Having an email newsletter is like having your own platform with an audience that you own.
With social media, for example YouTube or Instagram they own your audience.
Those platforms can decide whether to show your content to the viewers or not.
Any second they could decide to delete your page or channel and your audience is lost.
But when you have an email list it’s a different story.
All of your audience is able to see what you create because that’s just the way email works.
Also you can move your audience from one newsletter platform to another without much trouble because it’s just a spreadsheet with a bunch of emails.
Moreover, usually what happens when someone signs up for your newsletter is they’ve already consumed some sort of content from you and they know who you are.
This makes monetizing your audience a lot easier.
So the next time you try to sell something to your audience it’s a lot more likely that someone would purchase something through your email newsletter rather than your Instagram story.
With that said here are the best platforms for starting and growing your own email newsletter.
What are the best newsletter platforms?
Email marketing has an average ROI of 3800%.
For every dollar invested, the average return is $38 (Salesforce.com).
That means that building a newsletter is one of the best things that you can do for your online business.
And here are the best newsletter platforms to start with:
- Substack – Best free newsletter platform for creators.
- Sendfox – Best for simplicity and affordability.
- ConvertKit – Best for paid newsletters.
- Stripo – Best for building aesthetic emails for e-commerce.
- Mailchimp – Best free newsletter software for advanced users.
Substack lets independent writers and podcasters publish directly to their audience and get paid through subscriptions.
Best for:
- Content creators.
- Solopreneurs.
- YouTubers.
Best features:
- Ability to have a paid subscription for your newsletter.
- Has an email referral program where readers can recommend your newsletter to new readers and get a gift in return.
- Easy to use interface.
- Substack has its own distribution algorithm.
- Highly customizable.
- Your newsletter page doubles as a website where readers can see your past publication archive.
I think Substack is the best overall platform for content creators and online entrepreneurs to host their email newsletters.
In fact, the reason Substack is the first on this list is that I host my productivity email newsletter on their platform.
Price:
$0/month – it’s free for everyone!
Get started with Substack.
Sendfox lets you set up your newsletter and landing page in minutes and send unlimited scheduled and automated emails
Best for:
- Simplicity
- Affordability
Best features:
- Lets you build landing pages to collect lead contact information (with 0 design skills required).
- Free for the first 1000 email contacts.
- Not subscription-based.
- Simple to use once you get the hang of it.
- Lets you create one-off campaigns and automation sequences with their email templates.
One downside of this software though is that I still haven’t found a way to add a lead magnet to my newsletter landing page.
Price:
$0 for the first 1000 emails and then a $49 single payment to access the rest of the features.
Get started with Sendfox.
ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators that helps you grow and monetize your audience.
Best for:
- Paid newsletters.
- E-commerce newsletters.
Best features:
- Easy to create complex email sequences to introduce new readers to your newsletter.
- Has many free email templates.
- Allows audience segmentation. You can send personalized emails to different types of audience members.
- The free version lets you create unlimited landing pages and forms to build your email list.
- Lets you monetize your newsletter by selling digital products and memberships without any integrations or having to pay.
- Is free if your email list is below 1000.
Price:
$0/month until 1000 subscribers and then starts from $41/month.
Get started with ConvertKit.
Stripo is an email template builder. This software lets you create professional and responsive emails fast with no HTML skills.
Best For:
- Custom marketing emails.
- E-commerce newsletters.
Best features:
- Thousands of email templates, animations & designs to choose from.
- No coding experience is needed to design beautiful-looking emails.
- Integrates well with HubSpot.
- Over 100,000 free stock images and 1,000 prebuilt templates that you can use across your email campaigns.
- Access to interactive elements such as buttons and images.
- Has a drag-and-drop HTML editor.
- Has a free plan that offers 1 user, 4 export, and 5 test emails per day.
Price:
$0 until 4 exports and then starts at $15/month.
Get started with Stripo.
With Mailchimp, you can create and automate journeys for any customer scenario with the full functionality of their Customer Journey Builder.
Best For:
- Solopreneurs.
- Social media businesses.
- More advanced & segmented newsletters.
Best features:
- Has a drag-and-drop email builder.
- Offers many email templates.
- Over 300 app integrations.
- Just like ConvertKit offers audience segmentation.
- Has a free plan for the first 500 emails.
- Is the most popular and widely used email newsletter software.
Price:
$0/month until 500 emails, then starts at $9.99/month and goes up as your newsletter grows.
Get started with Mailchimp.
Was this list of the best email newsletter platforms useful?
Of course, if you’re a content creator or a business owner then newsletter programs are probably not the only thing on your mind.
There are many other tools, apps, and websites that can take your business or side hustle to the next level and double your online income.
That’s why I encourage you to check out some of these cool resources:
How To Make A Legit Website (With 0 Coding)
Best Online Business Ideas To Start With AI ($12,610 / Month)
5 Best AI Content Writing Tools For One-Person Businesses
Thanks for reading 👋!