Flodesk is a relatively new marketing tool whose main "it factor" is their ability to supply beautiful, visual-heavy emails, particularly for small businesses and creators. If you're looking for extremely visual-heavy emails with 4K photos (say for photography for for a ceramics shop), they're a great option to make sure your emails look visually stunning.
Buttondown has a slightly different approach. Since studies show that visual-heavy emails actually perform worse than text-heavy ones, Buttondown has focused on making it as easy as possible to both write your newsletter and to run it with a balance customizations & elegance, including features like:
- Advanced analytics & tracking so you can see which subscribers are likely to convert
- Free online archives that ensure your content continues to bring in new traffic for your store or business
- Powerful integrations with Zapier and other apps that let you build out low-code automations
Lastly, Flodesk has moved to tiered pricing that scales with your subscriber count: their Pro plan starts at $28/month for up to 1,000 subscribers and goes up from there (for instance, $59/month at 5,000 subscribers, $139/month at 20,000, and $289/month at 40,000). This is a significant change from their earlier flat-rate pricing, and means they're now priced comparably to — or more than — most competitors at every tier. Buttondown's free tier and lower starting prices make it a more affordable option whether you're just starting out or scaling up.