#109 - The Membership Machine Show - Best Newsletter Platform For Creators in 2025 - Hosting (+) That Gives Everything You Need to Easily Create, Launch, And Scale Courses

Best Newsletter Platform For Creators in 2025

Looking for the best newsletter solutions for 2025? Check out our roundup of the top platforms and plugins to skyrocket your campaigns.

This informative video explores the best newsletter platforms and plugins for 2025, perfect for marketers and content creators seeking to engage their audience effectively. We’ll review the latest features, pricing, and user experiences of top tools that can enhance your email marketing strategy. Don’t miss out on optimizing your outreach—watch the video now to discover which platform suits your needs best.

The Host of The Show, Jonathan Denwood Nicole Ouellette

This Week Show’s Sponsors

LifterLMS: LifterLMS

Convesio: Convesio

Omnisend: Omnisend

Newsletter Solutions Discuss During The Show

#!1- Beehiiv

https://www.beehiiv.com

#2 – MailerLite

https://www.mailerlite.com

#3 – Kit (ConvertKit)

https://kit.com

#4 – Substack

https://substack.com/home

Substack pricing: 10% revenue share for paid creators

#5 – Mailmodo

https://www.mailmodo.com

#6 – Omnisend

https://www.omnisend.com

500 emails to 250 contacts: $0
2,000 contacts (24,000 emails per month): $30/mo
5,000 contacts (60,000 emails per month): $81/mo
10,000 contacts (120,000 emails per month): $132/mo
50,000 contacts (600,000 emails per month): $330/mo

The Show’s Main Transcript

[00:00:02.250] – Jonathan Denwood

All right, welcome back, tribe. Got another show. Another week has just flown by. It was two minutes ago. I was talking to Nicola. We have a great topic. I’m going to do my countdown. We’re going to go straight into it. So three, two, one. Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 109. In this episode, I and Nicola will discuss newsletters, SaaS platforms, and the changing landscape of newsletters that we have seen in the past, say, year, 18 months. There’s some new players on the field. They have disrupted the actual area. I think it’s a fantastic subject to discuss and mythology that might allow you to grow your membership. Get started. So, Nicole, would you like to introduce yourself quickly to the listeners and viewers?

[00:01:09.300] – Nicole Ouellette

Oh, sure. Yeah. So, hey, everyone. My name is Nicole Willet. I own a marketing company, and I hang out with Jonathan weekly, discussing marketing-related stuff about membership websites. And I also own two co-working spaces, so it is a good time for me. And I have three short animals which may or may not appear on camera.

[00:01:28.960] – Jonathan Denwood

We’ll see. She’s got her furry friends. There we go. I have no furry friends, so I’m mad, but there we go. Like I said, it should be a great show. But before we go into the meat and potatoes, I’ve got a great message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I also want to point out we have a fantastic free resource—all the best WordPress technology to help you build a membership community website in 2025. Get a created list so you don’t have to wait to find the best products and technology on WordPress, plus a load of other resources to help you build your membership website. To get all these free goodies and special offers from the sponsors, you must go to wp-tonic. Com/deals, wp-tonic. Com/deals, and you’ll find all the goodies there. What more could you ask for, my beloved tribe? I don’t know. I will give you a bit of insight here, my beloved tribe. I went a bit potty on this subject. I sent Nico a warm piece list.

[00:03:00.700] – Jonathan Denwood

She looked at it, and then after I looked at it, I realized, well, we’ve probably got 2-3 shows here, not just one show. But in this particular episode, we’re just going to have a general discussion about the new landscape and some of the key players. So Nico, as I did this dive, we’ve had a couple of new players, especially a company called Beehive, got Substack, We’ve got a couple of Covert Kit, which is now called itself Kit, and a more traditional play like Meldlight. But basically, the three that I initially mentioned, they’ve really changed the market a bit. First of all, would you agree with this statement? Secondly, how do you see the landscape and how it’s changed recently when it comes to newsletters?

[00:04:01.710] – Nicole Ouellette

I think that as business owners, we tend to… Sometimes we make a decision and then we stop thinking about it. So maybe if you’re listening to this and you picked Mailchimp, or you pick constant contact. Back in 2010 or something and thought, I’m done, done, checked it off my list, never thought about it again. I will say that newsletters are doing a lot more than just having a drag and drop editor that allows you to send a can spam compliant email to a list. There’s a lot more going on now, a lot deeper integrations. Even some of these platforms we’re going to discuss today have monetisation options within the platform versus you having to come up with that. So I think that that’s really interesting. I really actually I enjoyed this list because I was like, okay, I’ve been thinking about changing my email newsletter software, and I started looking around and I thought, wow, some of this stuff’s really cool. So I’m looking forward to chatting about it today.

[00:05:06.330] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, it’s doing my normal work, trying to build my business up, I’ve been watching to… I We’ve done a load of watching or videos this week for this particular chat with you, and just general research in the background, playing YouTube videos in the background, as you do, read leading posts. There is a lot of conversation around this area. Where I got a little bit frustrated with it is that, I think we’re going to start with Beebe Hy, is that it looks a fabulous product. I have signed up for a free account because it’s made me wonder, because I’ve got a small list of about 500 people, and it’s a very fragmented list. I’ve pruned it down. I did have a list of 2000, and I decided to prune it down, people that weren’t regularly open. It was very disfocused. It was people, as my business has grown or changed over the years, my target audience has changed, and a lot of the people that were on that list wasn’t really my target audience now. They were more local businesses in Northern Nevada, and funny enough, still a lot of them, even though the focus on my weekly newsletter has changed dramatically and it’s more WordPress and membership focus, a lot of these people still open it, a lot didn’t.

[00:06:43.290] – Jonathan Denwood

And there’s the new people that get the newsletter when they sign up for a couple of my leading lead magnets. And I do send it out every week, but it’s not growing. Basically, the The new people sign up cover the people that gradually are unsubscribing. So it’s keeping to the same level, but it’s not growing, Nicar. And it’s something I really wanted to do in 2025. It’s growing my newsletter list. But I didn’t have any idea how I was going to do it. So I’ve done it. So researching for this has benefit for myself. And I really like some of the things Beehive are doing, But then the crux, how do you grow the list? How do you get in a position where you can grow? Obviously, you got to find your niche. You got to provide content that they want. I tend to write something personally, but it tends to be short. And then I do what I call curation. Basically, I find stories that interest me, which I share with my newsletter audience. Some of the videos I watched, they also recommended that short personal piece and then curation. You sign up for a lot of people’s email and newsletter, and they tend to be just a ramble, as I call it.

[00:08:25.810] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s just whatever’s coming to their mind, and they’ve thrown it into the newsletter and sent it out that week. Sometimes it can be good stuff. Sometimes I think it’s putting a lot of pressure on you having to write something very long and original every week. So I did this dive, Nicole, How do you grow? There’s that tip, find your niche. I was listening, I was watching one guy that’s built up to large businesses on newsletters, and he now sells courses about it.

[00:09:04.380] – Nicole Ouellette

As one does.

[00:09:07.190] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, that’s what we’re about, membership. I remember this one, I’ve just mentioned Curation, and then the other one, I can’t remember, basically. But I think it’s more traditional model where you just write what’s on your mind. I think the is the easier route to go with a bit of personal insight from you. But then I watched the other people, How do you grow the list? Because this is what I really want to know, how do I get the will moving? I think this is what our listeners want to know, How do we get the will moving? How do we get this newsletter, get subscribers? You use paid traffic. A lot of them say, Well, you use Facebook, and I’ve I’ve mentioned this, of paid traffic on other platforms. I’ve been at it all week and I am frustrated, Nicole, because a lot of these people haven’t given a very clear landscape on how you… In the weeds, how do you grow a newsletter list? I haven’t found it yet. I hope that maybe some of the tools that Beehive through their referral program, Boost, especially Boost and recommendations. These seem original and some of the other players are copying them, but I don’t know if they really work or they’re cost-effective.

[00:10:46.680] – Jonathan Denwood

I’ve rambled on here, but hopefully you can see why I’ve rambled, Nico. What’s your own thoughts about all this and my concerns and the points I’ve made to I’m with you.

[00:11:02.670] – Nicole Ouellette

My email list is similar in that there’s a similar unsubscribed and new subscriber rate. I will say, I guess what encourages me is my open rate is really good. I have a 40 % open rate, and I’m like, okay, so that means that these people are interested in what I have to say, and a good percentage of them are. And what I think, the ways that if I’ve I look back in time and I’ve looked at times where the blip has gone up a little bit faster, it’s been when I have made some what the marketing people call a lead magnet, something that is for free available, like the resource that you mentioned with the WordPress plugins, for membership websites that you have at Wp-tonic. Com/deals.

[00:11:54.140] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, thank you, Niko. No problem.

[00:11:56.400] – Nicole Ouellette

You see? But I can remember.

[00:11:58.110] – Jonathan Denwood

She’s in the books there, Lisa. She’s I always read my good books. I’ve enjoyed our discussion so far, Anika.

[00:12:04.920] – Nicole Ouellette

But the thing is, if someone is listening to that and goes to download it, even if you don’t have 500 new people that subscribe every time you put out a podcast, the people that give their email to download that are interested in what you have to say. And then obviously the paid traffic and stuff is theoretically to drive people to the offer, because otherwise, if some brand new person sees you, or they see your ad, or they see a video of you, or they listen to your podcast, they don’t have any reference to what you are, so they don’t necessarily want to give out their contact information right away. So having that free thing basically gives them something in exchange for trusting you with their contact information. But what I think is really interesting, and I like that we’re starting with Beehive, is that if you just want a service that is going to send between a thousand and 3,000 people a drag and drop email that you make and can schedule ahead of time. There is hundreds of services that you can use for that. But what’s interesting about the ones that Jonathan has picked out for us to talk about is that they all have these little things that add on.

[00:13:14.250] – Nicole Ouellette

And so what Beehive has, and it looks like they only have… They have these recommendations that are built in to your template. And so your email newsletter gets recommended on other people’s lists, theoretically, and vice versa. You can only get rid of that if you… They have a free plan that is for under 2,500 subscribers and under.

[00:13:37.770] – Jonathan Denwood

That seems very attractive to the people that want to start.

[00:13:42.240] – Nicole Ouellette

Exactly. Right. And so if you feel some way about like, oh, I’m worried that my competition or whatever is going to show up in my email template in the form of a recommendation if they’re also on Beehive, I would think that would the only reason to get rid of it. But the free version, it comes with a lot. It comes with the ability to segment. It comes with the ability to integrate with an API. You can use a custom domain, all that stuff, analytics. To be able to do A/B testing, now you’re on the paid plan, to be able to be part of their ad network, where theoretically you’re getting paid.

[00:14:27.690] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, you got the mechanics Basically, you got the mechanics, which is like a logic gate. It’s a bar that you can put into the content of a post or a page, and they fill in their email to get your newsletter, and then it comes up with recommendations of other newsletters. I’ve set up a account. I haven’t had time. It’s the thing that I plan to do this weekend, business and views, but it They do seem to provide a good WordPress plugin, and you’ve got some customization, not a lot, but that’s similar to what you use in a SaaS platform, even when it’s got a good integration with WordPress, it can only go so far. Some of the experts or so-called experts I was watching were saying that if you don’t use their landing landing pages, because they provide a website landing page. A few of the people, I’ve got to investigate this to see how true it is. They said that the API that you can access through the WordPress plugin is limited. I’ve got to quantify what they really mean and is it true? Because obviously, I’m interested in not using the quasar landing page element of…

[00:16:04.120] – Jonathan Denwood

Because I’ve got a website. I’m interested in using their WordPress plugin and using the logic bar and the form and the logic bar that you can customize the button color, so it matches the style of your website. That’s why I’m interested. So I got to see that part. But then does it really work without you having to use their landing page, stroke website part? And the other, but the things that really interest me, Nico, is their referral program, which is semi-traditional. Then you got boost which you actually pay other… You put a bounty on your subscribers. You say that if you get a… I got to do my research what is a qualified subscriber, that’s the language they use. Basically, you put a bounty. If somebody sends you a quality subscriber, whatever that is, whatever their internal term for a qualifying subscriber is, you will then pay the individual that sent that subscriber to you a bounty, a certain amount of money.

[00:17:30.360] – Nicole Ouellette

It’s nice that it has a marketplace ecosystem, because like you said, when you’re trying to grow the list on your own, it’s difficult. You have limited tools. But if other people also have newsletters, and there’s this marketplace ecosystem that you’re tapping, that’s nice.

[00:17:51.000] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I’m butted in a little bit. It’s a bit like the concept, you go to town, and you go to any town or major city, all the jewelry shops might be one part of town, or the Chinese restaurants might be one bar, or they tend to zone all the card dealerships in a certain part of the town. So the concept does work, doesn’t it, Nico? Because if they’re interested in your subject, they’re probably going to sign up for other… They’d be interested in signing up for other newsletters about that subject. So if those people are showing yours as well, it’s mutually beneficial. It does make some sense, doesn’t it?

[00:18:35.460] – Nicole Ouellette

Absolutely, yeah. And if you’re going to monetize your content or grow your audience, this seems like a really interesting platform. I will say the two things about it that I’m a little bit about is that for the free level, the only support that you get is AI support. There’s no live. You can’t even chat with a person that’s pretending to try to help you, which is… If you If you feel like you’re not so tech savvy, maybe that might be a bit of something to keep in mind. And I will say the other thing, a feature that I use with the email software that I’m currently using is I have a blog and I like to use the RSS to email feature so that when I write in, you post it automatically emails out to a list of people who want to get that. And the RSS capabilities and removing branding, it looks like it only kicks in at that $86 a month level, which is not the free and not the next level up, but it’s, I think, the next level above that. So if you do use RSS, like I said, you’re a blogger like me who likes to automatically distribute content, that might be something to keep in mind as you’re taking a look at this one.

[00:19:47.560] – Jonathan Denwood

I’m putting you in a spot, don’t know if you’ve had time to do the research because you’ve been busy yourself.

[00:19:53.320] – Nicole Ouellette

Oh, no, I made a spreadsheet.

[00:19:54.850] – Jonathan Denwood

What’s the difference? I’m sure she’s very organized unlike me. I do provide decent notes.

[00:20:05.230] – Nicole Ouellette

Absolutely.

[00:20:06.190] – Jonathan Denwood

What’s the difference between boosts and recommendations?

[00:20:14.350] – Nicole Ouellette

I think recommend… Okay, so you know when you subscribe to someone’s substack, I don’t know if anyone’s listening to this, and then you get to that next screen and it’s like, here is something, newsletters they recommend, and you can automatically be subscribed to those, or you can And you can unclick all of them, you can unclick some of them, whatever, or you could just hit okay and be automatically subscribed to. So I think that’s the difference between the- Yeah, that’s right. And that’s the other thing, too, is the terminology is a little bit interesting because they did mention, in a term I couldn’t figure out is that at the free level, you get three publications. And I’m like, I didn’t know whether a publication was a landing page, whether it was the ability to distribute some PDF document So if I was trying to build an email list and then one offer- What is three? I wasn’t sure what a publication was. It seems like there’s a little bit of vocabulary with this one. So as you’re looking into it, just know that it’s a little bit confusing for us, too.

[00:21:12.710] – Jonathan Denwood

So did you find out what a publication was?

[00:21:17.050] – Nicole Ouellette

No, that was my one thing on the bottom. I wrote three publications, question mark. And I never figured out what it was because there was the recommendations, there was the ad network, there was the boosts, and then there was the publications. I was like, wow, that’s four words that are very specific to this platform.

[00:21:36.070] – Jonathan Denwood

I have to delve into that. But the boost, it’s a bounty, folks. The recommendation, Nicola, Nico, is spot on. Basically, when you have the form to sign up for your newsletter or the logic bar, when you’re addressing a lockdown of what they’re recommending, I think you can choose ones that you want to be recommended. They give you some- Oh, good. I think, but I’m not sure.

[00:22:03.690] – Nicole Ouellette

I wasn’t sure.

[00:22:04.520] – Jonathan Denwood

I’m not sure if that happens when you cough up somebody, probably when you buy it, you get that. But it has a drop-down list. It recommends other… But that’s beneficial to you because they’re doing it with your one as well. I don’t know, obviously, how they make this judgment. I would imagine if you’re I’m using the boost feature, they might recommend you more, you’re on this recommended list. I don’t know how they make that judgment call. It’s all in the nitty gritty. It does sound really good, but if you’re using the free plan, are you ever recommended? And how does Beefhive… I suppose it also depends what niche you got to find your niche A niche that’s growing. You use Google Trends, you use a couple other tools that free online to judge. You definitely want to find a niche that’s growing in search terms, and that’s something that’s not declining. That’s going to be difficult as a new player to get traction, isn’t it? What do you reckon, Nicole?

[00:23:24.860] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, well, I mean, what the good news is it’s a relatively new platform. So if you If you feel like you’re into monetizing your content or you’re looking for a new way to grow your list and you don’t mind learning some new vocabulary words, it seems like there’d be a bit of a learning curve with this just because it’s so different than a lot of other email software you’re using. I think it would be a worthwhile try to almost try the free version for a month, see, and then do the paid version for a month and see. That would be an interesting experiment, and to go over those results. Maybe that could be a future So I’m not going to put anybody on the spot here.

[00:24:02.160] – Jonathan Denwood

The editor, the actual thing, so I’m just going to have to try them out, listening to some viewers, and I’ll come back to you. But as the actual doing something new and new concepts, I don’t know who the founder is. It was in my memory banks, but I’ve forgotten there. I’ve got to admit, at least they’re doing some new stuff, aren’t they? They’re doing some interesting concepts, aren’t they?

[00:24:29.660] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah. No, I think it’s a really cool looking company. I actually, I like the design of their site. It’s an interesting idea of what Substack has done is saying, okay, how can we get you paid as a creator? How can we get you in front of other people who are also producing content. I think it’s definitely the cooler version, I would say, of Substack, in terms of interface and things like that. Yeah, Check it out. Like I said, there is a bit of a learning curve because there is some new terminology and some new features. And it seems like in terms of getting support, you’ll probably have to pay to get real support. So just prepare your sofa that.

[00:25:12.810] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, but like you say, I’m going to have to look what this free publications mean on the- Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:19.680] – Nicole Ouellette

I was really confused about that. And I did look around a bit and I was like, okay, I got to move on to the 40 other ones we’re talking about today. So I just made a note of it and I was like, go back and find out. But I thought, Well, maybe Jonathan found in his thing, but there does seem to be features very specific to Beehive. It’s cool. I’m glad you recommended us talking about it today, just so I could look into it.

[00:25:42.840] – Jonathan Denwood

Then if you’re between… If If you’re below 2,500, you’re in what I call people that get in traction that are in the sweet point, that’s between that 2,500 and 5,000. You then got to make… You then got to go… If you go over the 2,500, you’re going to have to use scale. And between 2,500 and 5,000, you can But you can… Yeah, they only give you… If you go above 2,500, you got to choose the 5,000, and that’s the next… The paid plan, which is scale, and it’s going to cost you 69 If you… Is that the yearly price or is that month-to-month? Oh, no, it’s going to cost you $79. It’s going to cost you So it’s getting a little bit expensive for 2,505, but it really depends if these marketing elements, if they’re really working for you and they’re really helping you grow your newsletter, it’s worth something $9, isn’t it?

[00:27:07.390] – Nicole Ouellette

Sure. And just in case somebody is listening to this, you can always try it. And what’s great about email services is you can export your list of subscribers and you can move on to another service if this doesn’t work for you. So it’s not quite like joining a social media platform where you’re building an audience somewhere that you can’t move. So just know that you can always take your ball and go home if you need to.

[00:27:28.190] – Jonathan Denwood

But I think for $79, if you’re growing, it’s helping you grow your list up to 5,000 subscribers, and these subscribers are opening your newsletter, it’s worth $79. Absolutely. Because the main reason I wanted to talk about this also is it’s a great way. So many people that come for consultation, Nico, for me, obviously, they’re never built the course before, so they’re worried about the video content, the quiz is, how do they actually build a membership? And I tell them, Minimum viable course. Don’t try and build war and peace. But they’ve got no marketing plan at all. And you say, Oh, make YouTube videos, do this, do the other. It’s all vague. I think if you’re thinking that you’re probably going to go into membership, if you can get people signing up for your free newsletter and then maybe doing a secondary newsletter where you got more content and actually charging people, that’s a great sign that these people are going to be the first people that you can sell your calls to. What do you reckon, Nicole? Before we go for a break?

[00:28:55.620] – Nicole Ouellette

No, I think that that’s great. I think if people are going to pay extra content, what you have to do is just set the expectation of what that looks like, whether that’s an extra newsletter every week or whether that’s… Because if people are going to pay for something, they either want more content or more access. And part of what they’re paying for is some set amount of that. And as the person providing it, you just have to figure out what that is and communicate that so that people feel like they’re getting the value that they’re paying for.

[00:29:26.360] – Jonathan Denwood

So Beehive gets the thumbs up from me and Nicole.

[00:29:31.110] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, for sure.

[00:29:32.790] – Jonathan Denwood

I’m going to have a look at it, folks. Give us some feedback about what your thoughts about it are. We love to get more feedback from you. We’re going to go for our middle break, and when we come back, we’re going to be talking about some of the other leading platforms that are changing the landscape of newsletters linked to membership. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, One. We’re coming back, folks. So Nicole, you’ve also got your own online subscription, and it sounds really interesting what you’re doing. So would you like to tell the listeners and some views about your own subscription online service?

[00:30:19.190] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, sure. So one of my things I have to do as a marketer is I have to help my clients come up with content on production days. And you You can ask them to talk about something all you want. But you know what really opens everybody up is all of you doing some silly little skit together, or you show them a cute video idea, and they’re like, oh, you know what, Carl should do that. And Carl’s like, oh, yeah, I’m all over it. And they start having fun with their own marketing. So if you’ve ever wondered, how do I do these fun videos that seem to get a lot of views, seem to get a lot of engagement, and seem to make people excited about marketing, how do I find them? How do I do them in a way that’s efficient? And that’s where Trend Descend comes in. So if you join Trend Descend, you’ll get a lovely short video message from me twice a week with the trend. And I will link to that trend on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, allowing you to attach the trending audio so that you can get maximum traction on each platform.

[00:31:21.800] – Nicole Ouellette

And it’ll take you about 15 minutes or less to make the video. That’s what I always promise. It’s nothing complicated. It’s not anything crazy in terms of editing. And And it’s just something that you can add to your marketing mix to get some additional views on your content. So if you’re interested, check out trenddescend. Com, and you can see the different levels of plans there, but it starts at 49 bucks a month. Bargan.

[00:31:43.740] – Jonathan Denwood

Sam It’s mad to me. So let us move on. So let’s move on to one that… It’s been around a bit longer, and it’s beloved by the traditional media writer set, the digitarty, as I call them, the tech professional writer, freelancer, influencer, and that’s Substack. So if somebody were trying to explain Substack to somebody that didn’t really know what it was about, what would you say?

[00:32:24.640] – Nicole Ouellette

So Substack as its face is an email newsletter, but it’s also an ecosystem. So most of it is long form pieces of content, and you can subscribe to different people’s substacks. Now, some of them are free, some of them are paid, some of them have a tiered level, where, for example, if you are a paid person who’s a member of the substack, maybe you’re allowed to comment on the articles and engage. And if you’re free, you just are able to receive them or something like that. So individual publishers decide what they want to offer for free and what they want to offer paid. And in addition to the longer form email newsletter that gets delivered to your inbox, there’s also a notes section, which is almost like short social media updates. And That’s, I think, what a lot of people use to grow their Substack audiences. But the thing with Substack is if you read their terms of service, it says very clearly that you own all your content. And the Do you know what the T was, Substack? No, I don’t. Okay, so apparently Elon Musk tried to buy it, and they didn’t want to sell it to Elon Musk.

[00:33:41.880] – Nicole Ouellette

So then Elon Musk, because he’s not at all a petty person, has banned Substack links from X.

[00:33:49.990] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, it was a big- So then- It was a big- Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:51.990] – Nicole Ouellette

And then someone basically figured out a workaround to make them work, and it’s gotten tons of upvotes on Reddit all that. So I don’t know if it’s a plugin. I don’t know if it’s just some process that you go through to before you put your link in. But anyway, so Substack is like when TikTok was being banned, they were like, hey, listen, you own all your content. We don’t do censorship. And so they were seen as this leading progressive, and I don’t even mean politically progressive, I just mean free speech, progressive form. And what’s nice about Substack too, is that, let’s say I had a Substack. Cool. Oh, you should subscribe to these ones too, and I could mention other Substacks that I like. Like At the Beehive, it is its own ecosystem, so you can use… You can recommend other platforms.

[00:34:50.910] – Jonathan Denwood

I concentrated on… I know nothing about substate. I know the basics.

[00:34:56.700] – Nicole Ouellette

I’ve helped three people manage their Substack.

[00:34:59.840] – Jonathan Denwood

So this is a great combination as normally goes. What’s your views about it? Do you think you can by utilizing it? And they charge, am I correct? I looked on their pricing age and that blah, blah, blah. And I think it’s 10 % of revenue. So if you’re not charging, is it free then? Or do you have to pay if you’re not charging for the newslet?

[00:35:29.670] – Nicole Ouellette

Yes. No, No, it’s free. I have a free secret one that I haven’t told anyone about yet, and I haven’t made anything. I know. I’ve had it for a year. I had this idea that I wanted to talk about, and it didn’t really fit in with any of my platforms and I wanted just to create a place I could put it. So I thought, you know what? I wanted to learn more about Substack, to who my clients were using it. I thought, let’s give it a shot. So I have a free one. I haven’t been charged anything at all for it. It’s gotten five years.

[00:35:58.980] – Jonathan Denwood

So, you know So are there any mechanisms on Substack that if you’re a new newsletter in a particular niche that you can utilize on the platform that can promote it to new people that you want, or the type of things that Beehive are doing.

[00:36:18.090] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, I would say it’s similar to Beehive in that, like I said, there’s this internal ecosystem. I will say it seems like Beehive has thought through like, oh, we can pay, you can pay to be on these other people’s things, or we’re going to for your content. In a way that Substack hasn’t really. But like I said, I think they’re the thinking person social media. You know what I mean? It’s like Reddit, but less trolling. It’s like long-form content and people leaving these long, thoughtful essays about things. And that’s the thing is you’ll hear… I’ll be listening to the news and they’ll be like, on her substack, and they will refer to it like a publication. I I will say the thing that I don’t like about Substack is that the SEO is meh. It’s not like someone’s going to… If you went and googled Nicole Willet, secret substack or tried to find my substack, you’d have a hard time finding it, I think. Yeah, Google’s not got much love for them, have they? Yeah. So what I told one of these people was a podcasting client, and I was like, I really think… Because they were using that as their whole website, and I was like, Yeah, I think it’s a distribution channel versus like- So they provide it very…

[00:37:37.300] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s a very basic website, but you can set up But I wouldn’t recommend it. I think you can do the same with BeVive. They call it a landing page. I don’t know what the term substack utilizes, but I think we’re in agreement. I wouldn’t recommend that.

[00:37:58.780] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, and And it’s funny because now when I set up a website for them and when I look at their website and versus their sub stack, I see that, and it’s a WordPress site, I see that their episodes are getting more view. I figured out a way because it’s like an RSS feed, to take the episodes and as they post them a sub stack, it gets posted to their website. But it seems to be more found on their website, via search anyway. And Yeah, and I’m not saying, like I said, a Substack, the secondary features that it’s a website, more of what it is, is like a newsletter, and engaging with people over email, like all these other options we’re talking about today. So I’m not belittling it for being a thing that it isn’t. But I don’t think it should be your only website. If you were thinking of building a brand, I would build my entire brand on Substack. I would use it as a distribution platform. That’s my opinion.

[00:38:57.970] – Jonathan Denwood

So you know a lot more, like I I’ve been open, I don’t know too much about Substack, you know a lot more. But if by looking at B5 and Substack and you had somebody saying they wanted to build their newsletter list, for what you’ve found out about B5, which one would you recommend?

[00:39:19.100] – Nicole Ouellette

It would depend on how important was monetizing their content, how important RSS feed stuff, and how important… Monetizing their content, RSS feed stuff, and I’m just trying to look at these things. It would depend. It seems like Beehive is cooler. I’m just going to say that. It has a cooler vibe. I would say, like I said, when I think of Substack, I think of podcasters, I think of reporters and commentators who have their own personal where they’re writing personal essays and things like that. Beehive seems more commercial in terms of like, I’m selling watches or something. It seems like that would be more of an e-commerce or other brand in terms of a fit there. But I might, not to pull this, but I might have to know a little bit more about them. But the fact that Beehive charges so much to access an RSS feed annoys me. And Substack, obviously, I was able to just port in an RSS feed. I’m not saying it was easy, but I’m saying it was doable at a regular zero dollar level of sub stack to port that over to a website. So I think I just love RSS feeds, Jonathan, is what it comes down to.

[00:40:54.090] – Nicole Ouellette

But yeah, I would say if you were more long form content, more personal brand, like a newspaper or a publication, something like that, more sub stack. I would say maybe if you’re more of a business or you’re trying to monetize your content or grow your audience, I would move you more to Beehive.

[00:41:12.010] – Jonathan Denwood

Now on to the next big player in this. But I think they’re feeding the heat a bit from Beehive, or they see… And that was formerly called Convert Kit. And they’ve been around a They are the founder… I forgot his name. She’s not doing good, the small dude. I’ve attempted to try and interview him, and he did say he would come on my other podcast, and then he bailed out at the last moment. He really built this up, and he really got a lot of online nine influencers to recommend it. It did feel… It was the darling of the influencer that had a WordPress website, but they wanted something that could do… You didn’t have to use five or six different plugins to achieve what you could with Convert kit. They’ve changed the name now to Kit, and I thought, Why are they changing the name? It’s In SEO terms and in marketing terms, it’s a dramatic thing to do. Then I couldn’t work it out. But then after going to Beehive, I know precisely because they’re offering now a number of services to promote your newsletter that are similar to what BVYVE are doing.

[00:42:56.950] – Jonathan Denwood

Now, I think this is one of the main reasons why they did this rebranding. They offer more the fundamentals of what BVYVE are offering. Obviously, they’re marketing your newsletter the offering has certain differences. Also the marketing optimization, they offer a lot more than what B5. Obviously, I’m going to have to go into B5 in more detail. Got more experience with Convert kit. So what’s your response to, do you agree what I’ve outlined? I’m probably why they changed their branding.

[00:43:42.360] – Nicole Ouellette

I think when you think of Convert kit, you think of lead generation, and there’s a certain… There’s certain kinds of industries where lead generation makes sense. Obviously, in the membership or course world, it makes sense. But I think maybe they felt like it was limiting them, and maybe Maybe, like I said, if I was an e-commerce brand or something, I would see Convert kit and be like, well, I’m not really doing lead gen or whatever. I think maybe they’re trying to be more open to different kinds of businesses and maybe a little bit playful with just kit. Because like I said, Convert kit, definitely it feels like ClickFunnel. It feels like Convert kit. It feels like there’s this certain suite of products that is for a certain demographic. And maybe they’re just trying to broaden their demographic by changing the name, because it seems like… And this one, actually, maybe I misspoke earlier about Beehive because I wrote here, free recommendations are required at the free level with Convert kit So it seems like they do have those recommendations.

[00:44:48.940] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, they’re really… Because it’s on the pricing page, up to 10,000 subscribers, you can use the free product. One user, one admin, as I call it, one email sequence, I suppose that’s… I don’t quite know what that is. I would imagine it’s some form of optimization sequence.

[00:45:12.340] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, and it’s probably going to be an onboarding one, right? Or it’s When someone joins the list, that’s probably the first automation that you would ever make. So it’s probably going to be that.

[00:45:20.410] – Jonathan Denwood

I would attempt to keep it as simple as… Just your focus should be around growing it, not doing all the… Just one focus on one thing at a time, folks. So don’t look bad, but they’re definitely, definitely with this smart recommendations and these free recommendations with the wording required. I suppose you have to ask to use it. I don’t know.

[00:45:53.440] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, go on, sorry. No, no, you’re fine. I will say something about Convert kit that seemed different than the other ones we’ve been working at are this selling of digital products seem to be a little bit more of a direct thing with Convert kit than the other ones that we talked about. So I guess if you did have, like I said, a digital product, so whether you’re monetizing your content on Beehive or whether you have a digital product you actually want to sell, Convert kit might be a better option for you.

[00:46:21.290] – Jonathan Denwood

But they’re very similar. If you need the other tools, which is unlimited, if you go up to the creator plan and you’re between this below 5,000. It’s a bit… It is different the pricing because the newsletter, which is no charge, is up to 10,000 subscribers. But you’ve got very limitations about marketing optimizations with the newsletter plan, which is free. The next one up to 5,000 is their creator That’s why I say, Keep your focus and get it above 2,000, between 2,000, 5,000, and then look at maybe the creator, because maybe That’s when you need some more sequencing and optimizations, but up to 5,000 on the paid plan, which is creator, it’s 66 dollars, which between 2000 and 5000 with Beehive is a similar price, say month to month. Oh, that’s not the month, that’s the yearly price. So what’s the month? I bet it’s very… Yeah, exactly the same as Beehive. So If you’re up to 5,000, they are really tracking one another, aren’t they? Because they’re spot on the price as well, aren’t they?

[00:47:54.920] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, and a lot of the ones we were looking at, I was looking at the two lowest levels. I was the free level if there was one, and then the next level up. So for these things that we’re talking about, we’re talking between obviously zero people and 2,000-2,000-ish. And the price difference we’re talking about here is between zero dollars and $40 a month. We’re not talking major pricing differences here. So you’re not going to be like, oh, I’m going to save $2 a month if I go to this one. What you’d be looking for as you look across these is for the features that that you feel like you need in terms of that aligned with your business goals, because the pricing is very similar, like Jonathan was saying. And don’t buy it for the year. Do it month to month for the first couple of months, and then you can decide if you really like it to buy it for the year. Don’t go and buy it for the year to save yourself five bucks a month or whatever at first. At least evaluate if you like it first. Again, just my opinion.

[00:48:58.870] – Jonathan Denwood

So what’s the other What are the ones that you had time to look at, Nicole?

[00:49:03.520] – Nicole Ouellette

Mailmodo. That was the most expensive one of the ones that I looked at from our things. There’s no free plan, and the first plan is $49 a month and you get 2,500 subscribers. It looks like… I wrote basic versus advanced integrations, question mark. So I guess I think I was looking at the page and I was like, well, can you give me some examples here? But I think I remember on this particular page, it did show some examples of integrations. This one just looked more like a standard email marketing software. I will say, though, it is like a few of these expressly mentioned custom domains, Beehive did, Convert kit did. Substack lets you use a custom domain in terms of a, you know I think that’s a paid feature, though. And Mailmodo lets you use… At the second level up, you can have two custom domains. So that was the only one I saw that did that. And they do have chat and email support. But again, you’re paying something. There’s no free plan there. So I don’t know. This one was my least favorite to me. I do like a good freemium model, what can I say, of being able to try something out and then saying, you know what, I’m willing to pay some amount for this that I understand how this works, and I put my time into learning it.

[00:50:33.900] – Nicole Ouellette

And then the other ones we had looked at were MailerLite.

[00:50:38.730] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, they…

[00:50:42.000] – Nicole Ouellette

Oh, is that… Yeah, yeah. Okay, that’s more for next time.

[00:50:45.790] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, no, we can… Because it’s still a SaaS product where we’re going to talk about WordPress.

[00:50:50.840] – Nicole Ouellette

That’s true, that’s true.

[00:50:52.300] – Jonathan Denwood

Mail light, the free plan, they really felt filled in the void of Mailchimp, because when Mailchimp, a couple of years ago was purchased by Intuitif, the bookkeeping people, Intuitif, whatever they call themselves.

[00:51:10.010] – Nicole Ouellette

Intuit, yeah.

[00:51:11.440] – Jonathan Denwood

It lost some of its shine, wasn’t it?

[00:51:14.700] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah.

[00:51:15.600] – Jonathan Denwood

But I think a lot of people moved on to Mellalight, and they have a attractive free level, up to 12,000 emails, one user. It’s 1,000 subscribers, but you can send out 12,000 emails per month. And they’re based in France, and they do offer a lot, but they’re not offering these more interesting concepts about actually promoting your email with that. B5 Substack and Kit are offering, are they? It’s more traditional offering. They do offer a website and a landing pages and a certain level marketing optimization. I think they offer those even on the free plan, but I wouldn’t want to build my website with my.

[00:52:27.510] – Nicole Ouellette

I will I would say what I thought was interesting about this one is that it seemed to have e-commerce and heat map and detailed analytics, whereas a lot of these are, just in case you haven’t looked at email analytics, it’ll be your open rate, the percentage, how many times maybe people open them, what links they clicked on. Those are really standard. It seemed like this had more deep marketing analytics. So if you feel like you’re doing email marketing and wish you had deeper analytics, this might be a a good one to look at because it did seem to have more than other ones I’ve seen for sure.

[00:53:06.150] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s more aimed at the larger small business, the medium-sized business market, isn’t it? It’s not specifically aimed at people that are trying to build a newsletter, a creator that’s got a YouTube channel or TikTok channel, and they’re also looking to build out their membership course business. It’s aimed at a much broader small business market. Would you agree with that?

[00:53:39.520] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, I think so. It does feel a lot like Mailchimp. I will say at the paid level, which was… So there’s a free level and then there’s a $10 a month level if you have 500 subscribers or they’re around. There’s a campaign autosend feature at the paid level, which I thought was cool because one way to eke out a few extra email opens is to resend your campaign to people who didn’t open it with a different subject line a few days later. That’s a little trick that marketing people do. And it seems like that’s built in, which is neat.

[00:54:11.920] – Jonathan Denwood

Shall we got on to them and On the send. On the send, they’re a sponsor of the show. They’ve been a great sponsor, so I want to point that out to the folks. It’s a SaaS service. They do email marketing and they do SMS marketing and text messaging as well. They do offer a great plugin that offers great integration with WordPress. There’s different levels. You get a lot… There’s a subgroup of SaaS software as a service companies, and they offer a WordPress plugin, but it doesn’t work very well. Then there’s the other ones where it’s okay. Then there’s other SaaS companies that provide a really great WordPress WordPress plugin integration. Omnicend is one of those that spent a fair bit of money, and has spent a fair bit of money promoting in the WordPress community, the Quasar, Freelancer, Poweruser, It’s an agency market to promote. It’s a good product. It’s not aimed at our particular listening viewer base, which I think B5 Substack and Kit are more aimed at. Also, they’ve got their traction in providing this functionality in the Shopify platform.

[00:55:49.900] – Nicole Ouellette

I was going to say they have a lot of Shopify integration, it seems like.

[00:55:53.490] – Jonathan Denwood

A lot. That’s where they built their growth and the company was built, and then they’ve moved into WordPress with a focus around e-commerce and woocommerce. But you can use their services, the plugin, what they got to offer on a normal website. But for our particular target audience of this particular show, But if you want text, and they do offer a free plan, but it’s only 250 contacts and 500 emails, and you do have to pay a amount to try the SMS functionality.

[00:56:34.850] – Nicole Ouellette

I’ve never seen free SMS services, though. I’ve never really seen a free one.

[00:56:39.450] – Jonathan Denwood

Because it costs a lot of money. Yeah, fair enough. Their big problem is dealing with the legality of it because there are tight rules around sending out SMS messaging. That doesn’t really fit into a free plan at all. So yeah, that’s it. Yeah.

[00:57:03.530] – Nicole Ouellette

Well, yeah. And even the free plan seems to have A/B testing options and a list-cleaning tool. That seemed neat because who doesn’t love going through their soft and hard bounces and cleaning their email? It looks like they do seem to have some of that. And I liked that they… I was like, oh, it’s cool. There are product recommendations and product listings. And it was the only one I saw that had web push notifications of the services we looked at. So, it does look like a superb option, especially if you have Shopify or do e-commerce. But again, I know not this audience, but just in case someone else is listening to it, maybe they have an e-commerce platform they run.

[00:57:44.640] – Jonathan Denwood

I can’t remember if they’re… I apologize if their crew is listening to this. They’re based in Estonia or Laffy, which is part of Europe. But they’re a great crew, and it’s an established product. It all works, and they provide excellent support. The particular niche we’ve been concentrating on is probably a general market with more emphasis on e-commerce than MailerLite, which is more generalistic. I would say that on send, it’s more about e-commerce. But They want to broaden out as well. We’ve done a good synopsis of the landscape in 2025 if you’re looking at email marketing. What do you reckon, Nicole?

[00:58:43.480] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s worth relooking at. As I said, even if you made this decision years ago, you picked something; look around at some of these options because they offer ways to save time and even monetize directly within the newsletter platform, which I never thought I’d see. Still, it is an astonishing development, especially for people who produce much content like me.

[00:59:05.330] – Jonathan Denwood

Next week, we will look at the WordPress alternatives and some key things you need to know if you will use WordPress. Yeah, it should be a great show. So, Nico, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and sign up for your newsletter?

[00:59:26.670] – Nicole Ouellette

Yeah, they can go to breakingevenink.com/newsletter, which will take you to the newsletter. And my cat Bart thinks that you should join, because he has been on my desk for the last 20 minutes, and I’ll let him get back on my desk.

[00:59:42.370] – Jonathan Denwood

All right, that’s fantastic. And as I said, we’ll be back next week with a look at WordPress, newsletters, and email marketing. It should be a fab show. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye. Bye..

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#109 – The Membership Machine Show – Best Newsletter Platform For Creators in 2025 was last modified: February 17th, 2025 by Jonathan Denwood