Welcome to issue #019 of Insideletter!
Each week, I share 2–3 editions in which I share the exact way to build a newsletter business to £10K a month.
Hey, my friend,
Sorry, I couldn’t send you an edition on Tuesday because I went to meet with one of my early-stage mentors.
And I couldn’t get the time, maybe I could send something, but that’s not our work.
Well, today let’s talk about which platforms to choose for your newsletter.
I see people are asking this every day, and I think I should address this.
Platform #3
I’d keep Substack at the bottom
Because Substack is becoming a creator platform, it’s not just a newsletter platform.
Pros:
Organic growth - The organic growth is THE best in 2025. Substack distributes the content on its own. That’s why I’ve started insideletter on Substack.
Easy to use - Substack is very, very easy to use, even if you have never used Substack, you can still understand what to do and how.
Free - Substack is totally free. You only pay a 10% commission when you get paid subscribers.
Features - Substack has it all: podcast, video, blog, Everything you need to become a creator.
Cons:
Support - Substack has a rubbish AI bot which keeps asking you the same question, and it’s very hard to listen back to the team. Worst support, or we can say no support at all.
Paid subs - It takes 10% per subscriber, which is, of course, a lot, but with respect to the features and no upfront fees, it seems to be okay.
Advanced email features - Substack is lacking in subscriber segmentation, personalised emails, and advanced automation.
SEO - it lacks advanced functionalities like XML sitemaps and in-depth meta tag controls.
Monetisation restrictions - Substack is designed for subscription-based content, but it doesn’t offer an ad network like Beehiiv.
Too hard to subscribe - Substack has 4 pages before you finally see the content, which is the reason for to lower retention rate.
Platform #2
I’d prefer Kit in the No. 2. Kit has been in this space for a long time. Earlier, it was just an email tool, but later, they reshaped it as a newsletter tool too.
Pros:
UX & UI - Kit has the best UI and UX in the industry, nothing can compete with it.
Advanced Tagging and Segmentation - ConvertKit allows you to perform detailed segmentation of subscribers based on behaviour, engagement, and other factors
Free plan - Kit allows you to have 1000 subscribers for free in the email plan, but when it comes to the newsletter, it’s 10,000 for free. Damn!
Monetisation - ConvertKit offers features including selling digital products, subscriptions, and setting up affiliate marketing within emails.
It also has a "tip jar" option, which allows your subscribers to support you.
Cons:
Pricing - Kit is costlier than any other newsletter platform.
Design limitations - Kit has pre-built templates, but sadly, you can’t customise it enough.
Overwhelming - If you’re new to this game, then it might be overwhelming for you.
Platform #1
I’d keep Beehiiv as the No. 1 because it was made for the newsletter purpose only. The founders of Beehiiv are the ones who built Morning Brew.
And later they thought of building a newsletter ecosystem, and here we go.
Pros:
Ad network - You can make money by running ads, and for that, you don’t need to go outside. beehiiv has the feature built in.
Boost - If you wish to run ads and grow your subscribers, then you can fix the CPC, and it will help you place in front of the right audience.
Reward and share - Beehiiv has a really good feature, for other platforms it’s not inbuilt, but Beehiiv has it. Your subscribers can share your newsletter and get rewards, and you can automate the entire process.
Recommendation - You can recommend your friends who are using Beehiiv, and recently they brought a new update in this segment.
Cons:
UI - I don’t like the UI of Beehiiv, it’s not appealing to me, but that isn’t a big deal, haha.
Native commenting system - Beehiiv is more of a blog after bringing the website feature and all, but they don’t have a native commenting system, so it reduces the engagement.
SEO - It lacks features like redirects and nofollow links, which affects the SEO.
Support - IDK why, but most of the platforms lack support, and Beehiiv needs to upgrade the system, too.
Data - Beehiiv recently launched the feature where you can capture the name, but it’s still not there in the sign-up page. I’ve complained about it the most. As an email marketer, you know how frustrating it is not to use placeholder texts.
I don’t go beyond 3, because these are my top 3 choices, and I’d highly recommend you pick any of these, don’t go for Mailerlite or Flodesk, please.
Hope it helped you, thanks for giving it a read, my friend.
ICYMI
I’m launching the first-ever newsletter retreat in India.
It will be in December, mostly in Delhi, the capital of India.
Dates might be: 13,14, or 20,21.
After this time, it’ll be Christmas, so people will be in the travel mood too.
And for the itinerary and all, I’ll share it soon.
But are you exciteddddd? 🤩
Current subscribers of Insideletter: 93 😓
30-day view: 453 🙈
30-day open rate: 24.36% 🤧
Thanks for reading. See you soon.
Quick links:
Read my daily emails to learn how to monetise your email list.
Check the email marketing podcast.
Check my website
You can always say hi to me on LinkedIn and X. I would love to see you there.
If you enjoyed this read, the best compliment I could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it.
Oh, and you can of course join my chat and ask your questions directly.
Talk soon,
Anirban “helping you choose your right platform” Das.