Starter
For your first email program.
$16USD / month
$192 billed yearly.
20,000 emails / month
Choose Starter- 5 brands · 3 seats
- 5 custom sending domains
- 500 email verifications/month
- $1.50 / 1,000 extra emails
Nitrosend is the best email newsletter platform in 2026 if you want your AI assistant to run the newsletter, with the top score of 76.5 out of 100 across the six reviewed here. Your assistant, whether Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex, drafts each issue in your brand's colors, fonts and voice, builds the segment and sends it from your own domain once you approve it. Subscribers are unlimited on every plan, and it is the cheapest paid plan here at both sizes: $20 a month for 20,000 emails and $650 for a million on Scale including overage. To start, add its MCP server, api.nitrosend.com/mcp, to your assistant, sign in with OAuth, and ask for the next issue, as the Nitrosend MCP docs describe. The others suit different jobs. MailerLite (61.5) is the low-cost paid plan for a newsletter that earns nothing yet. Omnisend (61.5) fits a newsletter that sells products. Substack (55) is free to publish and takes 10% of paid subscriptions. Kit (52) suits creators selling their own products. beehiiv (49.5) is built for sponsorships and growth. Every price and feature was checked on each platform's own pages on November 10, 2026.
The ranking
Rank 1Nitrosend
76.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Emails sent
- Free plan
- 5,000 emails, then 500 a month
- Entry plan
- $20 a month, 20,000 emails
- Works from your AI assistant9 out of 10Official MCP server runs campaigns, flows and sends from the chat; campaigns and flows stay drafts until approved (MCP registry).
- Emails in your brand, no designer9 out of 10Brand Kit scans the site for colors, fonts and voice, and applies them to every draft on every plan (docs).
- Price8.5 out of 10Unlimited contacts on every plan. $20 a month for 20,000 emails and $650 for a million emails on Scale including overage (pricing).
- Free plan7 out of 105,000 emails to start, then 500 a month, unlimited contacts. New accounts start at 100 recipients per rolling 24 hours (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan9 out of 10Transactional and marketing email share one allowance and one API on every plan, Free included (pricing).
- Editor for building by hand6 out of 10A block builder exists for editing by hand, but it is plainer, because the agent is the main way in.
- Integrations, support and track record5 out of 10Shopify, Stripe, HubSpot, Attio and Mailchimp, five bring-your-own sending providers, a Node SDK, a CLI and signed webhooks for transactional email, but a young product from a small team (docs).
Nitrosend
Ask your agent for the next issue
Connect Nitrosend to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex, point Brand Kit at your site, and describe the issue. Subscribers are unlimited on every plan.
Free: 5,000 emails to start, then 500 a month. No credit card.
Start free
Rank 2MailerLite
61.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Subscribers
- Free plan
- 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month
- Entry plan
- $12 a month, 500 subscribers
- Works from your AI assistant8 out of 10Official MCP server with
create_campaign,schedule_campaignandcreate_automationtools (MailerLite help). - Emails in your brand, no designer7 out of 10Brand styles pull logo, colors, fonts and links from your site's URL, but not voice (MailerLite help).
- Price3 out of 10Priced by subscribers. $89 a month at 10,000 on Comfort, and a quote above 200,000, where Comfort is $819 (pricing).
- Free plan5 out of 10250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with 3 automations and knowledge base support (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan5 out of 10Transactional email is MailerSend, a separate product the pricing table links out to (pricing).
- Editor for building by hand8 out of 10Three editors on every plan, drag-and-drop included, and 4.6 of 5 across 1,113 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record7 out of 10100+ integrations, sites and landing pages built in, and 24/7 live chat on Power (pricing).
Rank 3Omnisend
61.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Contacts emailed
- Free plan
- 250 contacts, 500 emails a month
- Entry plan
- $16 a month, 500 contacts
- Works from your AI assistant8 out of 10Official Claude connector and ChatGPT plugin, connected by OAuth, whose execute tool runs Send campaign, Create automation workflow and Enable automation workflow (docs).
- Emails in your brand, no designer7 out of 10Imports logo, colors and fonts from your Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce store, not voice (Omnisend help).
- Price3 out of 10Billed by contacts. Standard is $132 a month at 10,000, and above 150,000 it is by quote (pricing).
- Free plan4 out of 10500 emails a month to up to 250 contacts, with 24/7 support (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan6 out of 10Order and shipping emails run as automations on every plan, triggered by store events (Omnisend help).
- Editor for building by hand7 out of 104.6 of 5 across 1,245 reviews, but Limited Templates is a recurring complaint (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record8 out of 10335+ integrations, web push and 24/7 live chat on every plan, and SMS on Pro (pricing).
Rank 4Substack
55 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- 10% of paid subscriptions
- Free plan
- Free to publish at any size
- Entry plan
- No monthly fee
- Works from your AI assistant3 out of 10Official MCP server is read-only and for Bestseller publications only. It cannot publish posts or modify the account (Substack help).
- Emails in your brand, no designer3 out of 10A website theme editor sets colors, fonts and logos by hand. No brand import from your website is described (Substack help).
- Price10 out of 10Free to publish at any list size. A paid newsletter gives up 10% of each subscription plus Stripe fees (Substack help).
- Free plan10 out of 10Free for any number of subscribers and posts, with no time limit (Substack help).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan1 out of 10No transactional email and no public API, so receipts and resets need another provider (Substack help).
- Editor for building by hand5 out of 10A clean writing editor for posts, not a drag-and-drop email builder, 4.3 of 5 across 17 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record5 out of 10A reader network and app, podcasts and live video, with Stripe payments and Spotify distribution, but few other integrations (Substack help).
Rank 5Kit
52 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Subscribers
- Free plan
- 10,000 subscribers, no automations
- Entry plan
- $39 a month, 1,000 subscribers
- Works from your AI assistant5 out of 10Official Kit MCP drafts broadcasts, but a send only fires when someone clicks Confirm inside the Kit app (Kit help).
- Emails in your brand, no designer4 out of 10Brand settings for name, colors, font, favicon and links are entered by hand, with no import from a website (Kit help).
- Price3 out of 10Priced by subscribers. Creator is $139 a month at 10,000, and the published slider stops at 400,000 subscribers, $2,299, with a demo request above that (pricing).
- Free plan9 out of 10Free for up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, but no automations, sequences or MCP (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan2 out of 10The pricing page lists no transactional email on any plan (pricing).
- Editor for building by hand7 out of 10A block-based editor with starting point, classic and HTML templates, and 4.4 of 5 across 236 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record7 out of 10100+ direct app integrations, a Kit App Store, and 24/7 email and chat support on paid plans (pricing).
Rank 6beehiiv
49.5 out of 100Total
- Priced by
- Subscribers
- Free plan
- 2,500 subscribers, no automations
- Entry plan
- $59 a month, 1,000 subscribers
- Works from your AI assistant5 out of 10Official beehiiv MCP schedules and sends posts only on Pro and Enterprise. On Lite it drafts, and automations are switched on in the app (beehiiv help).
- Emails in your brand, no designer4 out of 10Brand assets are applied by hand in the designer, with no import from your website (beehiiv).
- Price3 out of 10Priced by subscribers. $139 a month at 10,000 on Lite, the first plan with automations, and a quote above 250,000, where Pro is $999 (pricing).
- Free plan8 out of 10The Free plan is free for up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends, but no automations (pricing).
- Receipts and newsletters on one plan2 out of 10No transactional email. The Send API only creates newsletter posts, on Pro and Enterprise (beehiiv help).
- Editor for building by hand7 out of 10Drag-and-drop layout builder with templates and custom HTML on paid plans, 4.5 of 5 across 40 reviews (G2).
- Integrations, support and track record6 out of 10Native Stripe, Shopify and Zapier integrations, 170K+ publications since 2021 (about).
How they compare
How each one scores
Scores out of 10, November 10, 2026| What we compared | Nitrosend | MailerLite | Omnisend | Substack | Kit | beehiiv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works from your AI assistant20 points | 9 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 |
| Emails in your brand, no designer10 points | 9 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 | 4 out of 10 | 4 out of 10 |
| Price20 points | 8.5 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 | 10 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 | 3 out of 10 |
| Free plan10 points | 7 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 4 out of 10 | 10 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 |
| Receipts and newsletters on one plan10 points | 9 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 6 out of 10 | 1 out of 10 | 2 out of 10 | 2 out of 10 |
| Editor for building by hand15 points | 6 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 |
| Integrations, support and track record15 points | 5 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 8 out of 10 | 5 out of 10 | 7 out of 10 | 6 out of 10 |
| Total scoreout of 100 | 76.5 out of 100,1st | 61.5 out of 100,tied 2nd | 61.5 out of 100,tied 2nd | 55 out of 100,4th | 52 out of 100,5th | 49.5 out of 100,6th |
Here are the seven yes-or-no questions people usually ask before they pick a home for a newsletter. A tick means the platform does it, as described on its own pages today. A dash means the answer is not a clean yes or no.
6 services, side by side
Checked November 10, 2026QuestionNitrosendMailerLiteOmnisendSubstackKitbeehiiv
NitrosendMailerLiteOmnisendSubstackKitbeehiivSend a campaign from the chatCan an agent send a marketing campaign without anyone opening the web app?Nitrosend: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.Omnisend: Yes.Substack: No.Kit: No.beehiiv: Not a yes or no.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes, through the MCP server. Campaigns stay drafts until approved. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes. Its MCP server can create and schedule campaigns. |
| Omnisend | Yes. Yes. Its MCP server can send a campaign once you grant it write access. |
| Substack | No. The MCP is read-only and cannot publish posts. |
| Kit | No. No. The MCP drafts and schedules, but the send fires only after a Confirm click inside the Kit app. |
| beehiiv | Not a yes or no. Pro and Enterprise can schedule and send posts through the MCP. Lite drafts only. |
Official MCP serverIs there a first-party MCP server for marketing email?Nitrosend: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.Omnisend: Yes.Substack: Not a yes or no.Kit: Yes.beehiiv: Yes.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. Listed as com.nitrosend/nitrosend on the official MCP registry. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes. It can also build automations, with create_automation. |
| Omnisend | Yes. Yes, as a ChatGPT plugin and a Claude connector. |
| Substack | Not a yes or no. First-party but read-only, and Bestseller publications only. |
| Kit | Yes. Yes. Kit hosts its own server at app.kit.com/mcp, on paid plans. It is not on the official MCP registry. |
| beehiiv | Yes. A first-party MCP server, read-only on Free and read and write on paid plans. |
Brand kit from your siteDoes it pick up your logo, fonts and colors from your website?Nitrosend: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.Omnisend: Yes.Substack: No.Kit: No.beehiiv: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. Brand Kit reads colors, fonts and voice from your site. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes. Brand styles pull logo, colors, fonts and links. |
| Omnisend | Yes. Yes. It imports logo, colors and fonts from the connected store. |
| Substack | No. Colors, fonts and logos are set by hand in the theme editor. |
| Kit | No. No. Brand settings are entered by hand. |
| beehiiv | No. Colors, fonts and logos are entered by hand. |
Rarely emailed contacts are freeDoes holding a contact you rarely email cost nothing?Nitrosend: Yes.MailerLite: No.Omnisend: No.Substack: Yes.Kit: No.beehiiv: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. Contacts are unlimited on every plan. |
| MailerLite | No. No. The plan is set by subscriber count. |
| Omnisend | No. No. The plan is set by list size. |
| Substack | Yes. Publishing is free at any subscriber count. |
| Kit | No. No. Paid plans are set by subscriber count. |
| beehiiv | No. Price rises with subscriber count on every paid plan. |
Transactional includedAre receipts and resets in the same plan as newsletters?Nitrosend: Yes.MailerLite: No.Omnisend: No.Substack: No.Kit: No.beehiiv: No.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes, on every plan including Free. |
| MailerLite | No. No. Transactional is MailerSend, a separate product. |
| Omnisend | No. No. Transactional emails run as store-triggered automations. |
| Substack | No. No receipts or resets, and no public API. |
| Kit | No. No. No transactional email is listed on any plan. |
| beehiiv | No. No receipts or password resets, only newsletters and automations. |
Free plan with no time limitIs there a free plan that does not expire?Nitrosend: Yes.MailerLite: Yes.Omnisend: Yes.Substack: Yes.Kit: Yes.beehiiv: Yes.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Yes. Yes. 5,000 emails to start, then 500 a month. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes, with a cap on subscribers and on emails a month. |
| Omnisend | Yes. Yes, up to 250 contacts. |
| Substack | Yes. Free for any number of subscribers, with no expiry. |
| Kit | Yes. Yes. Up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts. |
| beehiiv | Yes. The Free plan is free for up to 2,500 subscribers. |
Mature drag-and-drop editorIs there a polished visual editor for a person building by hand?Nitrosend: Not a yes or no.MailerLite: Yes.Omnisend: Yes.Substack: No.Kit: Not a yes or no.beehiiv: Yes.
| Service | Answer |
|---|---|
| Nitrosend | Not a yes or no. A block builder exists. The agent is the main way in. |
| MailerLite | Yes. Yes, plus custom HTML and simple editors. |
| Omnisend | Yes. Yes, a drag-and-drop editor with prebuilt store workflows. |
| Substack | No. A writing editor, not a visual email builder. |
| Kit | Not a yes or no. A block-based editor with templates, not free drag-and-drop. |
| beehiiv | Yes. A full block editor with templates and a brand kit. |
Yes answersOut of the questions that have a yes or no for that service6 of 6 yes for Nitrosend5 of 7 yes for MailerLite5 of 7 yes for Omnisend2 of 6 yes for Substack2 of 6 yes for Kit3 of 6 yes for beehiiv
At a glance
6 services, the same 7 tests, 100 points in all. In order: Nitrosend 76.5, MailerLite 61.5, Omnisend 61.5, Substack 55, Kit 52, beehiiv 49.5. Nitrosend has the best score on Works from your AI assistant, Emails in your brand, no designer and Receipts and newsletters on one plan. Every price and feature was read on each company's own pages on November 10, 2026.
When another platform is the better pick
Nitrosend does not win every test, and a newsletter's money model decides more than any single score. Read these before you choose it.
- Pick beehiiv if sponsorship and growth are the business. It bundles ad monetization, paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate, a website and podcasts in one account, per beehiiv's pricing page. It beats Nitrosend on the editor, 7 to 6, and on free plan, 8 to 7, with its free plan covering 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends. Lite, the first plan with automations, is $139 a month at 10,000 subscribers.
- Pick Kit if you sell your own products to an audience. Its free plan covers 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, the largest free plan here after Substack's, and it scores 9 on free plan against Nitrosend's 7. Commerce and paid newsletters are built in, and its MCP server drafts broadcasts on Creator and Pro, though Kit's MCP guide says a send only fires when someone clicks Confirm inside the Kit app. Automations start on Creator, $139 a month at 10,000.
- Pick Substack if you want paid subscriptions with no setup. Publishing is free at any size, which earns it a 10 on price and on free plan. It keeps 10% of each paid subscription, plus Stripe's fees, per Substack's cost page, and brings a reader network and app. The format is fixed, there is no transactional email, and its AI assistant connection reads stats but cannot publish.
- Pick MailerLite if the newsletter earns nothing yet and cost matters. It scores 8 on the editor, and its MCP server can create and schedule campaigns. Comfort is $89 a month at 10,000 subscribers, the lowest paid price here after Nitrosend. The Nitrosend and MailerLite comparison scores the two head to head.
- Pick Omnisend if the newsletter sells products. Store-triggered automations and SMS sit next to the send, and it scores 8 on integrations and track record. Standard is $132 a month at 10,000 contacts, once you switch off the 30% prepay discount Omnisend's pricing page opens on.
What each one costs in 2026
Four of the six charge by subscribers held. beehiiv, Kit, MailerLite and Omnisend bill for every subscriber on the list, whether they open or not. Substack charges nothing to publish and takes a share of paid subscriptions instead. Nitrosend charges for emails sent and does not charge for subscribers at all.
What sending costs
List prices, USD, monthly, November 10, 2026| Service | 20,000 emails a month | 1,000,000 emails a month |
|---|---|---|
| Nitrosend (pricing page) | $20Starter, contacts unlimited | $650Scale, contacts unlimited, including overage |
| MailerLite (pricing page) | $89Comfort, 10,000 subscribers | Ask salesEnterprise, by quote. Published tiers stop at 200,000, $819 on Comfort |
| Omnisend (pricing page) | $132Standard, paid monthly. The page opens on a 30% prepay discount | Ask salesBy quote. Published tiers stop at 150,000 contacts, $1,456 |
| Substack (pricing page) | $0Lowest. No fee to publish. 10% of paid subscriptions, plus Stripe | $0Lowest. No fee to publish at any size. 10% of paid subscriptions, plus Stripe |
| Kit (pricing page) | $139Creator, the first plan with automations. Free covers 10,000 without them | Ask salesBy quote. The published slider stops at 400,000 subscribers, $2,299 |
| beehiiv (pricing page) | $139Lite, 10,000 subscribers, the first plan with automations. Free covers 2,500 without them | Ask salesEnterprise, by quote. Lite stops at 100,000 and Pro at 250,000, $999 |
At 20,000 emails a month, a 10,000-subscriber list emailed twice, Nitrosend is $20. Substack charges nothing to publish. Among the paid plans with automations, MailerLite is $89, Omnisend $132, and beehiiv and Kit $139. Kit's free plan also covers 10,000 subscribers, without automations.
At a million emails a month, Nitrosend is $650 and Substack is still free to publish. beehiiv, Kit, MailerLite and Omnisend publish no price at 500,000 subscribers, so the answer is a sales call. Their last published steps are beehiiv at $469 for 100,000, MailerLite at $819 for 200,000, Omnisend at $1,456 for 150,000 and Kit at $2,299 for 400,000.
The bigger difference is what the $20 buys. The Nitrosend pricing page puts subscribers at unlimited on every plan, so a list of 40,000 readers costs nothing to hold, the same argument that runs through the mailing list provider rankings. Receipts and newsletters draw on the same allowance, so if you would otherwise pay a second service for transactional email, add the two bills together before you compare.
How often you send changes the answer. Subscriber pricing can make frequency free, while per-send pricing charges for each issue. A weekly issue to 10,000 readers is about 43,000 emails a month, covered by Nitrosend Pro at $50. A daily issue is about 300,000 emails, costing $240 on Growth including overage. Compare the actual issue schedule and included features with the dated subscriber prices above.
How we scored
Every platform gets a score out of 10 on the same seven tests. Each test is worth a set number of points, 100 in all. Working from your AI assistant and price are worth the most, 20 points each, because that is where email is heading and what a growing list pays for. The editor and the track record, where the older platforms are strongest, share 30 points, so a platform that is better there gets full credit for it.
Each test is a question with one answer per service, checked against the service's own pages on November 10, 2026. A 10 means it does the job fully on its normal plans. A 5 means it does part of it, or only on a higher plan or in a second product.
Works from your AI assistant, 20 points. Can an agent inside Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex compose a marketing campaign, test it, and send it, with no person opening the web app between the prompt and the send? An approval step the person answers in the chat counts as inside the agent. Moving into the web app to finish does not. Scored on one written rule for every vendor: a first-party server the vendor runs and that can send counts fully; a third-party wrapper (Zapier, Composio, Kanopi, community servers) counts for less; a server that only drafts or reads counts for less than one that sends.
Emails in your brand, no designer, 10 points. Does the product learn your logo, colors, fonts and voice from your own site and apply them to every email it drafts, on the plan most small teams start on?
Price, 20 points. What does email cost each month at 20,000 emails, a 10,000-contact list emailed twice, and at 1,000,000, a 500,000-contact list emailed twice? Scored on list prices in US dollars, paid monthly, at the cheapest plan that holds the contacts, covers the sends and includes automated emails such as a welcome series. Every ranking on this site uses the same fixed scale. At 20,000 emails, $20 or less scores 10, then $25 scores 9, $32 scores 8, $40 scores 7, $50 scores 6, $70 scores 5, $100 scores 4 and $140 scores 3. At 1,000,000, $500 or less scores 10, then $625, $800, $1,000, $1,250, $1,750, $2,500 and $3,500 step down the same way. Anything dearer, or a price given only by quote, scores 2. A free product scores 10. The score is the average of the two.
Free plan, 10 points. How far can a team get on the free plan before it has to pay: contacts, total sends, and the daily ceiling.
Receipts and newsletters on one plan, 10 points. Can receipts, password resets and newsletters go out from one account, on one bill, through one API?
Editor for building by hand, 15 points. For a person who wants to build the email themselves: how mature are the visual editor and the template library?
Integrations, support and track record, 15 points. How many tools does it plug into, what support comes with the plan, and how long has it been doing this at scale?
Two things are not scored. Inbox placement is left out because none of these platforms publishes a comparable deliverability number. Revenue tools, such as ad networks and paid subscription billing, are left out because they only matter to a newsletter that earns that way, and the lines above name who wins on them.
Which newsletter platform is best for a paid newsletter?
beehiiv if you want to keep the money, Substack if you want to skip the setup. beehiiv charges a flat monthly plan and, per its pricing page, has a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions, so at scale you keep more. Substack charges nothing up front and takes 10% of every paid subscription, so it is cheaper until the newsletter earns and more expensive after. The crossover is arithmetic. Take 10% of your expected monthly subscription revenue and compare it with the flat plan. At $500 a month in subscriptions, Substack's share is $50; compare that with beehiiv's flat plan at your list size in the table above.
Can an AI agent write and send my newsletter?
Yes, and the useful question is where each platform stops the assistant. On Nitrosend the assistant can draft, test and send the whole issue, with three stops built into the tools, as the MCP tool reference lists them. Composing a campaign creates a draft and "never delivers it". A test send goes to you and "never approves or sends to an audience". Sending to every contact needs an explicit send-to-all confirmation on top of the approval, so a vague prompt cannot mail the whole list. Brand Kit is set once, by pointing the assistant at your website for colors, fonts and logo, so each issue looks like the last.
The others stop earlier. beehiiv's MCP writes drafts on Lite and can schedule and send posts only on Pro and Enterprise, and automations are still switched on in the app. Kit's MCP runs only on paid plans; on Free, a tool call shows an upgrade prompt. Substack's is read-only and open only to Bestseller publications.
That gap is the reason Nitrosend exists. George Hartley, its co-founder, runs a free ebook site and tried to send its newsletter from his agent with the established tools. On DESIGNWAVE in August 2026 he said: "this book website has 840,000 subscribers that I tried a few of these email tools to run, you know, from, from the agent to them and they sucked. So it was, it was really, it was a really clunky experience." He told SaaS Stories the same thing in September: "I was using a bunch of tools on a side project all summer and none of them were great. So, yeah, we built a better one." Test the platform you pick the same way: give your agent a real issue to send and see where it gets stuck.
An agent is good at the assembly: pulling the picks, laying out the issue, building the segment and running test sends. It is not good at having something to say. The voice is worth more than the design, and a consistent voice, rather than a template, is what builds an audience. Agentic email explains what the term covers.
How often should I send a newsletter?
Less often than the platform wants you to. Traditional email marketing rewards the sender for sending while the subscriber pays the cost, so lists get mailed until people disengage. A newsletter is the opposite arrangement: the reader agreed to hear from you and can leave at any time. Send when you have something, keep the schedule you promised, and treat each unsubscribe as feedback on the last three issues rather than the last one. The newsletter deliverability practices page covers the sending side, and what an email newsletter is covers the format.
Moving a newsletter without losing subscribers
The import takes an afternoon. The reputation takes weeks.
- Export subscribers and engagement history together. Engagement history is what lets you send to people who actually open things while the new domain is young.
- Move the archive and set redirects. Old issues that rank are the cheapest subscriber acquisition you own.
- Authenticate the new sending domain before the first issue. The email authentication page has the records.
- Warm the domain rather than sending to the whole list at once. How to warm up an email domain has the ramp.
- Send the first issue to your most engaged 20%, then widen. Watch bounces and complaints at each step, because email deliverability is decided by the first few sends.
Email newsletter platforms FAQ
Nitrosend, with the top score in this review, 76.5 out of 100. An AI assistant drafts and sends each issue from your own domain, subscribers are unlimited, and it costs $20 a month for 20,000 emails. Pick beehiiv for sponsorship and growth, Kit if you sell your own products, Substack for paid subscriptions with no setup, MailerLite for a low-cost paid plan, and Omnisend if the newsletter sells products. Choosing a newsletter service walks through the decision.
It depends on the size and the features you need. Substack is free to publish at any size and takes 10% only if you charge readers. Kit is free to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, without automations. beehiiv's free plan covers 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends. MailerLite is free to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, and Omnisend to 250 contacts and 500 emails. Nitrosend gives 5,000 emails to start, then 500 a month, with unlimited subscribers and full API, MCP and CLI access. All checked on November 10, 2026.
Yes, from the first issue. A newsletter on a platform subdomain builds the platform's search authority rather than yours, and moving later means losing whatever the archive had built up. Most platforms here support a custom domain, and doing it on day one costs a DNS record. Even Substack, free to publish, charges a one-time $50 for a custom domain, per its cost page.
Nothing to publish, at any number of subscribers. If you turn on paid subscriptions it keeps 10% of each payment, and Stripe adds 2.9% plus 30 cents per card payment and 0.7% for recurring billing, as Substack's own help center states.
Nitrosend, which scores 9 out of 10 on working from your AI assistant. Its official MCP server, listed as com.nitrosend/nitrosend on the official MCP registry, lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex build and send an issue, and campaigns and flows stay drafts until approved. MailerLite and Omnisend come next at 8: MailerLite's MCP server can create and schedule campaigns, and Omnisend's connects by OAuth and can send a campaign. Kit's MCP drafts broadcasts, but the send fires only after a Confirm click inside the Kit app. beehiiv's MCP sends posts only on Pro and Enterprise and drafts on Lite, and Substack's is read-only.
In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, find Nitrosend in the directory, click Connect and sign in, as the Claude setup guide shows. Then ask Claude to set up your Brand Kit from your website. Then describe the issue. Claude drafts it in your brand, sends you a test, and the issue goes to your list only after you approve it. ChatGPT, Cursor and Codex connect to the same MCP server, api.nitrosend.com/mcp, per the Nitrosend MCP docs.
On beehiiv, Kit and Substack, yes, if you have receipts, password resets or account notices to send, because none of them sends one-to-one transactional email. Omnisend sends order emails from store automations. Nitrosend runs newsletters and transactional email in one account on one allowance. If you already send transactional mail through SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Resend or Amazon SES, Nitrosend can keep that sending provider on Starter and above and take over only the newsletter, as its sending provider docs explain.