2025

Was a great year for Buttondown. We grew our total number of active users on the platform by x percent, and the number of unique subscribers to whom we’ve sent emails by x percent. Our revenue grew by x percent, and our team has grown by x experts. All of these are nice things to say out loud.

Numbers going up is always fun. But they mean nothing on their own—except that we accomplished all this without compromising on what matters to us, and what matters to you. My stance on data protection and privacy is not just as strong as ever; it’s stronger, thanks to X and Y. We remain cash-flow profitable, which means we don’t need to chase a big fundraising round or pivot to video advertising or social networking.

Because of that, we have the luxury of building exactly what you want us to build. And the flip side is true as well: we owe our continued existence to you—our users. Not just because you find us worth paying for, but because you like us enough to tell your friends, family, and colleagues about Buttondown.

Our competitors have the resources to buy Super Bowl ads and spend millions luring creators onto their platforms. We rely on word of mouth. And that word of mouth works.

Our plans for the coming year are, frankly, a little boring. We’re finishing up our big archive redesign, which will both drastically improve the base design of archive pages and make it easier than ever for you to customize and enhance them—especially for artists who want to give more emphasis to photos and images on Buttondown.

We’re also planning to redesign and relaunch our automations suite to make it less of a chore to set up drip sequences, landing pages to welcome new subscribers, and more. We’re planning on X as well. And on the backend, we’re already deep into two major infrastructural projects.

First, a re-architected database that will make it easier and faster to pull large aggregate datasets for analytics and insights. And second, a complete rebuild of our email-sending infrastructure, so that we no longer need to rely on third-party vendors for last-mile delivery.

All of this is grounded in our conviction that our most important job is to provide exceptional customer service—with no AI chatbot or LLM in sight—and to be a tool that works reliably not just for years, but for decades. We know that for many of you, Buttondown already feels feature-complete, and that every new addition risks detracting, however subtly, from the simplicity you value.

Speaking personally: when I started Buttondown six years ago, I had no idea it would grow in size or ambition the way it has. I’m flattered and honored that I get to work on it every single day alongside a group of people who care just as much about reading and writing as I do.

Thank you for your continued support. We can’t wait to share more with you soon.