Buttondown's a great tool, but it's not for everyone.

Buttondown is a very useful, powerful tool — but it's not meant to be a one-size-fits-all tool. My philosophy in building Buttondown is to focus on doing a few things 

This is often considered antithetical in an industry dominated by venture capital and "meteoric growth or bust" philosophies — which is why I'm fortunate enough for Buttondown to be bootstrapped and sustainably profitable.

Here's a list of some very broad things that Buttondown 

 handle (and has no real plan on handling):

If you're an ultra-sophisticated newsletter pro, you might be familiar with the concept of automated sequences that are roughly of the shape "when a subscriber signs up, send them email A, then a day later send them email B, then after that if they clicked on email B send them email C", and so on.

, but it's not as complex as some of the other tools out there. If you're looking to have these sorts of workflows where you need branching logic, retries, and so on, I'd recommend checking out 

, which allows you to deeply integrate automation into your emails.

A full-featured content management system

Buttondown offers a web archive which keeps track of the emails you've sent and presents them in a clean, stylish manner. However, if you're interested in more 

 publishing tools like block-based editing, WYSIWYG, and deep customization — Buttondown may not be the best tool for you. I'd recommend checking out 

, which offers newsletter & paid subscription functionality on top of their core CMS.

I love open source! But Buttondown is not open source software (though I have some aspirations for it to be.) If you want to use software that you can host yourself and audit the source code, I'd recommend checking out 

, which is self-hosted but requires a pretty reasonable up-front cost.)

Buttondown allows you to attach files, images, and that sort of thing to your emails (and to your concomitant web archives), but that's not quite the same thing as being a full-fledged media host. If you're looking for a place to grow your media presence by gating certain podcast episodes or comics, I'd recommend checking out 

If you're looking for an email solution for your E-commerce store, it's almost 

 a better idea for you to choose an option that's deeply integrated with your store so you can handle things like coupon codes, shopping cart integrations, and so on. 

Buttondown alternatives

Audienceful's strongest asset is its deep integration with Webflow, which makes it an easy choice for authors and businesses already familiar with the Webflow ecosystem. However, there are a couple downsides:

Take a look at our side-by-side comparison below — and also 

check out our guide on connecting Buttondown with Webflow

Audienceful is a great tool, but it's expensive and doesn't allow as much customization as Buttondown.

Audienceful vs. Buttondown

Audienceful

 advertises heavily that they are the first-ever marketing service built exclusively for authors, and this claim is absolutely true! However, it's hard to point to any specific features or integrations they offer that are 

 for authors: their biggest advantage is that they're extremely affordable (if you've got, say, 3000 subscribers — you'll be paying $10.99 there, as opposed to $29/month on Buttondown.)

Beyond the price point, though, it's hard to find strong reasons to recommend their platform, which seems mostly abandoned (their footer mentions that their last update was in 2018 — over half a decade ago!) Their 

Meanwhile, tons of great authors are using Buttondown to stay connected with their audience and focus on the important stuff (aka 

Learn about how Author.Email stacks up against Buttondown for an author looking to grow and engage their audience

Easiest Author Newsletter Tool — Author.Email vs Buttondown

Author.Email

If you're looking for a platform to send emails and grow your newsletter, you've probably come across Beehiiv, the 'newsletter platform built for growth'. They just raised a 

 and have invested heavily in tooling around growth, like:

Buttondown does not have these features; Buttondown will likely 

 have these features. Our goal is to focus on the core making the 

 as easy as possible — which means, of course: support for segmentation through 

, automations for drip sequences and rescue sequences, and a rich API-first developer platform for you to hook up the other apps in your orbit when you need to.

How Beehiiv, the self-proclaimed "newsletter platform built for growth", stacks up against Buttondown

Best Newsletter Tool · Beehiiv vs. Buttondown

Beehiiv

If having a tool with high rates of deliverability is absolutely essential, then it’s best to avoid Benchmark. — 

Benchmark Email is a tool that focuses on small businesses who are interested in making templatized emails with drag-and-drop layouts and ecommerce integration. If that's you — great! They are a really solid tool for the job.

If you're more interested in emails that end up not just in folks' inboxes but read by the subscribers who have trusted you with their email addresses, though, Buttondown offers some more appealing features:

Unlike Benchmark, Buttondown makes sure that emails land in your inbox.

Buttondown vs. Benchmark

Benchmark

Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is a multifunctional CRM tool that focuses on cultivating long-lasting customer relationships. Created in 2012, Brevo, has rapidly risen to the top of the pack. The company promises that its marketing automation and campaign features will provide scaleable growth through connection. Some notable features are:

Brevo is an impressive service with many features though it comes at a steep price which might make it offputting. Like most, Brevo’s pricing is broken down into tiers but gets interesting as it’s broken down.

Let’s say you’re a user with  2,000 subscribers and send weekly emails to your base. Business tier features like marketing automation and send time optimization will cost you $69 monthly. In comparison, these same features at Buttondown will cost you $29 monthly.

Maybe you’re a user who sends daily emails to 10,000 subscribers and takes advantage of Brevo’s multi-user and analytics feature––it will cost you $301 a month versus $139 a month with Buttondown.

If you're running a sophisticated marketing campaign, maybe you need the omnichannel capabilities that Brevo provides — but most people don’t need bells and whistles to make connections and drive growth. Buttondown focuses on providing necessary tools at a reasonable price. Our goal is to focus on the core making the 

 and metadata, automation for drip sequences and rescue sequences, and a rich 

So many options, so little use. Brevo offers loads of tools, but are they all needed for success?

How Buttondown Compares to Brevo

Brevo

Cakemail is a Canadian-based email marketing service with a focus on two main value propositions:

 is reasonable and competitive; Buttondown is a little bit cheaper at most price points, but it is not a dramatic difference.

Cakemail offers some functionality that Buttondown does not, such as automated workflows with complex branching logic for drip campaigns and A/B testing.

However, if you're not interested in those features — which are largely the domain of enterprise use cases — then Buttondown may be a better fit to let you 

quickly and easily set up your newsletter

Cakemail is well-built software that is a good fit for certain use cases. Buttondown is a simpler, more focused product that is a better fit for most people.

Buttondown vs. Cakemail

Cakemail

CampaignMonitor's splash page describes it as an email marketing platform, and that's what it is: a large and powerful tool for eCommerce platforms like the ones it calls out as happy customers: Ripcurl, the Red Cross, and other million-dollar organizations that have entire marketing departments devotes to their tooling.

If that's your use case, then Campaign Monitor is likely a good fit; it offers things like automated "email journeys" and A/B testing behind a hefty price tag. Campaign Monitor's ideal user is a marketer, not a writer.

Buttondown, on the other hand, is a small, elegant tool for producing newsletters.

; the automation acts like the editorial assistant you wish you had, by checking for typos, broken links, or malformed images; the 

 makes it really easy to grow your audience from wherever you host your site.

And then Buttondown gets out of your way. Buttondown's emphasis is on speed and 

 complex featuresets or powerful automation.

Campaign Monitor is a tool that's focused on ecommerce stores with big ad budgets; Buttondown is affordable and polished.

Buttondown vs. Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Refinery is a boutique email service provider focusing on email campaign deliverability. The company prides itself on its exclusive clientele and performance-first platform. Campaign Refinery promises businesses that its tools will provide rapid growth.

Campaign Refinery’s key features include:

Campaign Refinery speaks a lot about how its platform is unique because its email campaign tools prioritize email deliverability and performance. These features are supposed to keep your email lists clean, subscribers engaged, and emails personalized to your audience Of course, performance is an important aspect of email marketing campaigns but isn’t the sole factor to determine a successful campaign. Multiple factors such as engagement and community building are equally important.

Buttondown incorporates features to hit all key points for long-term campaign success. We provide simple, easy-to-use features. We provide an 

 tools. Best of all, Buttondown’s deliverability is among the highest in the industry, and our spam protection is best-in-class.

No matter if you are starting a side hustle or running an enterprise, you deserve exceptional service for an affordable price. Campaign Refinery’s pricing plans are different from most email service providers. A majority of platforms, including Buttondown, base prices on subscriber count. Campaign Refinery bases its prices on email credits. You are allowed an unlimited amount of subscribers and are allotted an amount of credits for each tier. Each email sent is one credit. There are a few caveats to their pricing and credit systems-using certain features cost you more credits. Here is a breakdown:

Campaign Refinery

At Buttondown, we prefer to keep it straightforward. We are here to support you, not drain your wallet or confuse you with credits. You have access to all of our powerful email marketing tools for 

Choosing Buttondown is choosing to put yourself first. We prosper when you prosper which is why we will continue to put your interest first-always.

Which platform works for you in the long-run?

How Buttondown Compares to Campaign Refinery

 Campaign Refinery

Constant Contact is a fully-featured "marketing automation" tool that handles it all: email newsletters, SMS campaigns, ecommerce storefronts, event registration, social media ad management and more.

If you're running a store or venue, Constant Contact might be a better fit for your growing business than Buttondown.

But if all that marketing tooling sounds like overkill, we agree, and that's why we built Buttondown. Our tool is 

 that's perfect for writers and publishers who simply want to 

Even if you're not using Constant Contact's full suite of tools, you'll still be paying a premium for their product. Here's how our pricing compares to Constant Contact (assuming you were to send a single email per week):

Constant Contact

 doesn't even include the most basic features like 

Constant Contact is heavyweight software; it can do a lot, and charges accordingly.

Buttondown vs. Constant Contact

Kit—formerly known as ConvertKit—should be thought of more as automation software than newsletter software; it is for businesses who have complex needs for automated workflows and analytics.

It's also extremely expensive. Kit boasts about their generous free tier ("up to 10,000 subscribers"), but if you want to do 

), you need to jump up to the Creator tier which costs significantly more.

Buttondown allows you to customize and organize your subscribers (through 

 and analytics) while still giving you an 

 and grow your audience. It offers the same 

 that Kit does, while being a more pleasant tool.

Buttondown lets you focus on writing, rather than spending all day working on templates and automation workflows.

Buttondown is lighter, cheaper, and better for starting out.

Buttondown vs. Kit

Kit (ConvertKit)

So — you're looking for a newsletter solution and you're weighing both Curated and Buttondown.

 to be biased with these writeups — there are a lot of great products out there, and we're not going to pretend that Buttondown is the best fit for every use case.

Let's start with the points in Curated's favor:

 need sponsorship management taken care of for you, or if you're extremely price-sensitive — Curated may be the right choice for you.

However! (There's always a however, isn't there?) There are a couple big red flags with Curated:

Buttondown offers the crucial features that Curated lacks to get your newsletter off the ground.

Buttondown vs. Curated

Curated

Direct Mail for Mac is a native app for, well, Macs. If you're dead-set on using a native app, this is the app for you — but you'll be missing out on a number of features and paying a high premium.

Buttondown is a lightweight app that makes it easy to work on your newsletter whenever and wherever you want: from your phone, from your desktop, or even on the go.

 makes it easy for you to start a newsletter without a high budget; you don't need to pay until you've reached a hundred subscribers, as opposed to Direct Mail for Mac.

Lastly, Buttondown's feature set is powerful yet elegant: you can take advantage of 

 to connect your newsletter with all of the services you need.

Direct Mail Mac is useful if you need a native app, but its features & ecosystem is lacking.

Buttondown vs. Direct Mail Mac

Direct Mail Mac

Drip is a tech company that focuses on independent e-commerce shops. The company gathers and organizes customer data, and then enables e-commerce retailers to use that data to make personalized omnichannel customer journeys at scale. Drip believes smaller e-commerce brands deserve the tools to connect with their customers and compete against larger companies. Their goal is to bring corner store vibes to any online shop to give customers a reason to keep coming back.

Drip’s product features are designed specifically to support small e-commerce grow their brand and produce higher conversion rates. This means their platform is ideal for small shops and brands. If you are a tutor, content creator, or freelancer, Drip’s e-commerce-fueled segmentation wouldn’t benefit your goals of growing your mailing list and building a strong community. Even their integrations center around e-commerce companies like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. The analytics and automation tools center around purchase behavior and shop order data.

Buttondown’s platform is made with all brands and companies in mind. Our features hit all key points for long-term campaign success. You shouldn’t need to know how to code to run a newsletter campaign. That’s why we ensured our platform is simple to navigate and has easy-to-use features. We offer an 

 is among the highest in the industry, and our spam protection is best-in-class.

Whether you’re selling your art or your services, you deserve a sophisticated platform at a reasonable price. At Buttondown, we prefer to keep everything transparent and straightforward, especially our prices. Check out how our price plan compares to Drip.

Drip

You are spending your hard-earned money and you deserve to have superior customer support. Choosing Drip, the price is higher for a niche email campaign platform and the level of customer support depends on your plan. Drip customers on the $99/mo+ plans have access to live chat support from 9 am to 5 pm CT, Monday through Friday. At Buttondown, we believe all user's concerns should be prioritized which is why we 

 answer your concerns. You’re never speaking to a bot. You’re talking to a capable human who wants to see your newsletter skyrocket.  

At Buttondown, we prosper when you prosper! We will always put our 

 into making your newsletter succeed. Can Drip say the same?

Which platform will take your newsletter to the next level?

How Buttondown Compares to Drip

EcoSend is an email marketing platform for climate-conscious businesses. The company’s mission is to be the best ESP for the planet, the most sophisticated, and the easiest ESP to use.  It provides all the functionality you need to send email campaigns and newsletters at a reduced cost to the planet. Here are a few of EcoSends’ notable tools:

With EcoSend, you’ll have access to email marketing features such as segmentation, automation, drag-and-drop template builders, and scheduled sending. These features are designed to increase email performance and grow your audience. True to their brand, EcoSend includes your digital carbon emission output metrics alongside your email insight reports. You are also able to show subscribers your climate values. If your top business priority is sustainability, EcoSend could be a good fit.

At Buttondown, we offer similar features and more! Your newsletter will continuously benefit from our 

 with no service fees? You got it. You keep every penny you earn. Want to keep your subscribers engaged? Use our 

to keep the conversation going and build community. Tempted to switch over but don’t want to deal with moving your list? We will 

! Plus, Buttondown’s deliverability is among the highest in the industry, and our spam protection is best-in-class.

We agree that climate change is important. Our continued growth and success shouldn’t come at an ecological cost. That’s why we donate ten percent of Buttondown's profits towards climate projects to ensure that our world will be in a better place next generation than it is today. Read more about our climate mission 

We prefer to keep everything transparent and straightforward, especially our prices. Check out how we compare to EcoSend.

EcoSend

At Buttondown, we aim to make building your newsletter easy, enjoyable, and affordable. Our biggest concern is your long-term satisfaction and success. You won’t find any other ESP more dedicated to your needs than Buttondown.

Is the climate-conscious ESP the best option for your newsletter's growth?

How Buttondown compares to EcoSend

If you're looking to expand your Wordpress publication to include emails, you might have heard of 

, a drag-and-drop email builder that integrates quite nicely with Elementor.

To quote Elemailer directly on that last bit:

With that being said, even with current LTD we can sustain and maintain the product because we don’t have to spend money on maintaining servers (Email) like other marketing plugins/systems and that is our biggest advantage

, and something you absolutely should be aware of before going all in — Elemailer relies on your existing email-sending functionality, which means they cannot guarantee or monitor email performance!

It doesn't matter if your emails are easily designed and cheaply priced if they aren't actually landing in your subscribers' inboxes; Buttondown invests heavily in machine learning and automated systems to make sure that your 

 quickly, accurately, and in a way that guarantees maximum engagement from your user base.

If you're looking for a "ship this quick" solution, Elemailer might be a nice choice; but if you're serious about your newsletter, 

How Elemailer, a Wordpress plugin for emails, matches up with Buttondown

Best Wordpress Newsletter Tool — Elemailer vs. Buttondown

Elemailer

EmailOctopus is a complex, powerful tool, but it lacks some of the most important features that you need when you're building a newsletter.

Buttondown is a more light-weight tool that gives you the same ease of use as EmailOctopus, as well as support for features like:

EmailOctopus lacks crucial features for you to start your newsletter.

Buttondown vs. EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus

Buttondown is simpler and easier to use than Emma.

While Emma offers more features and a more corporate-friendly interface, Buttondown is 

, making it perfect for individual bloggers or small businesses. With Buttondown, you can easily write great newsletters without any fuss, and the automation features take care of all the little things that can trip you up (like typos or broken links).

Emma is more expensive than Buttondown, making it a less viable option for small businesses or individuals on a tight budget. With Buttondown, you get all the features you need for a fraction of the price of Emma.

Buttondown has a portable subscription widget that's easy to install.

 is incredibly easy to install - you just copy and paste a few lines of code into your website, and you're good to go. This makes it really easy to grow your audience from wherever you host your site.

Emma is designed for teams of people who will manage its many features - if you're a small business or an individual blogger, you probably don't have the time or resources to manage all that Emma entails. Buttondown is perfect for those who want an email tool that's easy to use without any complicated bells and whistles.

In short, Buttondown is the perfect tool for anyone who wants an easy-to-use, affordable newsletter builder with great 

 - perfect for small businesses or individual bloggers on a tight budget.

Emma is heavyweight software for industrial or corporate use cases.

Buttondown vs. Emma

Emma

Buttondown is more lightweight and faster than FeedBlitz.

This means that it takes up less of your computer's resources, meaning that you can run it on older machines or even mobile devices. It also means that it will load more quickly for your subscribers. FeedBlitz is notorious for its slow loading times, which can be frustrating for your readers.

Buttondown is more reliable than FeedBlitz.

This means that it is less likely to crash or to experience other technical issues. FeedBlitz has a history of being buggy and unreliable, which can be extremely frustrating for users.

Buttondown is easier to use than FeedBlitz.

 without having to learn complex coding or design tricks. FeedBlitz requires you to know how to use HTML and CSS in order to create professional-looking newsletters, which can be intimidating for some users.

Buttondown offers better customer support than FeedBlitz.

If you experience any problems with the tool, you can easily 

. The FeedBlitz customer support team is notoriously unhelpful, often taking days or weeks to respond to queries.

While both tools offer subscription plans, Buttondown's plans are 

 than those of FeedBlitz. This makes it more affordable for writers and creators of all budgets to use Buttondown's powerful features

FeedBlitz's features and polish don't necessarily stack up to Buttondown's.

Buttondown vs. FeedBlitz

FeedBlitz

Flodesk is a relatively new marketing tool whose main "it factor" is their ability to supply beautiful, visual-heavy emails, particularly for small businesses and creators. If you're looking for extremely visual-heavy emails with 4K photos (say for photography for for a ceramics shop), they're a great option to make sure your emails look visually stunning.

Buttondown has a slightly different approach. Since studies show that visual-heavy emails actually perform 

 than text-heavy ones, Buttondown has focused on making it as easy as possible to both 

 your newsletter and to run it with a balance 

Lastly, depending on your subscriber base Flodesk may either be a bargain or a tough initial sell: they ask for 

 regardless of how many folks you're sending to. For larger newsletters, this is a 

 and most other providers. If you're just starting out, though, that puts them pretty far pricier than the competition (Buttondown included.)

Flodesk's designs are beautiful and their email builder is very strong. Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends.

Buttondown vs. Flodesk

Flodesk

GetResponse has grown to become one of the top email marketing companies in the world. For over 25 years, GetResponse has been dedicated to providing email marketing software tailored to the user’s needs. The company’s marketing has a long list of features to support email marketing campaigns. Here are a few popular tools:

GetResponse offers a multitude of marketing features for a diverse client base. GetResponse offers marketing tools focused on email marketing, e-commerce, and enterprise needs. Their wide range of tools is amazing if you have a deep understanding of marketing. If not, the plethora of offerings can be…overwhelming for the average person. The feature page never seems to end. Their core offerings are AI-generation emails, built-in paid ad creator, landing page creator, conversion funnel, and personalized marketing automation workflows. For someone just starting a newsletter these core tools provide 

While GetResponse offers the entire hardware store, Buttondown is a trustworthy toolkit. Focusing on quality over quantity, we provide robust and simple marketing features made with all brands and companies in mind. You shouldn’t need a marketing degree to create a newsletter campaign. Newsletters aren’t complicated in theory and shouldn’t be in reality. That's why we ensured our platform is effortless to navigate and has easy-to-use features. We offer an 

 tools. Buttondown’s deliverability is among the highest in the industry, and our spam protection is best-in-class. Don’t want to deal with moving your list? We will 

The world is complicated, not newsletters. Which platform gives you what you need to succeed?

Buttondown alternatives

Buttondown's a great tool, but it's not for everyone.

Drip campaigns with branching logic

A full-featured content management system

Self-hosted and/or open source

Podcast or media hosting

Ecommerce

Other options

Anything I missed?