3 best email newsletter platforms for solopreneurs and creators (+10 alternatives!)

A newsletter is a great way to connect with your audience, but if you’re a solopreneur or creator, you need more than just a newsletter. You need a way to turn your subscribers into customers, build an engaged community around your work, and grow your business.

Most posts about the “best newsletter platforms” focus on email tools alone. And while that’s important, email is just one piece of the puzzle. If you’re building a business, you need a platform that helps you do more without juggling multiple tools or paying for extra software.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Why it’s important to choose an email newsletter platform that also supports your business

• Three top choices for email newsletters that help you grow and monetize your audience

• Ten more solid newsletter platforms for solopreneurs and creators

With the right newsletter tool by your side, you’ll have the flexibility to grow, monetize, and evolve your business on your terms.

You need more than just a newsletter. Here’s why.

Email is a powerful tool, but it’s rarely the whole business. To grow your audience and generate income, you need an email newsletter platform that also helps you:

• Get discovered through your website, blog, and SEO

• Turn visitors into subscribers with lead magnets, landing pages, and sign-up forms

• Sell digital products like courses, memberships, and downloads

• Scale your business with marketing tools like coupons, upsells, and affiliates

When your platform gives you more than just email, you have options. You can go all in on a paid newsletter, use your list to promote your blog and social content, launch new courses and products, or experiment with different revenue streams — all without switching platforms every time you want to try something new.

Instead of outgrowing your tools, you have the flexibility to build your business however you want.

Not every email newsletter tool includes every feature above, and that’s okay. The key is finding one that fits your goals. That’s why this guide covers both all-in-one platforms that help you build a business and simple newsletter tools that keep email front and center.

If you want a platform that gives you options, our top picks are Podia, Kit, and Mailchimp. Each offers tools to help you grow your audience, send great newsletters, and build a business you love.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes these three platforms stand out. Then in the next section, we’ll cover 10 additional email newsletter tools that could also work for you.

Top 3 platforms for email newsletters: Podia, Kit, Mailchimp

Podia — best all-in-one platform for building your newsletter and online business

Podia is an all-in-one platform where you can run your email marketing alongside your website, blog, online courses, digital products, and everything else you do in your business. Podia is designed to help you build a system around your work, so you can:

• Find new customers with a customizable and SEO-friendly website and blog

• Bring them onto your email list with lead magnets, email sign-up forms, and landing pages

• Nurture them with email marketing through automated campaigns and welcome sequences

• Send as many newsletters as you like using the easy email editor and template library

• Sell products like courses, downloads, webinars, coaching, community, and bundles

• And scale your work as you go with upsells and affiliate marketing

Podia has your email marketing and email newsletters built into the same tool where you do everything else, so you don’t have to worry about any additional integrations. All plans come with unlimited email sends, and your first 100 subscribers are free. After that, you only pay for what you need as your list grows.

All Podia Email plans come with:

• Beautiful email templates

• Make your own email newsletter templates

• Unlimited newsletters

• Audience segmentation and tagging

• Automated campaigns

• Unlimited lead magnets and opt-in forms

• Landing pages

Plus, Podia also has one-click blog post emailing. Whenever you publish a blog post, you can click to have it automatically sent to your email audience too. You can customize the blog post emailing template so it looks exactly the way you like, and this way, your members can easily see what new content you’re publishing.

You can also set up a paid newsletter by creating a digital product, setting the price you’d like to charge, and then sending your premium newsletter content only to the people who have previously purchased that product.

Podia automatically keeps track of who has what product so you can filter your subscribers and send. You can also generate a link to each of your previous newsletters to share on your website if you’d like to give people a preview of your work.

That’s one way Daniele from Swiss Innovation Academy prompts his newsletter on his landing page, which is also linked in the header of his website.

How does it help me build a business?

With Podia, you have all the features you need to set up a successful business around your email newsletter. You can create systems and sales funnels to get new subscribers on autopilot, and you have lots of options for products and services to offer those customers. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about setting anything up behind the scenes since it’s already connected for you, so you can focus on building a business you love.

Podia pricing

• Mover Plan ($39/month or $33/month billed annually): Includes your website, online store, blogging, landing pages, and unlimited products (courses, downloads, coaching, memberships, webinars, and community plans). 5% transaction fees.

• Shaker Plan ($89/month or $75/month billed annually): Offers all features in the Mover Plan plus affiliate marketing. No transaction fees.

All Podia plans come with full email marketing features (including newsletters) free for up to 100 subscribers. After that, you’ll only pay more as your list grows.

Here’s a look at some of the Podia Email pricing tiers:

• Up to 500 subscribers: $9/month or $7/month paid annually

• Up to 1500 subscribers: $17/month or $13/month paid annually

• Up to 2500 subscribers: $25/month or $20/month paid annually

• Up to 5000 subscribers: $42/month or $34/month paid annually

Again, all plans come with all email features. The only difference is the size of your list. Podia also has integrations with popular email marketing tools if you prefer, but we hear time and time again that running everything in one place keeps things simple.

Pros: Your email newsletter is already connected to your website, blog, and digital products. You can segment and message your audience based on what products they have or haven’t purchased, what opt-in form they used, and any other metric in your account. Podia keeps track of all that for you, so you don’t have to set up an elaborate web of tags. You can also send unlimited emails on all plans.

Cons: Podia has a point-and-click newsletter and website builder, so it won’t be the best fit if you want to edit the code or HTML of your messages.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — free newsletter with landing pages and lead magnets

Kit is an email marketing and newsletter tool that also has helpful features for growing your business. You can choose from their premade newsletter templates or create one of your own and use segments and tags to email certain subsets of your audience.

Kit also comes with landing pages and forms to make free lead magnets and email sign-up pages, and you can embed your forms into your existing website. You can also set up a creator profile with public-facing posts (your newsletters, but in blog format) and a list of links.

On the automations front, Kit has a visual automation builder where you can build as many custom automations as you want on the Creator and Creator Pro plans. You’re limited to just one basic automation on the Newsletter plan.

Kit also comes with monetization features built in, like the ability to sell digital products, run a paid newsletter, or accept donations. You also have the option to get paid for promoting other creators or newsletters if you’re on the Creator or Creator Pro plans. They charge a 3.5% + 30c transaction fee on all sales earned through the platform.

How does it help me build a business?

Kit has lots of different monetization options that revolve around email, and there are built-in features where you can earn money for promoting other people or pay to be promoted in other newsletters. Kit also lets you set up unlimited landing pages and forms with lead magnet delivery to grow an audience for your business.

Kit pricing

Like most email platforms, Kit pricing goes up as your list grows. This is where the pricing starts if you have 1,000 email subscribers.

• Newsletter Plan (Free): Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages and opt-in forms, send unlimited email broadcasts.

• Creator Plan ($29/month, $290/year): Price for up to 1000 subscribers, unlimited visual automations, email sequences, additional users, free and paid recommendations.

• Creator Pro Plan ($59/month, $590/year): Price for up to 1000 subscribers, all Creator Plan features, subscriber scoring, newsletter referral system, advanced analytics, and priority support.

Pros: Kit has good features for building an audience (landing pages, sign-up forms, lead magnet delivery) and monetization (paid newsletters, digital products, earn from ads). You can also use their basic newsletter feature for free for up to 10,000 subscribers.

Cons: Compared to other tools, Kit’s pricing gets expensive as your list grows. While you can build your newsletter for free for up to 10,000 subscribers, the catch is that you automatically must include space to recommend other creators on your forms and in your newsletters. This can be distracting for your subscribers since it diverts attention away from your work.

Mailchimp — free newsletter with website but no monetization tools

Mailchimp is often one of the first tools people find when they get started with email marketing because there’s a free plan. You can use Mailchimp for free for up to 500 contacts, and you can send a maximum of 1,000 emails per month on that plan.

While it’s nice to be able to start for free, 1,000 emails per month is pretty low if you’re close to that 500-contact limit, especially if you want to send a weekly newsletter. So for sending regular newsletters, you’ll likely need the Essentials or Starter plan.

Mailchimp has a website builder and landing page tool so you can create a place to attract new people to your email list. You can also unlock automations, segmentation, and A/B testing on higher-tier plans.

But there are no digital products or payment processing, so if you want to charge for your newsletter, create a paywall, or sell downloads, courses, etc., you’ll need integrations and third-party tools.

How does it help me build a business?

You can get started for free and send occasional emails (no more than 1,000 per month) to up to 500 subscribers on the free plan. You can also use the website tool and landing page builder to create sign-up forms for growing your list. There are also social media features so you can share content with your social channels too.

Mailchimp pricing

This is where pricing starts if you have 500 email subscribers, and prices go up as your list grows.

• Free Plan (Free): Up to 500 contacts, 1,000 monthly email sends (500 daily limit), basic email templates, single-step automation, surveys, and basic reporting.

• Essentials Plan ($13/month, $156/year): Up to 500 contacts, 5,000 monthly email sends, all Mailchimp templates, A/B testing, multi-step customer journeys, 24/7 email and chat support.

• Standard Plan ($20/month, $240/year): Up to 500 contacts, 6,000 monthly email sends, custom email templates, advanced segmentation, behavioral targeting, send time optimization, 24/7 email and chat support.

• Premium Plan ($350/month, $4,200/year): Starts at 10,000 contacts, 150,000 monthly email sends, all Standard Plan features plus multivariate testing, advanced segmentation, predictive analytics, priority customer support, and unlimited audiences.

If your plan’s contact or email send limit is exceeded, you will have to pay overages (except for the Free plan, where sending will be paused until the next monthly plan cycle).

If you want to use Mailchimp’s website feature, there could be an extra add-on fee.

• Free: All website features except for custom domains and live chat support

• Core: ($10/month): All website features including the ability to connect a custom domain and live chat support

Pros: You can set up your email marketing and website in the same place, which makes it easier to keep everything connected. Mailchimp is a relatively common tool in the online business world so there’s a good chance it will integrate with other platforms in your stack.

Cons: There are no monetization features, so you’ll need other tools to make money off your list. There are also email send limits on all plans, contact limits on all plans, and connecting a custom domain for your website is an extra $10/month. If you go with the free plan, you only get email support for the first 30 days.

10 more great email newsletter tools for small business owners

There are about a million ways to make an online business, so of course, not every tool will be right for every person. Here are 10 more newsletter tools you can check out for even more options.

Ghost — website and newsletter platform for bloggers

Ghost is a blogging and email newsletter tool where you can set up a website as well as free, subscriber-only, and paid articles. It’s best for those who want to primarily monetize through paid newsletters and paywalled blog content.

Ghost also has nice website templates that are fully customizable so you can make your site and blog look however you like. That said, there aren’t other product types, so you’ll need another tool for courses, webinars, downloads, and communities.

Ghost pricing

These are the starting prices for each Ghost plan. The pricing goes up as your list of free and paid members grows.

• Starter ($11/month or $9/month billed annually for 500 members): 1 newsletter, 1 team seat, 1 premium tier, 5mb file uploads.

• Creator ($31/month or $25/month billed annually for 1,000 members): 3 different newsletters, 2 team seats, 5 premium tiers, 100 mb file uploads.

• Team ($63/month or $50/month billed annually for 1,000 members): 10 different newsletters, 10 team seats, unlimited premium tiers, 250mb file uploads.

• Business ($249/month or $199/month billed annually for 10,000 members): Unlimited newsletters, team seats, and premium tiers, 1GB file uploads.

Beehiiv — newsletter platform with sponsor network and boosts

Beehiiv includes your website, newsletter, and email list. You can create your article once, post it to your blog, and send it out to your email subscribers. You can charge for newsletter access and create different publications around different topics.

Something that makes Beehiiv unique is that you can also monetize through their ad network or Boosts system. With the ad network, you can get paid for displaying sponsor ads in your newsletters, and with boosts, you can pay other creators to promote you in their newsletters.

There is a free plan so you can get started without upfront costs, but all monetization features are only available on the Scale plan and up, so you won’t be able to earn with ads, boosts, or paid newsletters until you upgrade.

Beehiiv pricing

• Launch Plan (Free): Up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited email sends, website, up to 3 publications, audience segmentation.

• Scale Plan ($43/month, $517/year): Pricing for 1000 subscribers. All Launch Plan features plus access to the ad network, boost network, paid subscriptions, email automations, referral program, and support for up to 3 team members.​

• Max Plan ($96/month, $1,151/year): Pricing for 1000 subscribers. Includes all Scale Plan features, removes Beehiiv branding, unlimited team members, and up to 10 publications.

The free plan is available for up to 2,500 subscribers, and the Scale and Max plans both start at the prices listed above for 1,000 subscribers. The prices go up as your list grows.

Substack — blogging and newsletter subscription tool

Like Ghost and Beehiiv, Substack is a paid newsletter tool where you can publish free content or gate your articles so only subscribers can see them. You write your articles and publish them on your Substack page, and if you set them to public, anyone can read them. Substack will add sign-up pop-ups and inline forms throughout the content to encourage readers to join your list, and you can create free and paid membership tiers.

Substack has limited customizations and few branding options, but the plus side is that you’ll be able to get started fast. All you need to do is sign up, add your content, and start sharing. All Substack publications have a similar look and feel, but this might be fine for you if you just want to put up your blog posts, send them to your newsletter list, and go.

Substack pricing

• Substack is free to use, but they charge a 10% transaction fee on all income you earn through the platform.

MailerLite — Email newsletter with website and digital products

MailerLite is an email service provider with your website, email list, and landing pages. On higher plans, you can sell digital products and add a blog. All paid plans come with unlimited landing pages and email sends.

There’s a free tier which is nice for getting started, but the free plan doesn’t include blogging or any website templates, and you’re limited to 10 landing pages. Free plan members only get email and chat support in their first 30 days.

MailerLite pricing

• Free Plan (Free): Up to 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 monthly email sends, 1 user seat, website, automations, 10 landing pages, and email & chat support for the first 30 days.

• Growing Business Plan ($10/month, $108/year): Price for 500 subscribers, unlimited email sends, 3 user seats, ability to sell digital products, blogging, unlimited landing pages.

• Advanced Plan ($21/month, $226.80/year): Price for 500 subscribers, unlimited user seats, 24/7 live chat & email support, smart sending, Facebook integration, custom HTML editor, promotion pop-ups, enhanced automations.

Flodesk — Nice newsletter templates and unlimited subscribers

Flodesk is an email tool that’s known for having nice email templates. They offer two plans — an email marketing plan that includes unlimited email sends and subscribers, and an email marketing + ecommerce plan that also comes with sales pages, payment processing, and digital product delivery.

The nice thing about Flodesk is that all plans include as many subscribers as you want and unlimited email sends. You can use their templates to create artsy and unique-looking newsletters too.

That said, there isn’t a paid newsletter feature built-in, nor is there a blog or website tool, so you’ll need to attach these tools separately. If you want to share your content as a blog post and in a newsletter, you’ll need to copy it over manually. But for making newsletters directly in the app, Flodesk has a lot of design options.

Flodesk pricing

• Free Plan (Free): Access to forms, landing pages, and link-in-bio tools.

• Email Marketing Plan ($38/month, $35/month paid annually): Unlimited emails, unlimited subscribers, audience segmentation, templates, and custom domains.

• Email Marketing Plan + Ecommerce ($64/month, $59/month paid annually): Unlimited sales pages, payment processing, checkout flows, online payments, and instant product deliveries. (Ecommerce is an add-on that you can use with an Email Marketing plan.)

Constant Contact — digital marketing and email tool with social media and SMS features

Constant Contact is an email and digital marketing tool where you can stay in touch with your audience. There’s an email builder and lots of templates, and you can integrate with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other selling platforms if you’d like to get customers onto your email list.

One nice feature that Constant Contact has on the Standard plan and up (starting at $35/month), is that you can set up a newsletter archive. Constant Contact will provide links to your last 100 email newsletters that you can embed on your website if you want to share examples of your past work. There are also SMS messaging and social media scheduling features built in.

On the flip side, Constant Contact doesn’t have paywalls, paid newsletters, or paid subscriptions, but you can use integrations to get these features if you like. There are also subscriber, storage, and send limits on all plans, and you’re limited to the number of segments you can make on the Lite and Standard plans.

Constant Contact pricing

Constant Contact charges based on email subscriber number, and the prices jump up quite a bit as your list grows. Here’s where they start if you have up to 500 subscribers on your list:

• Lite ($12/month): For up to 500 subscribers, includes 1 user, 1GB storage, 1 custom segment, and 10x subscriber count email sends.

• Standard ($35/month): For up to 500 subscribers, includes 3 users, 10GB storage, 10 custom segments, and 12x subscriber count email sends.

• Premium ($80/month): For up to 500 subscribers, includes unlimited users, 25GB storage, and 24x subscriber count email sends, custom automations, and unlimited segments.

AWeber — Email marketing with automations and templates

AWeber is an email marketing and automation tool with a drag-and-drop email newsletter builder, customizable theme settings, and campaign automation. You can customize your emails with audience personalization and create custom segments on higher-tiered plans.

There are limits on the Free and Lite plans, so if you want to use segmentation (beyond one segment) or make lots of different landing pages and automations, you’ll need the Plus plan which costs $30/month for 500 subscribers. All plans have send limits, and even though they’re pretty high so you likely won’t bump up against them, it’s a bit strange to have an “unlimited” plan that still limits email sends.

AWeber also lacks monetization tools so you’ll need to connect with another platform to charge for newsletter access or integrate with your products/course tool if you want to keep track of who has what product.

AWeber pricing

• Free: Up to 500 subscribers, 3,000 email sends per month, 1 email list, 1 landing page, 1 email automation.

• Lite ($15/month or $12.50/month billed annually): Price for 500 subscribers, email sends limited to 10x subscriber count, 1 email list, 3 landing pages, 3 email automations, 1 custom segment.

• Plus ($30/month or $20/month billed annually): Price for 500 subscribers, email sends limited to 12x subscriber count, unlimited email lists, landing pages, automations, and segments.

• Unlimited ($899/month): Unlimited subscribers, 15x subscriber count email sends, and unlimited landing pages, email lists, automations, and segments.

Benchmark — email newsletters that integrate with Shopify

Benchmark has a drag-and-drop email builder that lets you create email newsletters and automations for your business. There are pre-made email templates, and you can set up landing pages and sign-up forms to grow your list. If you sell products online through Shopify, you can also connect Benchmark with your Shopify ecommerce store to feature your products.

One thing to pay attention to with Benchmark is that there are contact limits, form limits, and send limits on both the Free and Pro plans. Plus, Benchmark doesn’t have monetization features or your website built in, so you may need other tools for this.

Benchmark pricing

• Free: Includes up to 500 contacts and 3,500 emails per month, 1 sign-up form, and reports.

• Pro ($15/month or $13/month paid annually): Price for 500 contacts, 7,500 email sends per month, 25 sign-up forms, email automations, landing pages, A/B testing.

• Enterprise: For lists of 25,000 or higher, unlimited sign-up forms, send-based pricing.

MailPoet — Email marketing WordPress plugin

MailPoet is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add email marketing and newsletters to your existing WordPress website. It comes with email newsletter templates, sign-up forms, and basic marketing automations. Plus, you can connect it with WooCommerce if you want to send emails based on what people have purchased.

MailPoet doesn’t have its own checkout or monetization features, but it’s a solid choice if you’re already using WordPress for your business and just need to add email.

MailPoet pricing

This is the MailPoet pricing for a list of 500 subscribers. The price goes up on the Business and Agency plans as your subscriber count grows.

• Starter (Free for up to 500 subscribers): Includes up to 5,000 email sends per month, sign-up forms, and basic email marketing automations.

• Business ($10/month or $9/month billed annually): Price for 500 subscribers, includes unlimited email sends, segmentation, and targeted marketing automations.

• Agency ($30/month or $26/month billed annually): Price for 500 subscribers, includes everything on Business but you can use MailPoet on 50 websites (good for web design professionals).

Moosend — Simple email marketing without monetization features

Moosend is a simple email marketing tool where you can build landing pages and sign-up forms for your list. All plans come with unlimited email sends and the ability to set up automated emails, and the pricing is based on the number of contacts you have.

For sending newsletters, Moosend has templates you can customize, or you can build from scratch. There are also email segmentation and automation features built in. Moosend is all about email, so it’s a good option if you already have a tool for your website, digital products, blog, and other business features. There isn’t payment processing built in, so you’ll need to use an integration if you want to charge for newsletter access.

Moosend pricing

• Pro ($9/month or $7/month paid annually): Price for 500 contacts, includes unlimited email sends, landing pages, email automations, and sign-up forms.

There are also Plus and Enterprise accounts if you need additional features like transactional emails and SSO. These prices aren’t publicly listed.

What’s the best newsletter platform for my solo business?

No matter what kind of business you’re building, the right email platform should support your growth. To recap, here are all 13 newsletter platforms and what they’re best for:

• Podia — best all-in-one platform for building your newsletter and online business

• Kit — free newsletter with landing pages and lead magnets

• Mailchimp — free newsletter with website but no monetization tools

• Ghost — website and newsletter platform for bloggers

• Beehiiv — newsletter platform with sponsor network and boosts

• Substack — blogging and newsletter subscription tool

• MailerLite — email newsletter with website and digital products

• Flodesk — nice newsletter templates and unlimited subscribers

• Constant Contact — digital marketing and email tool with SMS features

• AWeber — email marketing with automations and templates

• Benchmark: email newsletters that integrate with Shopify

• MailPoet: email marketing WordPress plugin

• Moosend: simple email marketing without monetization features

If you’re still on the fence, we’d love to show you what Podia can do. Start your 30-day free trial to set up your website, blog, and email newsletters, as well as your first digital products. Your first sale could be right around the corner.

Whether you need an all-in-one solution or a simple newsletter tool, choosing the right fit means you can focus on what matters most: creating, connecting, and building a business you love.