What made me switch to Flodesk (and stay)

If you’re reading this post, perhaps you’re like me. I’ve also searched the internet for guidance about the best email marketing platform. In my case, I was searching for a place to host my weekly newsletter, Hello Friday. There are many options out there, and here’s what I’ve used in this order: Mailchimp, Squarespace Campaigns, Flodesk, and Substack. In the fall of 2024, I moved back to Flodesk. 

Today, I’m going to share why I went back to Flodesk and why it’s where I plan to stay for a while. 

First, who am I? 

When I’ve read other articles on Substack vs. Personal Blog vs. Email Marketing Platforms, I couldn’t immediately tell if the information was relevant to my work and goals. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so it helps to know where the information is coming from. 

If you’re new here, I’m Angie Mizzell—an author, podcast host, and former TV journalist. These days, my work is all about helping women create a life that feels like home. That includes letting go of old definitions of success, navigating change with courage, and moving toward what feels authentic and fulfilling in each season of life.

I send a newsletter called Hello Friday to my email community, a weekly dose of inspiration and encouragement. I always start with a personal story and reflection that includes a takeaway for the reader. I conclude with links to my latest podcast episode, Instagram posts, and upcoming events. I encourage engagement with my readers by inviting them to reply to my email with any personal insights the letter has sparked for them. I encourage them to forward the email to their friends and ask them to subscribe.

I write Hello Friday to maintain a connection with my readers and keep my work and current offerings at the top of their minds in a non-pressured way. I want them to look forward to my email each week, so it’s important to me that I honor their time and stay connected to what’s in it for them. 

I’ll get to my thoughts about Substack in a moment, but first, I want to discuss why I prefer Flodesk over other email marketing platforms I’ve tried. 

Why I prefer Flodesk over other email marketing platforms 

My brand mission is all about creating a life that feels like home. I want the aesthetic of my website and weekly emails to reflect how home feels to me: clean and spacious with white space and pops of color—like an exhale, a breath of fresh air. 

Flodesk excels at helping me create emails with fonts, colors, and a beautiful design that matches my brand. It has many templates to help me get started, and the minimal, simple interface makes it easy to adjust the layout from week to week. The signup forms blend seamlessly with my website, which feels inviting to new subscribers, and the landing pages are easy to set up and very helpful when I want to create a quick promotion for an upcoming workshop or event. 

I’m tech-savvy, but I need the design to be simple and easy. I need enough creative freedom to get the look I want and tweak it without taking forever. Flodesk’s backend is user-friendly, which is great because while I follow step-by-step directions well, I’ll give extra points to the platform if I can click around and figure it out as I go. Flodesk gets extra points.

I also like that you can have unlimited subscribers and send unlimited emails under one pricing plan. You can also try Flodesk for free and get 50% off your first year using my Flodesk partner link. 

Speaking of being a Flodesk partner, I only partner with brands that offer products I love and use. So, deciding to help spread the word about Flodesk was an easy yes for me. 

So why did I leave Flodesk (temporarily) for Substack? 

I’ve been writing online for 15-plus years. What started as a personal blog has evolved into Hello Friday. My work has also evolved over the years, but I’m a writer and a storyteller first. I was attracted to Substack’s old-school blogging vibes and how it promoted community building. I was attracted to the fact that Substack is free unless you put your writing behind a paywall, and then Substack takes a cut of that. It’s also easy to set up, and like other email marketing platforms, Substack allows you to import and export email subscribers. 

Why did I return to Flodesk? 

Eventually, Substack began to feel like another social network, which is not the vibe I’m going for with Hello Friday, and neither is putting my weekly newsletter behind a paywall. The paywall model works for some, but it didn’t work for me because I’ve been sharing personal stories and life tips for free for years. Plus, my readers share their email addresses and invite me into their inbox each week, and I feel good about that energy exchange.

Hello Friday offers a ton of value—it’s a gift to my readers—and, it’s also a marketing email. I use it to remind people about my book, speaking events, new workshops and offerings, and links to my podcast. 

Substack is very limited from a design perspective, and the embeddable signup box for my website didn’t match my brand. By directing readers to my Substack, I was pointing them away from my website, my book and offerings. Also, my website already has a blog.

Most of the traffic to my Substack came from sharing the link through my own channels. While my audience grew through the Substack network too, not everyone who “followed” Hello Friday subscribed to it by email, reinforcing the social network vibe. I enjoy social media and use it to create community and connection, but it’s just one spoke in the wheel.

Hello Friday is the center of that wheel, so it feels important to host and send it from a platform that I own.

On Substack, unless your post is behind a paywall, it’s available for anyone to read, whether they are subscribed or not. I want Hello Friday to feel exclusive for my subscribers. I want it to feel intimate, and if people feel compelled to respond, they can reply to me. So, it’s more about having a one-on-one conversation than a public one.

I still repurpose stories I share on Hello Friday for my blog and social media, but Hello Friday subscribers often get the news first, and it’s written more candidly, like a letter from a friend. My mission with my weekly newsletter is to create a strong, personal connection with my audience, and moving Hello Friday back to Flodesk makes my mission more accessible. 

Flodesk helps me send beautiful emails that are a natural extension of my brand.

I’m all about creating a life that feels like home, and my website is my online home. Hello Friday is like coming to the dinner party and then, for dessert, gathering together on sofas and comfy chairs with our legs tucked underneath us and pillows on our laps. So, that makes Flodesk like the flowers on the table and soft music playing in the background. 

If you want to try Flodesk for free, click here.

Use code ANGIELOVESFLODESK to get 50% off your first year of Flodesk, or click this link.