How to Start a Newsletter for Your Website and Keep It Going
Most newsletters die by issue six. Start with a promise you can keep, set up sending so it lands in inboxes, and grow it from the site you already have.
Since November 2025, Gmail has been ramping up enforcement against bulk mail that breaks its sender rules, with temporary and permanent rejections for messages that fail.
Add Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, which loads emails in the background whether anyone reads them or not, and the open rate you’d have watched in 2020 tells you very little.
The short version: write a promise people want, pick a cadence you can keep, and send from your own domain.
Put the form where readers finish your best posts. Then judge it by clicks and replies.
The 8 steps at a glance
| # | Step | About |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Write the promise, the cadence and the format | 1 hour |
| 2 | Choose a platform | 30 min |
| 3 | Send from your own domain | 30 min |
| 4 | Get consent right | 15 min |
| 5 | Put forms where readers finish your posts | 30 min |
| 6 | Write the welcome email | 30 min |
| 7 | Launch to people who already know you | 1 hour |
| 8 | Measure clicks and replies, and clean the list | 15 min a month |
Step 1. Write the promise, the cadence and the format
Nobody’s signing up for “my newsletter”. They sign up for something specific: one WordPress fix every Tuesday, the week’s SEO news in five minutes, a new recipe each Sunday.
Write that promise in one sentence. It goes on every sign-up form, in the welcome email and at the top of each issue.
Then pick a cadence you can keep for six months. Weekly, fortnightly and monthly all work.
Breaking the rhythm you promised does more damage than sending less often.
A fixed format keeps you going on busy weeks: one main idea, three useful links and a question. End every issue on one thing to do.
Check it: ask three people you’d want as readers to say the promise back in their own words, and write one full issue plus an outline of the second before you launch.
Step 2. Choose a platform
These are the free plans as their pricing pages listed them on November 1, 2026. Plans change often, so check before you sign up.
| Platform | Free plan | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Substack | Free if your newsletter is free | Takes 10% of paid subscriptions, plus Stripe fees |
| beehiiv | Up to 2,500 subscribers | Paid tiers add more subscribers and features |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers | Automations are on paid plans |
| Mailchimp | Under 250 contacts | Built for businesses more than writers |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month | Free limit cut from 500 in 2026 |
| Buttondown | First 100 subscribers | Lean; extras are paid add-ons |
| Ghost | No free plan; prices vary by region, and paid subscriptions start on the $29-a-month Publisher plan (billed yearly) | Website, newsletter and memberships in one; 0% transaction fee |
Four questions decide it:
- Will it let you export your subscribers as a file?
- Does it send from your own domain?
- Could you charge for issues later?
- What would the bill be at ten times today’s list?
Check it: before you import anyone, find the export button and download a test file.
Step 3. Send from your own domain
Inbox providers check that mail from your domain really is from you. For senders of 5,000 or more messages a day to personal Gmail accounts, Google requires:
- SPF and DKIM set up for your sending domain
- a DMARC record (a relaxed
p=nonepolicy is fine to start) - the From address matching the domain that SPF or DKIM checks
- one-click unsubscribe, plus a visible unsubscribe link in the body
Yahoo asks bulk senders for much the same without publishing a number, and Microsoft brought in similar rules for Outlook.com in May 2025 for senders above 5,000 a day.
Set it up from day one, even if your list’s small. Your platform gives you the DNS records, and it takes ten minutes at your domain registrar.
Then watch complaints. Google says to keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%.
Check it: send yourself a test issue in Gmail, open the menu, choose “Show original”, and confirm SPF, DKIM and DMARC all say PASS.
Step 4. Get consent right
The rules depend on where your readers live. In short:
- In the US, CAN-SPAM asks for your valid physical postal address and a working unsubscribe, with opt-outs honoured within 10 business days.
- The UK needs consent for marketing email to individuals, apart from a narrow “soft opt-in” for existing customers.
- Across the EU, consent is the norm.
- Canada’s CASL needs consent too, and express consent means the person agreed “verbally or in writing”.
The safe habit everywhere: no pre-ticked boxes, a clear promise, and a confirmation email.
Yahoo’s own advice is to ask new subscribers to click to confirm, which keeps bots and typos off your list too.
Check it: your footer shows your postal address and an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing from a test send actually removes you.
Step 5. Put forms where readers finish your posts
Your best sign-up spot is the moment a reader got something useful from you. That’s the end of your most-read posts, and inline after their first helpful section.
Add a form to the homepage and footer too. A checklist that goes with the post beats a generic “subscribe” box.
Careful with pop-ups. Google says “Don’t obscure the entire page with interstitials”, and suggests banners that take up only a small fraction of the screen.
Check it: submit the form on each of your ten most-visited posts, and track sign-ups per 1,000 pageviews for each placement.
Step 6. Write the welcome email
The welcome email arrives when interest is at its highest, so make it count. Send it straight after sign-up (after the confirmation click, if you use one).
In a few lines, it should:
- repeat the promise and say when the next issue arrives
- deliver anything you offered on the form
- link to the one post you’d want every reader to see
- ask a question they can answer by replying
Replies tell you who your readers are and what they want next, which is worth more than any survey.
Check it: sign up with a fresh address, confirm, and read the welcome email on your phone, clicking every link.
Step 7. Launch to people who already know you
Your first hundred subscribers come from people who already know your work. Tell customers, clients and followers the promise from step 1.
After that, ask readers to forward an issue they liked to one person. Swaps with newsletters in a nearby niche help too, once you have a few issues to show.
Platforms keep adding ways to grow and earn. Substack, for one, is previewing podcast ads and brand formats.
Sponsorships and paid tiers are two of the models in our guide on how to make money blogging.
Check it: a launch note went to every audience you already have, and you know how many sign-ups each one brought.
Step 8. Measure clicks and replies, and clean the list
Opens are now noisy. Apple says Mail Privacy Protection downloads remote content “regardless of whether you engage with the email”, so a machine can trigger an open.
Track these instead, once a month:
- new subscribers, and where they signed up
- clicks per issue
- replies
- unsubscribes after each issue
Remove hard bounces right away. Every few months, email a “still want these?” note to people who haven’t clicked in ages, and remove those who stay silent.
A smaller, active list lands in more inboxes.
Check it: a monthly sheet with those four numbers, and a date for your next list clean-up.
What’s overrated
- open rate as your main number, now that privacy features inflate it
- a beautiful template that’s more work every week
- bought lists, whose people never agreed to hear from you, which breaks consent rules in the UK, EU and Canada
- RSS-to-email as the whole strategy (fine for announcing posts, thin as a reason to subscribe)
Why it matters
A newsletter is the one channel where nobody else decides who sees your work. No algorithm update, no AI answer box between you and the reader.
But it only works if you keep sending. Keep the promise small enough to keep, set up the sending once, and spend your time on the issues.
If you take one thing from this guide, write the promise sentence today. Everything else follows from it.
Common Questions
How much does it cost to start a newsletter?
Nothing at first on most platforms. Kit is free up to 10,000 subscribers, beehiiv up to 2,500 and Substack for free newsletters, while MailerLite and Mailchimp free plans stop at around 250. Costs start when you grow or want paid features.
How often should I send a newsletter?
As often as you can keep up for months. Weekly, fortnightly and monthly all work; what hurts is promising weekly and then going silent. State the cadence on the sign-up form so subscribers know what to expect.
How do I get my first 100 newsletter subscribers?
From people who already know you. Put a form at the end of your most-read posts, tell existing customers and followers what the newsletter promises, and ask early readers to forward an issue they liked to one person.
