What we shipped in 2025
It's become a tradition to look back on the previous year and reflect on what we shipped, what we didn't, and what's next. Let's start with all the stuff we built to make your lives easier, however slightly:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| CAPTCHA | Advanced CAPTCHA to protect signup and forms from automated spam and abuse. |
| CLI | A dedicated command-line interface with bidirectional sync for emails, automations, and images. |
| Configurable firewall | Comprehensive spam and abuse protection with tunable aggressiveness, CAPTCHA support, and smart detection. |
| Dark mode | Full dark mode support for the app and public pages. (complete) |
| Gift subscriptions | Subscribers can purchase paid subscriptions as gifts directly from the subscribe page. |
| Inbox | Integrated test inbox for previewing emails before real subscribers receive them. |
| Localization | App and subscriber-facing pages support multiple languages, with per-newsletter overrides. |
| Managed DNS | Provide a single domain; Buttondown automatically configures both sending and hosting, including Google Postmaster and tracked replies. |
| Playground | Dedicated sandbox for experimenting with automations and templates without affecting live data. |
| Portal | Self-service subscriber portal for managing email, referrals, preferences, and unsubscriptions. |
| Revamped archives | Multiple archive themes and point-and-click controls for custom design, no CSS needed. |
| Rewritten search experience | Much faster and more complete search for authors and subscribers. (complete) |
| Test mode | Safely test automations, campaigns, and subscription flows without contacting real subscribers. |
We did this while scaling up our support and infrastructure, reducing technical debt, and keeping our bug count low (as of this essay, the count is at 12.) There are some thing we didn't get to by the end of the year — faster exports, custom fonts + design tokens, and a bookmarklet — but we'll get to them in 2026, for real this time.
By the numbers
By the numbers, 2025 was a great year for Buttondown. The three most important metrics we look at are consistent usage, outgoing emails, and revenue (how many people use us; how many people are we sending to; how much money are we making). Here's how things shook out:
| Metric | % Change |
|---|---|
| Active authors (sent in last 30 days) | +45% |
| Unique subscribers emailed | +72% |
| Revenue | +61% |
Notable in the above is the fact that authors actually grew faster than we did. This is terrific!
If you're a dork, here are some really inside baseball metrics on the operational side:
| Metric | 2025 | 2024 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Codebase commits | 6,514 | 4,487 | +45% |
| Support tickets answered | 5,247 | 3,906 | +34% |
| Median first response time | 5 hours | 7 hours | -29% |
| Support ticket word count | Over 2.2M | 1.7M | +29% |
Numbers and features are fun for us, but they mean nothing on their own unless done in concordance with our core values. If you're reading this, you likely don't particularly care about our growth — nor may you particularly care about our new features, as the plurality of users (including, perhaps, you!) do not need any of them and merely want Buttondown to do the main thing really well: send emails quickly and reliably, manage subscribers without giving you a migraine. To that end:
| Principle | 2025 Update |
|---|---|
| Data protection and privacy | Our stance on data protection and privacy is not just as strong as ever; it’s stronger, thanks to our insourcing of third-party data services (details) and our evolved stance on AI (our approach). |
| Financial sustainability | We remain cash-flow profitable, meaning we don’t need to chase a big fundraising round or pivot to video advertising or social networking. |
| Open source | We've deepened our open source commitment by releasing additional parts of our core platform and extending our broader open source pledge. |
| Customer service | Our customer support team has grown stronger and more responsive, aiming to provide even better experiences for authors and subscribers. |
| Stability and change management | Frankly, we had too many incidents and breaking changes in 2025. While some were necessary, we're prioritizing stability moving forward by instituting better processes around backwards compatibility and proactively engaging authors whenever major changes—like to CSS or API behaviors—are on the horizon. |
2026 roadmap
Our plans for the coming year are, as ever, a little boring and entirely devoid of plot twists:
| Project | Description |
|---|---|
| Paid subscriptions 2.0 | An embedded checkout experience that doesn't rely on Stripe, plus improved support for esoteric options like per-email/PWYW pricing. |
| Archives 2.0 | Our archives feel as good as our core app to use (and customize). We offer multiple themes to fit our various segments; non-technical authors can customize them without dropping down to CSS. Subscribers have a cohesive experience across all parts of their web experience (reading, subscribing, surveys, comments, paid subs.) |
| Unified imports | A smoother one-step import experience for all data types, including subscribers, emails, and exogenous data. |
| Data 2.0 | Speeding up our three largest data-shaped operations: event-level aggregation for analytics, fuzzy search within a newsletter, and exporting large datasets. |
| Self-hosted SMTP | Email sending is our single biggest unit cost and has also been a supply chain risk given incidents and reputational damage from all of our downstream MTAs; by insourcing this, we can improve performance, reliability, and cost. |
| Automations 2.0 | The automations UI is rebuilt and integrated more deeply into the core app with an eye towards the most common use cases: sync, drip sequences, etc. |
| DNS 2.0 | Rather than a separate hosting and sending domain, we let users just provide a single domain to us, which we manage and spin up both hosting and sending for. In addition, we spin up auxiliary services like Google Postmaster Tools and tracked replies without them having to do anything. |
Okay, we're done with tables now, I promise. It is time to get a little earnest.
The industry in which we build is a unique one: authors have extremely high levels of portability and agency. Every single one of you, if so you wish, could export all of their data and migrate it to one of myriad other options over the course of an afternoon. (In fact, we invest a lot in making that true because you deserve to own your data end to end.)
Every passing day in which you don't do that — in which you continue to invest in us — is a tacit acknowledgement that you find Buttondown valuable enough to keep paying for, and that is not something we take for granted.
Nor do we take for granted the fact that while our competitors have the resources to buy Super Bowl ads and spend millions of dollars luring individuals onto their platforms, we rely simply and merely on word of mouth, on the hope that you find us useful enough to tell a friend or colleague about.
And you do. A lot.
Our growth this year is owed entirely to you: not just because you find us useful, but because you like us enough to tell a friend or colleague about us. This grants us both the luxury and the responsibility of building exactly what you want us to build.
Our work is grounded in a single conviction: that our most important job is to provide continuity and reliability for you and your readers, not just for years but for decades to come.
Speaking personally: when I started Buttondown years ago, I had no idea it would grow in size or scope the way it has. I am flattered and honored that I get to work on it every single day alongside a group of people who care just as much about writing and reading as I do; I am equally flattered and honored that you collectively vote with your hearts and wallets to let us keep doing it.
On behalf of the team — thank you.
(And, as always, if you have anything you wish to tell me, I'm at justin@buttondown.email.)
