Buttondown vs. Flodesk

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:

1. Advanced analytics & tracking so you can see which subscribers are likely to convert
2. Free online archives that ensure your content continues to bring in new traffic for your store or business
3. Powerful integrations with Zapier and other apps that let you build out low-code automations

Lastly, depending on your subscriber base Flodesk may either be a bargain or a tough initial sell: they ask for $38/month regardless of how many folks you're sending to. For larger newsletters, this is a great deal — they'll be cheaper than Buttondown and most other providers. If you're just starting out, though, that puts them pretty far pricier than the competition (Buttondown included.)