Buttondown
A newsletter tool with a Markdown editor, paid subscriptions and a full API, priced by active subscribers.
- Starting price
- Free up to 100 subscribers; Basic from USD 9 / month
- Free trial
- Free plan for up to 100 subscribers
- API
- Yes, a REST API with webhooks on every plan, including Free
Overview
Buttondown is a hosted newsletter service for writers, independent publishers and developers who want to send a newsletter rather than run a marketing suite. It has been run since 2017 by a small, fully remote and self-funded team. Pricing follows the number of active subscribers: free up to 100, then monthly tiers in US dollars, with two months free on annual billing. Each tier unlocks a fixed set of features, so a feature such as automations can raise the price to a higher tier.
Our take
Pick it if you write the newsletter yourself, like Markdown or a command line, and want the subscriber list and paid subscribers to stay portable. If you run promotional campaigns for an online shop with visual email builders and revenue reporting, a marketing automation platform is the closer fit. Check the tier rather than the subscriber count alone: a small list that needs automations already lands on the USD 29 tier.
Key Facts
| Category | |
|---|---|
| Starting price | Free up to 100 subscribers; Basic from USD 9 / month Basic covers up to 1,000 active subscribers. Annual billing costs ten times the monthly price. Automations, sponsorships and multiple newsletters need the USD 29 tier or above, teams and whitelabeling the USD 79 tier. Prices assume at most one email a day to the whole list. Registered non-profits get 50 % off. |
| Free trial | Free plan for up to 100 subscribers |
| API | Yes, a REST API with webhooks on every plan, including Free |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS) |
Features
- Campaign types
- Newsletters and one-off emails, RSS-to-email from an existing blog, automated sequences, surveys, comments and sponsorship slots, plus hosted web archives that can be paywalled
- Automation and journeys
- Automations triggered by events such as a subscriber confirming or a tag being added, filtered by tag or by paid status, with actions to send an email, add a tag, call a webhook or cross-post to social networks, each after a set delay; available from the USD 29 tier
- Segmentation and personalisation
- Tags, searchable subscriber metadata, free versus paid targeting and separate newsletters per audience; per-subscriber content through Django-style template variables and filters. Tagging and segmentation start on the USD 9 tier
- Templates and editor
- Rich text or Markdown editor with four email themes, custom HTML and CSS, reusable snippets, and drafting by email or through the Buttondown CLI
- Deliverability and testing
- Sending from your own domain, pre-send checks on subject length, word count and email size, double opt-in, and a dedicated IP for USD 50 / month for senders above 100,000 emails a month. Gmail does not report spam complaints back, so the docs point to Google Postmaster Tools
- Ecommerce and CRM data
- Paid subscriptions through Stripe in any currency Stripe supports, monthly or annual, with multiple tiers and pay-what-you-like pricing; automations can create and update Shopify customers, and Memberful is supported
- Integrations and API
- REST API with webhooks on every plan including Free, documented as an OpenAPI spec rather than official SDKs, plus a CLI, Zapier and integrations with WordPress, Ghost, Discord, Medium, LinkedIn and Bluesky
Integrations
- Stripe
- Zapier
- WordPress
- Ghost
- Shopify
- Memberful
- Discord
- Mastodon
- Bluesky
- Medium
- Webflow
- Squarespace
- Framer
- Carrd
- Plausible
- Fathom
Deployment and Support
- Deployment
-
- Cloud (SaaS)
- Browser-based
- Support
-
- Email helpdesk
- Onboarding
-
- Documentation and knowledge base
Pros and Cons
Strengths
- Free for the first 100 subscribers
- API and webhooks on every plan, including Free
- Buttondown states it takes no cut of paid subscriptions; Stripe's card fees still apply
- Billed by active subscribers rather than all contacts on the list
Limitations
- Automations, sponsorships and multiple newsletters need the USD 29 tier or above
- Prices assume at most one email a day to the whole list; higher volume needs a custom quote
- No official SDKs; the vendor publishes an OpenAPI spec instead
- Lists above 100,000 subscribers are priced on request
Pricing
-
Free
USD 0 / month
Up to 100 subscribers, with the editor, sending from a custom domain and hosted archives.
-
Basic
USD 9 / month
Up to 1,000 subscribers. Adds tagging and segmentation, paid subscriptions, comments and surveys, analytics, RSS-to-email and attachments. USD 90 billed annually.
-
Standard
USD 29 / month
Up to 5,000 subscribers. Adds automations, sponsorships, multiple newsletters and archives on a custom domain. USD 290 billed annually.
-
Professional
USD 79 / month
Up to 10,000 subscribers. Adds teams and whitelabeling. USD 790 billed annually.
-
Advanced
USD 139 / month
Up to 20,000 subscribers. Larger lists step up to USD 459 / month for 100,000 subscribers; above that, a custom quote.
Alternatives and Comparisons
What users say
Reviews
No reviews yet.
Every review is read by a person and the author's email is confirmed before it appears. How we check reviews
Write a review
Last verified:
Ready to take a closer look at Buttondown
The link goes straight to the vendor. Some links on this site are affiliate links.
Visit Buttondown