The Best Apps For Email Newsletters

What if I told you you didn’t have to settle? There is the right one out there for you?

That’s right–there is an email newsletter app out there that will give you the best of both worlds. (When it comes to people though…well, you’ll have to ask someone else).

Choosing an app for your email newsletter can be difficult. It may feel as if each option forces you to settle, giving up some features in exchange for others. There are several options to choose from, and each comes with pros and cons that aren’t always obvious until you start using the app.

Most of the options are not one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, most have chosen to focus on a niche such as e-commerce, creators, or writers.

In this post, we will review those pros and cons, then highlight our favorite app–one that has tools and features suited for any niche or industry. By the end of this article, you will have the confidence to make the right decision for your email newsletter app.

Our Top Pick for the Best Email Newsletter App

beehiiv

Okay, maybe I am a bit biased here, but let me explain.

beehiiv provides a comprehensive newsletter platform complete with a premium ad network, excellent pricing, and best-in-the-industry analytics, with a complete focus on making your newsletter the best it can be.

Pros

beehiiv has a robust set of features that make it the ideal choice for your newsletter app.

• 3D analytics

• Advanced segmentation

• Easy-to-use content management system

• Great monetization options

• Automated email sequences

3D analytics provide incredible insight to your subscribers. The analytics dashboard shows the standard click and open rates but also narrows them down by country. Importantly, they will show you your best-performing acquisition sources so you can spend more of your time marketing your newsletter in the right places.

The segmentation tool allows you to create static, dynamic, and manually generated segments. Static segments are generated one time, dynamic segments are updated daily, and manual segments are uploaded by a CSV file. Segments can be filtered by 18 different filters, each with its own validation checks. No matter what portion of your audience you wish to send to, you’ll find an option to suit your needs here.

The content management system is easy to use – but at beehiiv, easy doesn’t mean basic. The content management system allows you to save templates for reuse in new posts. Writing in the editor is intuitive and allows you to quickly create a captivating newsletter. If you’re working in a team, collaborating within the content management system is a breeze. Here’s a quick guide to content management for you.

You also have excellent options for monetizing your newsletter directly through beehiiv. The best part? beehiiv doesn’t take any fee themselves, so you keep more of your hard-earned money. Stripe does charge their standard 2.9% + 30c transaction fee, but otherwise, your subscription revenue is yours. Use the paywall break or segments to send emails to different tiers of subscribers and help convert more of your audience into paying customers. There is also a premium ad network you can apply for to seamlessly integrate ad placements into your newsletter.

beehiiv cares about your newsletter success, and they prove it by helping you get into your subscriber’s inboxes. Ensuring the best possible deliverability of your newsletter is a top priority. In fact, Tyler Denk, our beehiiv CEO, has covered the topic of email deliverability in a post here, where he also breaks down exactly how beehiiv excels in this area.

Cons

Currently, beehiiv supports automated email sequences with its scale plan. If you are just starting out without any upfront investment in your newsletter, that could be an issue.

beehiiv supports custom templates for your newsletter design but you can’t import templates to the platform right now.

Other Great Options For Your Email Newsletter App

Want to check out the competition? Great idea. There are several more good options for email newsletter apps. From beehiiv, to Mailchimp, to Convert Kit, there is definitely an option out there that will help take your newsletter to the next level. Here are just a few of the main contenders.

Mailchimp

Best for email automation

Mailchimp is a marketing giant and has many services under one roof. Its size works as both a pro and a con.

Mailchimp’s focus is certainly not newsletters. They are an email marketing service that happens to include newsletter functionality as a part of that service.

The size of the brand means they can offer landing pages, A/B testing, and segmentation–all key features in an email newsletter app. They are also able to offer automated email sequences which are, arguably, their bread and butter.

Mailchimp’s versatility comes at a significant cost though–a cost that will penalize and potentially limit your email sends as you grow.

The Mailchimp marketing platform’s pricing for up to 10,000 contacts will cost you $135 per month for the standard plan, or $350 for the premium plan. These plans will limit you to 120,000 or 150,000 emails sent per month, respectively. If you’re planning on sending a daily newsletter, you would blow through these caps in the 3rd week of the month.

Compare that to beehiiv’s premium Scale Plan, where you would only pay $84 per month paid annually. This plan will cover up to 100,000 subscribers, and unlimited email sends to your audience.

Convert Kit

Best for creators - musicians, podcasters, and authors

The Convert Kit platform focuses its app on creators. They are a direct competitor to Mailchimp, offering landing pages and email marketing automation.

Unlike Mailchimp, Convert Kit does offer the ability to set up a paid newsletter. Convert Kit’s newsletter product also has a focus on creators by offering the ability to set up sales funnels to pitch subscribers on a product or service.

Convert Kit integrates with Stripe to accept payments for products listed within the newsletter. They charge a slightly increased rate for this service, at 3.5% + 30c as a transaction fee.

The biggest concern with choosing Convert Kit as your newsletter app is its pricing. The pricing scales very quickly, in a similar fashion to Mailchimp.

They do have a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers–but after that it’ll cost you $25 per month for 1,000 subscribers on their basic Creator Plan. By the time your list has 8,000 subscribers, you’ll be paying $83 per month for their Creator Plan or $116 per month for the Creator Pro plan.

Substack

Best for writers

Substack is a streamlined newsletter-only app. It has a minimalistic interface–which, if your focus is on writing only, is a positive for most writers.

One of Substack’s best features–one beehiiv has also taken inspiration from–is recommendations. This feature allows one newsletter to endorse another on the platform, which can be mutually beneficial to both newsletters in helping them grow.

Substack allows writers to create free, paid, or hybrid newsletters where only some content is behind a subscription. The app is free to use but charges a substantial fee for subscriptions.

The fee on subscriptions is the biggest downside to Substack. They charge a 10% fee and also have the 2.9% + 30c transaction fee from Stripe.

Drip

Best for e-commerce

If you’re running an e-commerce business, you will want to consider Drip for handling your newsletter.

Drip is an all-in-one marketing solution for e-commerce. The platform handles automated email sequences using advanced segmentation which allows for increased personalization in your emails.

If you’re running a stand-alone newsletter, or a business in any other niche, however, Drip is not going to be for you. The entire platform is designed to integrate with e-commerce stores, and each feature has been built with e-commerce in mind.

Pricing for Drip starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people, then scales for every 500 subscribers from there.

Best Free Email Marketing App (Getting Started)

We created beehiiv to be the best newsletter app available. You only need to look at newsletters like The Milk Road, Exec Sum, and Payload to see the potential for success with our app.

Getting started with beehiiv is a simple process, and you will be up and running in minutes.

Getting Started With beehiiv

Head to beehiiv’s website and click the Get Started button in the upper right-hand corner, or the Start a Newsletter button in the middle of the page. After clicking the button, you will see the following page.

After registration with your email, you’ll be taken through a simple process of choosing your newsletter’s name, free beehiiv subdomain, description tags, colors, and logo.

Once that is complete, all that’s left is to write your content and find people to subscribe to your newsletter. We help you with that as well with our recommendations feature and embeddable sign-up forms.

beehiiv’s Pricing Tiers - Amazing Free Plan

beehiiv has a best-in-the-industry forever free plan that allows you to grow up to 2,500 subscribers and send unlimited emails to all of them.

You can also take comfort that when your newsletter does take off, you won’t be punished for scaling. The Grow and Scale plans beehiiv offers have limits of 25,000 and 100,000 subscribers respectively - and unlimited email sends.

What Makes beehiiv The Best Free Email Newsletter App?

beehiiv has a robust set of features entirely focused on growing your newsletter.

I use beehiiv for my own newsletter, currently in the proof-of-concept stage, on the free Launch plan. Having the ability to quickly put together a newsletter from a saved template allows me to create my weekly curation newsletter in about an hour.

I have all of the features I need available to me, including open rates, click-through rates, and what links are getting clicks in each newsletter sent. This has allowed me to zero in on what type of content my subscribers want to interact with and is helping me create a better newsletter for my audience.

Best Email Marketing App (Closing Thoughts)

Ultimately, to choose the best app for your newsletter you will need to decide what features are most important to you and what your vision is for your newsletter over the long term.

There are great options for you to choose from. The best part about healthy competition–it drives innovation. There are subtle differences between the major newsletter apps, though, and you will need to decide what makes each one the right choice for your business.

Start with the app that makes the most sense for your newsletter today. You can always migrate over to another service later if your plans change. We are confident that beehiiv will provide your newsletter with the best opportunity to grow, with the best features, at an extremely competitive price. Get started with your free launch plan today and come see what all the hype is about.