On Steady, you can publish posts and design them however you like — with images, videos, audio and more — then send them to your members and subscribers as an email. In short, Steady doubles as your newsletter tool.
The short version: to send a newsletter, publish a post and tick Send as email. To grow your list, switch on the Newsletter Layer so anyone can subscribe with just an email address — no membership or Steady account needed. Both are covered step by step below.
Send a post as a newsletter
Sending a newsletter just means publishing a post and choosing to send it by email. Here’s how:
lay out your post first
Click Continue to reach your post’s settings page.
Under Access, choose who may read the post. Who receives the email is a separate choice: in the next step, under Distribution, tick Newsletter subscribers and/or Members, and use Select plans to limit it to specific plans. Anyone without access gets the paywalled version of the email.
Still under Distribution, tick Send as email and enter a subject line.
Send yourself a test email to see how it looks.
Publish now, or schedule it for a later date.
Once you publish, your post appears on your Steady page and goes out as an email — looking almost exactly like the post itself. The full post is right there in the email, so your readers don’t need to click through to your Steady page. They still can, of course, for example to leave a comment or a high five.
Collect subscribers
Subscribers are people who receive your posts by email without paying for a membership — and anyone can sign up with just an email address, no Steady account required.
To start collecting them, switch on the Newsletter Layer in your Steady backend under Layers → Newsletter.
The half-screen sign-up overlay, with its default text, looks like this:
Even if your main focus is a podcast, a magazine or another publication, it pays to collect email addresses: a mailing list dramatically increases your chances of making your membership programme a success.
Import your existing contacts
Already have a newsletter elsewhere? You can bring your contacts to Steady. The Import button appears in the top-right corner of your subscriber list as soon as your project qualifies — for example, once it has at least 3 active members or has been verified by us.
If you don’t see the import option yet, email a CSV of your addresses to support@steadyhq.com and we’ll import them for you.
See all your subscribers
Your subscriber list lives in your publisher area, and you can export it as a CSV at any time.
Your statistics show your total subscriber count, plus a monthly chart of how many subscribers you gained, lost or converted into members.
For per-post detail like open and click rates, check your post overview.
What shows up in the email
Embedded content like tweets, images and animated GIFs is shown right in the email.
For audio posts, videos and similar content, a linked thumbnail is created instead. A YouTube video, for example, appears as a preview image that opens YouTube when clicked.
Not everything can be shown in the email
A few embeds work in your post but not in the email — an article preview or a Spotify embed, for instance. When that happens, the email simply shows the link with a grey border:
A quick test email always shows you exactly how it will look. And don’t worry — all the most common content is supported in the email view:
YouTube
Vimeo
Tweets
Images
Audio
Animated GIFs
Your legal notice
Your legal notice appears in the footer of your emails. As a publisher on Steady you are obliged to provide a legal notice. You can add yours here in your publisher area.
That’s everything you need to send your first newsletter and start growing your list.
Still need help? Email us any time at support@steadyhq.com. And if you have ideas for making Steady newsletters better, we’d love to hear them.
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