Home / Guides / Flodesk for newsletter creators

The short version

• Good fit if the look of your emails, forms and sales pages matters to your brand, and you want email plus a simple Stripe checkout in one place.
• The Free plan doesn't send email. It covers forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages for building a list. Sending needs the free trial or a paid plan.
• Pricing is no longer flat. Since December 2, 2025, new members pay by active subscriber count. Every paid plan still includes unlimited sends.
• Paid newsletters (recurring subscriptions through Flodesk Checkout) need the Everything plan and a Stripe Standard account.
• No RSS-to-email. Flodesk's help center says you can't send blog posts to email automatically.

Who Flodesk is for (and who it isn't for)

Flodesk presents itself as a design-first email and commerce platform for small businesses, creators and coaches. In practice, that suits a creator whose newsletter sits next to a visual brand: photographers, designers, coaches, or anyone selling a digital product who wants the email, the signup form and the checkout page to look the same.

It's a weaker match if you're a text-first writer who wants a publication website with a public archive and growth tools (see Kit vs Beehiiv), if you blog and want new posts emailed automatically, or if you want to charge for a newsletter on the cheapest possible plan.

The Free plan and the free trial

According to Flodesk's pricing FAQ:

• Free plan: build forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages to grow your list, with no active-subscriber limit listed. It does not include email sending or workflow automations.
• Free trial: access to all paid features, including sending, workflows and templates, with no credit card required. Flodesk's official information page gives the trial length as 14 days.
• Sending cap during the trial: the account setup article says trial accounts can send to at most 500 recipients a day.
• When the trial ends: you pick Lite, Pro or Everything, or the account moves to the Free plan. Your subscriber data is kept, and you can upgrade later to send again.

Paid plans and how they scale by list size

Flodesk's pricing FAQ says every paid plan has unlimited email sends, "no hidden fees, no per-email charges", and prices "scale as your subscriber list grows". Pricing is in USD and the same worldwide. Annual billing gives one month free. Here are the figures from the subscriber slider on the pricing page on September 25, 2026 (monthly billing / annual billing shown per month):

Source: flodesk.com/pricing (slider, plan cards and FAQ), checked September 25, 2026. The FAQ confirms the 1,000-subscriber prices: Lite $25/mo ($19 annually), Pro $28/mo ($25 annually), Everything $54/mo ($49 annually). Lite stops at 25,000 subscribers. Pro and Everything go up to 255,000 on the slider.

What each plan adds

• Lite: unlimited sends, email analytics, designer templates, segmentation, 1 seat, up to 25,000 subscribers. The FAQ says Lite is limited to 1 workflow automation, which the plan card calls a "limited time bonus".
• Pro: unlimited workflows, advanced analytics and reporting, the option to show or hide the Flodesk footer, 2 seats, and 1 integrated checkout (also labeled a "limited time bonus" on the plan card).
• Everything: unlimited checkouts, sales pages and funnels, subscriptions and payment plans, abandoned cart automations, discount codes, 3 seats.

How Flodesk counts subscribers

• Only active subscribers count. Unsubscribed, bounced and cleaned contacts don't.
• If you go over your tier, Flodesk says "your emails will never stop sending". It moves you to the next tier at your next billing date, with alerts at 90%, 95% and 100% of your limit.
• Members who were on a paid plan before December 2, 2025 keep their legacy flat-rate plan as long as they stay subscribed. That's why older reviews quote a single unlimited price.

Features that matter for newsletter creators

The workflow details come from Flodesk's workflows guide. Flodesk's information page also says it added subject-line A/B testing in June 2026. I haven't tested it.

Paid newsletters through Flodesk Checkout

Flodesk's Checkout overview lists "paid newsletters, memberships, recurring programs" among the things you can sell. The subscription product guide adds the conditions:

• Subscriptions need the Everything plan and a connected Stripe Standard account.
• Buyers go into a "product segment", which you can use to send issues only to paying readers. People who cancel or fail to pay are removed from it automatically.
• If you downgrade or cancel Everything, Flodesk immediately cancels every active subscription, and readers would have to buy again.
• Monthly subscribers don't get a reminder email before each charge. Annual subscribers do.
• Checkout is available to businesses in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Euro Area countries (per the pricing FAQ).

Deliverability notes from the official docs

• Authentication is required. Flodesk's deliverability guide says domain authentication with DKIM, SPF and DMARC "is no longer optional" in 2026, and warns that sending from a free address such as Gmail can land you in spam or get you blocked.
• DNS setup: the manual setup article says to add SPF and DKIM as CNAME records, and DMARC as a TXT record only if your domain doesn't already have one. There's also an automatic option through Entri. Allow up to 48 hours for DNS changes.
• Warm up after breaks. Flodesk says even gaps of 4–6 weeks may call for a gradual warm-up, starting with your most engaged subscribers.

Downsides and watch-outs

• No free sending. The Free plan grows a list, but you can't email it without paying (after the trial).
• Automation on Lite is minimal. One workflow, described as a limited-time bonus. Budget for Pro if you need more than a welcome sequence.
• Paid newsletters need the top plan, $54/mo at 1,000 subscribers on monthly billing, and cancelling that plan ends your readers' subscriptions.
• No RSS-to-email, so blog-driven newsletters take manual work.
• The Flodesk footer appears on Lite. The setup article says it links to your own Flodesk referral link, and you can hide it on Pro, Everything or legacy plans.
• Imports: Flodesk asks for opted-in contacts only, CSV files under 10 MB, and one file per tag or segment if you want to keep your old structure (see the migration guide).

Flodesk vs Beehiiv, Kit and MailerLite

• vs Beehiiv: Beehiiv is built for newsletter-first publishing and growth. Flodesk is built for brand-styled email plus selling. See Beehiiv vs MailerLite and Kit vs Beehiiv.
• vs Kit: both aim at creators who sell. Kit is known for tagging and creator automations (Kit vs Beehiiv). Flodesk puts more weight on design and a built-in checkout.
• vs MailerLite: MailerLite has a Free plan that does send (up to 250 subscribers) and RSS campaigns on paid plans. Flodesk's Free plan doesn't send, but every paid plan has unlimited sends. See my MailerLite guide.

Setup checklist: your first Flodesk newsletter

Based on Flodesk's account setup article and the help articles linked above. Menu names are Flodesk's, as documented on September 25, 2026.

1. Start the free trial and keep the 500-recipients-a-day cap in mind for trial sends.
2. Fill in account details (Account settings → Account overview), including your time zone and Flodesk handle.
3. Set your From name and sending address (Account settings → Email setup). Use an address on your own domain.
4. Authenticate your domain (Account settings → Domain setup) with DKIM, SPF and DMARC, manually or automatically.
5. Add brand details and a mailing address (Account settings → Branding). Flodesk notes that a valid postal address is needed to comply with CAN-SPAM.
6. Create a "Newsletter" segment (Audience → Segments) and import only opted-in subscribers into it.
7. Publish one form connected to that segment, and link it from a page you control.
8. Build a welcome workflow triggered by joining the segment, with time delays between emails.
9. Send a test, then your first issue, starting with engaged subscribers if you're coming from another tool.
10. Pick a plan before the trial ends: Lite for simple sending, Pro for automations, Everything if you'll sell subscriptions.

FAQ

Is Flodesk free?

There's a Free plan for forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages, but it doesn't send email. A free trial (14 days, per Flodesk) includes sending, with no card required.

How much does Flodesk cost for a small newsletter?

At up to 1,000 subscribers: Lite $25/mo or $19/mo billed annually, Pro $28/mo or $25/mo annually (as of September 25, 2026). Check flodesk.com/pricing for your list size.

Can I run a paid newsletter on Flodesk?

Yes, as a recurring subscription product in Flodesk Checkout, on the Everything plan with Stripe Standard, in supported countries.

Does Flodesk still have unlimited pricing?

Not for new members. The flat-rate plan was retired on December 2, 2025. Sends are still unlimited, but the price now depends on active subscribers.

Sources (checked September 25, 2026)

• https://flodesk.com/pricing: plans, subscriber-based pricing, FAQ
• https://flodesk.com/ai-information: Flodesk's official information page (trial length)
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4476417: setting up your account
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4289217: improving email deliverability
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4747457: manual domain authentication
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4450305: automatic domain authentication
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4404801: workflows
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4422593: Flodesk Checkout
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/6566785: subscription products
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4475009: RSS
• https://help.flodesk.com/en/articles/4476033: moving your list to Flodesk

Flodesk is a trademark of its owner. I run Creator Mail Stack independently, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Flodesk. The official site is flodesk.com. Found something out of date? Tell me.