Flodesk vs Substack! It’s a good question for creatives looking to figure out their best email newsletter platform.

Like in the Flodesk vs Mailchimp debate, there’s no one answer for all people. But there is a best choice for everyone.

What is Flodesk?

Flodesk is a platform for sending email newsletters to your email list. Its strengths include its ease of use, its single-tier pricing (it’s $38 per month for any number of contacts, with an additional fee for optional ecommerce functionality, if you want it), and its templates, which are very good looking. To see more, click here [affiliate link].

What is Substack?

Substack is a very different animal. It’s very much the newsletter platform du jour — to the extent that its writers tend to refer to their “Substack” rather than their newsletter. And it’s become a popular home for writers and editors, thinkers and activists — I generally think of it as a home for anyone making arguments, or building an audience, through words, though this doesn’t have to be so.

One problem with Substack is the very strength of its brand. This means that its users can be implicated in the company’s mistakes, through no fault of their own. Just consider the recent controversy ("Substack Says It Will Not Ban Nazis or Extremist Speech"). People work too hard on their newsletters for them to become tainted by someone else's bad morals, bad taste, or bad decisions.

On the other hand, knit into the ethos of the Substack platform is the community aspect. If users permit it, readers can comment on and discuss the newsletters themselves. This is unique to Substack and Flodesk can’t — and likely doesn’t want to — offer anything similar.

Flodesk vs Substack: The Details

Difference # 1: Subscriptions and Monetization

The differences in Flodesk vs Substack are more than skin-deep: The monetization scheme is totally different. Substack is built to encourage subscriptions, and users have the ability to segment their list between paid and unpaid subscribers, giving fuller access to the former while giving the latter a taste of what’s on offer. If you don’t have any subscribers, Substack is free for both users and readers. If you do, it charges a variety of fees: Substack takes 10%, while there’s an additional, 2.9% + $.30 per transaction credit card processing fee, and an additional fee of .5% for recurring subscriptions. (Here’s a breakdown of all the fees.)

This is really different from Flodesk, which doesn’t offer subscriptions to the newsletter to readers at this point. If you're selling anything, you're selling something other than the newsletter: products or courses or mugs or yoga classes — something other than the newsletter itself.

Difference # 2: Some Technical Ability

Flodesk isn’t anywhere near as “fully featured” as more expensive — and more feature-rich — competitors like ConvertKit or Mailchimp. Its ability to segment audiences and then target those audiences based on demographic components or behaviors is incredibly limited, and its analytics are equally so. Your list, indeed, is organized by segment, but this is mostly how they were acquired, rather than, for example, people who’ve subscribed for more than six months and have opened your last five emails, as Mailchimp would allow.

You can’t do most of those things on Substack, either, though there are some basic gestures toward segmentation, with gold stars indicating the most active subscribers.

Difference # 3: Uh, Substack’s Not Really a Newsletter

At least it’s not a newsletter the way that ConvertKit and Mailchimp — and indeed Flodesk — seem to think of one: as a marketing arm for a business or brand. Those are platforms that create newsletters, like Word and Google Docs are software that create text documents. ConvertKit and Mailchimp and Flodesk create newsletters. Substack creates a Substack.

Substack operates in a gray space between a newsletter and a blog. You could almost think of each Substack post as a blog post, where the primary publishing vehicle is sending the post to subscribers, rather than publishing it on a Wordpress blog. The messages, taken together, create an archive of posts, that sit together within Substack. You’d never mistake it for a blog — it’s clearly a Substack.

The primary upside is ease of use, the monetization structure, and the built-in community. But you’re still building a Substack. There’s some degree of customization (you can use your own URL, for example), but it doesn’t feel like that’s what they want you to do (it’ll cost you $50, outside of registry fees!).

Final Call: Flodesk vs Substack

While I think these generally appeal to the same audience — design-conscious creatives — the differences are pretty clear. They don’t cater to the same audience.

If you consider your newsletter the product, Substack is probably for you. If you have a product line, or want your newsletter to support a business that extends beyond the newsletter itself, Flodesk might be a better fit.

Want to Get Going With Flodesk?  

I offer custom packages based on your needs. Email me to schedule a complimentary consult call. My services can include:

• Importing, consolidating, and managing your subscriber list — if it’s a mess, we’ll sort it out

• Creating or modifying a template that beautifully reflects your brand identity

• Creating and embedding sign-up forms

• Creating automations and freebies (see an automation sample here)

• Adding additional ecommerce functionality if it benefits your business

I’ll do it for you — or I can teach you how to do it during one-on-one Zoom sessions.