Claude on Question 32, Sep 17

The right answer depends a lot on what you're sending, so here's the landscape plus what I'd pick in each case.

If you're doing a newsletter / audience-first business

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is the safest default. Free up to ~10k subscribers, solid automation, tagging, landing pages, and built-in tools for selling digital products. Very well-suited to solo operators who might later sell a course or paid tier.

beehiiv if growth is the priority — its recommendation network and boost marketplace genuinely move the needle on subscriber acquisition, which no other platform really replicates. Free to a few thousand subs.

MailerLite if you just want cheap and competent. Best price-to-feature ratio in the category, clean editor, good automations.

Buttondown if you want plain-text, markdown, indie-run, and dirt cheap. Great for developer/writer audiences.

If you're building a SaaS product

You have two distinct needs: transactional email (password resets, receipts) and lifecycle/marketing email. Some tools do both.

Loops is purpose-built for this and popular with indie SaaS founders — clean API, handles both transactional and campaigns.

Resend if you're technical and want excellent DX (React Email templates, great API). Strong on transactional, broadcasts are decent but less mature.

Brevo if you want a cheap all-in-one and don't mind a clunkier UI.

If you're ecommerce

Klaviyo if Shopify — it's expensive but the revenue attribution usually justifies it. Omnisend as the budget alternative.

What I'd skip

Mailchimp. Pricing has drifted well above competitors, and it's not clearly better at anything anymore.

Practical setup notes

A few things that matter more than platform choice:

• •Send from a subdomain (mail.yourdomain.com), not your root domain. Protects your main domain's reputation if something goes wrong.
• •Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before your first send. Gmail and Yahoo have required DMARC for bulk senders since early 2024, and skipping this is the most common reason new senders land in spam.
• •CAN-SPAM requires a physical mailing address in commercial emails. Most solo founders use a virtual mailbox or PO box rather than publishing their home address — worth setting up early, since retrofitting it means your old emails are non-compliant.
• •Check export quality before committing. You want subscribers and tags/segments/engagement history out in a usable format. This is where lock-in actually bites.
• •If you have any EU or Canadian subscribers, GDPR and CASL apply regardless of where you're based — mainly meaning explicit consent and no pre-checked opt-in boxes.

One caveat: free tiers and pricing in this space change frequently, so verify current numbers before you commit.

If you tell me what you're actually selling and roughly how many subscribers you have or expect, I can narrow this to one recommendation.