By now, you've likely received the email from Mailchimp informing you that they are shutting down TinyLetter after over ten years of service. This is — there's no other way to put it — a huge bummer, and all too common in a tech landscape that seems increasingly interested in the "billions or bust" mentality.
Before building Buttondown, I was a happy and faithful TinyLetter user for many years. I loved its core mission — to be an app for people who weren't trying to make millions of dollars or spend all day customizing things — but wanted something that wasn't as buggy and had just a couple more quality-of-life features (image resizing, link checking, that sort of thing.)
We run Buttondown a little bit differently than other tech companies. Unlike Mailchimp, our goal is not to funnel every user into a complicated, expensive tool meant for S&P 500 companies; unlike some of our venture-capital-backed competitors, our goal is not to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every month until we either pivot to a new strategy or shut down.
We're running Buttondown for the long haul: we provide a service, we charge a small fee for providing that service, and we remain profitable and independent so we can put your needs first for decades to come. This means we can spend all of our time improving and refining a simple, pleasant experience just for people like you. (That's why thousands of happy authors trust us with their emails, from Pulitzer Prize winners to high-school poetry classes.)
If you're looking for a new tool to fulfill TinyLetter's old promise — keeping it simple — you can give us a shot today. As a special offer in light of the news, I'm happy to migrate everything for you: your subscribers, your old emails, the works. Just shoot me an email at justin@buttondown.email, or read more about how TinyLetter and Buttondown compare.
Frequently asked questions
Are you free, like TinyLetter?
Buttondown is free if you've got less than a hundred subscribers. (If you're, like, a hundred and ten subscribers — that's probably fine.) If you've got more than a hundred subscribers, you'll need to sign up for one of Buttondown's paid plans. The reason we charge for our services is the very reason TinyLetter is shutting down — it costs money to send emails.
Will subscribers have to re-confirm their subscription when I move them over to Buttondown?
Nope.
Do you offer online archives, like TinyLetter?
Yup!
Can you migrate my archives from TinyLetter?
Sure can.
Even if they're set to private?
Even then. (We just need the CSV export that TinyLetter gives you.)
What about drafts?
Even drafts!