Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover newsletter & email and email marketing & automation. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
A link newsletter that stays free to 1,500 readers
Email that looks designed without a designer
Curated | Flodesk | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $39 | From $25 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
A link newsletter that stays free to 1,500 readers
Curated is built for the link-roundup newsletter specifically, so collecting items through the week, writing a line under each and having the issue assemble itself is the main path rather than a workaround. Every feature including sending is on the free tier, which runs to 1,500 subscribers. Pricing then moves in published subscriber bands rather than on a quote. Anybody writing long-form essays rather than curating links will find the whole editor shaped around a job they are not doing.
Our note
Take this over a general newsletter tool only if your format really is curation, because the collection workflow is the product and everything else here is ordinary. The band table is worth reading before you grow: the jump from free to $39 arrives at 1,501 subscribers, which is sooner than most people plan for.
Email that looks designed without a designer
Flodesk is built around templates that come out looking considered rather than like a form, which is why it keeps turning up in the hands of people selling something visual. Every paid plan sends unlimited email regardless of how often. Pricing moves with the size of the list instead, starting from a thousand subscribers. A free plan exists for building a list before there is anything to send to it, and anybody wanting deep automation branching will find this deliberately simpler than its competitors.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
|---|
| Runs on | Web | Web |
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| Covers | Newsletter & Email, Email Marketing & Automation | Email Marketing & Automation, Newsletter & Email |
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| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
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| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
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| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
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| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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Our note
Move the subscriber slider to where you expect to be in a year rather than reading the starting price, because the starting figure is for a thousand subscribers and the curve above that is the real cost. Against the older platforms this wins on how the email looks and loses on what the automation can do, and only you know which of those you are buying.