focused on its users and what they actually care about, and they make it so simple to use, which I love.”
As we look to the future, the landscape of newsletter publishing is ripe with possibilities.
With platforms like beehiiv, creators and businesses have the tools to craft engaging, impactful newsletters that resonate with audiences and drive meaningful engagement.
Ready to elevate your newsletter game?
Sign up for beehiiv today and unlock the full potential of your email marketing strategy.
Don't miss out on the future of newsletter publishing—join beehiiv now and start creating newsletters that genuinely stand out.
What Makes a Website the Best Choice for Newsletters?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook advertising became so solid for advertisers that people relied too heavily on it.
During the pandemic, Facebook made changes to its algorithm that put online advertisers into a frenzy of fear and panic. It became harder for advertisers to reach their audiences, it became more expensive to generate revenue, and profit margins started shrinking.
Who wasn’t phased by the Facebook algorithm changes?
Creators and businesses who diversified their marketing efforts with a newsletter.
How about in April of 2021, when Apple introduced significant changes to its privacy controls through its updates?
When the updates were released, they drastically limited digital advertisers' tracking capabilities. To make things even more challenging for online marketers, iPhone users could now choose to opt out of data sharing.
With these changes and more changes toward privacy controls and data, marketers need a better way to reach their audiences.
That’s why you need a website for your newsletters.
The best newsletter platform balances ease of use with powerful features, offering comprehensive customization options, competitive pricing, and seamless integrations.
beehiiv exemplifies these qualities, providing a user-friendly environment that doesn't skimp on the tools needed for audience engagement and growth.
Are There Any Free Website Options for Newsletters?
The simple answer is—yes.
There are “free” website options for newsletters.
Each of the eleven platforms we listed has free plans or trial periods.
These options often come with certain limitations but can be an excellent way for new users to get acquainted with the platform's features.
How Easy is it to Migrate My Existing Newsletter to a New Platform?
Depending on your platform, migrating your existing newsletter could be as easy as reconfiguring URLs and importing and exporting contacts.
If you’re using beehiiv, you can import content from various other platforms. To do so, you follow these steps:
Log into your beehiiv account.
Go to ‘Settings.’
Click ‘Publication.’
Click ‘Import Content.’
Click ‘Get Started.’
Select which platforms from the list or ‘Other.’
There are a few additional steps for the various platforms, and the instructions will vary depending on your selection.
Once you have imported your newsletter content, you can access it anytime in your beehiiv account under ‘Write’ and then click ‘Post.’
What Kind of Support Can I Expect From the Best Newsletter Websites?
Top-notch newsletter services offer extensive support and resources, including 24/7 customer service, community forums, detailed FAQs, and educational materials.
beehiiv stands out for its responsive and helpful support team, which ensures users have the assistance they need to succeed.
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