Newsletter - what platform to choose?

What do you need to know before you start...

• what do you need - eg simple way to send newsletters, autoresponders, segmentation, Integration with other tools, curation tools, visual builder, custom domain, paid subscriptions, landing pages built in etc
• what constraints do you have - price is normally a big factor for people starting out or not running a newsletter for profit

What platform is the best for newsletter creators...

• I don’t think there is a “best” platform. There’s similar functionality across most of the main ESPs. Differences in price and whether some of the bloat is required (eg some would say Mailchimp tries to do too much). Revue and Substack being slightly different but lacking in some of the functionality of other ESPs (depends in what you need).

Why did you choose it...

• I use Mailchimp. I’ve used it since 2015. It was easy to get started with it, newsletters were simple to create and looked good. No problem doing custom domains and authenticating them. It was free to get going. They’ve added tons more functionality since then but none of it relevant to me - some people don’t like that but I don’t even notice and just follow my own workflow. It’s at the more expensive end but it’s solid (huge company).

What don’t I like...

• There isn’t really anything I don’t like. It works well for me.

Any questions, feel free to ask

The first decision you have to take is whether you need a marketing-oriented platform with features such as automation and user segmentation, like MailChimp or MailerLite, or an editorial newsletter platform like Substack or Revue.

I use Revue and I explained why in a blog post. I elaborated on my publishing process in another post. In those posts I wrote about what I like of Revue. What I don't like:

• no https support for custom domains
• no option for scheduling issues according to the recepient's timezone
• missing features (inactive users management is under redesign and unavailable)
• bugs (generating issue thumbnails for Twitter posts is broken, thumbnail generation in the issue archive works in an unpredictable way)