WordPress to Take On Substack With New Paid Newsletter Feature

WordPress, the popular tool for creating and managing websites, has announced a new product – the WordPress.com Newsletter, to help editors “add paid subscriptions and premium content” to monetize their newsletters.

The new feature comes at a time when content creators are looking for alternatives following the closure of Revue and the recent price increase on Gumroad. WordPress is also positioning itself to compete with the likes of Substack.

According to the announcement made via a blog post, WordPress has been improving the newsletter product since its launch in December.

“Here’s the deal — you can now kickstart your newsletter without spending a penny, build your audience, and then add paid subscriptions into the mix at any point,” WordPress wrote in the blog post. “It’s a great way to explore the shape of your newsletter without paying upfront while giving your readers a way to support your work at any point along the way.”

WordPress.com Newsletter – A Diverse Platform Enabling Content Monetization

Newsletters have in recent years become a mainstream channel for writers to keep in touch with their audiences and have been a fast growing source for news. Although content creators and writers have been sending newsletters for many years on WordPress, they have been using third-party plugins, TechCrunch reported.

Moreover, readers are turning to their emails to keep up to date with news and content from their favorite content creators, especially with websites currently cluttered with ads, pop-ups, and requests to accept cookies.

WordPress’s entrance into paid newsletter subscriptions is a big boost to the segment, considering the open-source platform powers over 43% of all web resources.

The version launched in December fell short of the competition in the market, with platforms like Substack offering state-of-the-art features for journalists, publishers, and writers to generate revenue.

Despite its inability to rival existing platforms in the market, it supports a range of features for managing newsletters effectively, such as the option to transfer subscribers from other platforms, pre-made newsletter themes or adjustable designs, scheduling tools, the ability to link custom domains, support for publishing via email, and a lot more.

However, WordPress.com Newsletter portrays a different picture altogether by following a simple yet intuitive design that makes it easy to create and send newsletters using WordPress.

The newly launched feature leverages the same technology as email subscriptions, allowing users to have unlimited email subscribers.

During the initial setup, newsletter creators can transfer up to 100 subscribers from other newsletter platforms by uploading a CSV file.

A theme tailored for newsletters is applied with additional newsletter-specific block patterns for the Subscribe box.

Users can also use the Site Editor to customize the site’s background, site icon, and accent colors.

The platform demonstrates the flexibility of the block editor, as newsletter makers can design their own unique websites, without writing any code.

“We’re all about giving writers and creators the power and flexibility to do things their own way,” WordPress wrote. “From selecting beautiful visual themes, customizing them to make everything feel more like you, or turning your newsletter into a full-fledged website or store, you’ll save time, cut costs, and have a bunch fewer logins and browser tabs to navigate by keeping everything under one roof.”

A Diverse Paid Newsletter Feature From WordPress

WordPress announced that the new feature will be available to all users in its ecosystem, including those on the free plan. However, subscribers on the free plan would be required to pay newsletter transaction fees of 10% of the total revenue collected.

No fees are charged for subscribers on the Commerce plan. All transactions are processed via Stripe, a leading payments provider.

Rival Substack also imposes a 10% fee on all its customers, thus making WordPress competitive on the Commercial plan.

Like Substack, authors on WordPress.com newsletter have the flexibility to choose which of their newsletters would require a paid subscription and which go out for free at the time of publishing.

As the newsletter grows, authors can access the vast library of plugins, themes, and design patterns with low-cost upgrades. This means content creators can easily scale from a free newsletter to one that starts generating income, without feeling limited by a fixed plan or constrained features.

The lack of an official newsletter feature supporting content monetization on WordPress has in recent years forced content creators to look to external platforms like Gumroad and Substack to add paid subscriptions.

With the debut of the WordPress.com Newsletter platform, journalists, publishers, and all other content creators have an opportunity to directly monetize their content while engaging with their audiences.

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