Beautiful & Efficient:
Buttondown is a simple, easy way to start a newsletter that I've personally enjoyed for several months now.
It has monetization capability built-in (great for a side-project), has a clean interface, and allows for writing in markdown (if you're into that like me).
I'm so very glad that Buttondown is a partner because I had planned on using the product for this campaign anyway.
Justin, the founder, has been supportive. Well before this campaign started, when I had questions about using the product, he's always been very helpful.
Here are a few things I've come to love about Buttondown:
- Very easy to get set up and writing.
- Privacy-focused
- Simple, without unnecessary automations
- UI feels great to write in
Best Parts:
Multiple Newsletters, Same Price:
For what I'm doing with Ship 21 in 2021, this feature is tremendously useful. The idea of having to swap between different providers seems painful, especially in my case.
I want every product to have a proper newsletter and Buttondown makes this possible. It's a great feature for folks like me who start something on the side but can't code.
Privacy-First:
Mentioned this already but highlighting again because I consider it a big deal. In general, I believe that the days of cookies and pixels are dying (especially for projects like what I'm starting).
Instead, privacy-first products just feel better to me. There's a time and place for each, but for me it's this.
This is a movement that matters to me, and Justin obviously caring about it means a lot.
Integrations:
Connecting with blogs, builders, and Zapier are all awesome features. Scrapping projects together means it's important they play well with each other.
The extra: writing in Notion, is also easily transferred to Buttondown. It formats automatically in Markdown. Saves me a ton of time when I can repurpose my content this way. I can go from journal → website → blog → email in just a few minutes without having to reformat anything.
Awesome Pricing Plan:
Buttondown doesn't take a percentage of revenue from paid newsletters.
Means I won't have to switch later when Substack's 10% isn't sustainable anymore.
In general, I just don't like paying a % if I don't have to. Maybe that's just me.
Custom CSS:
Being able to add this in is a very nice touch. It saves me the trouble of having to be stuck with something I don't like on the subscriber page or the archive.
Best of all, since I already use a little CSS here and there for my websites, I'm starting to learn this new skill (which makes me happy). I'm not a coder, but I can manage this.
Wrapping Up:
Email is here to stay, and it's amazing for me to partner with a company like Buttondown and a founder like Justin. He builds in public, gives back to open-source projects he uses and is just a great example of building an amazing project.
I'd love to be on his level.
Of course, I recommend Buttondown.