Email and newsletters

Podspun's built-in newsletter tool, at Email Campaigns. It is on for every account: you get Campaigns (build and send newsletters from templates), Personal email (one message to one person), Contacts, Lists, and Templates. Every campaign reports sent, opens, and clicks, and the legal footer and unsubscribe link are added automatically.

In the email builder (a campaign in Email Campaigns, or the welcome email), add these from Add a block on the right:

• Box: a colored, rounded panel that holds other blocks. Select it to pick its Background (Charcoal, Light gray, White, or any color) and its Text (dark text for a light box, light text for a dark one), and to add blocks inside it. A Box can hold another Box or Columns, for example a white card inside a gray panel.
• Columns: two blocks side by side, such as a book cover next to its title and a button. Column Widths sets narrow left, two equal, or wide left. The columns stay side by side on phones, so keep a picture in the narrow one.

Two blocks also have a new style. A Heading's Heading Style is Plain or Serif (Georgia, for a website with serif headings). A Text block's List Style draws its lists as Bullets, Checkmarks or Numbered circles; checkmarks and circles use your button color, set in Config, Buttons.

Inside a Text block, the toolbar's style menu makes a line a Label (small bold capitals) or Large Text, and Text color colors the words you select with any color, for example a green label over a dark box or a few words picked out in a sentence. ✕ Color puts them back to the normal color.

Drag a block by its grip to move it within its own list: the email, the inside of a box, or one column.

Yes. In the email builder (a campaign in Email Campaigns, or the welcome email), click an empty part of the page so that no block is selected. The panel on the right shows Email Design:

• Background Picture: a picture behind the whole email. Your headings, text and buttons sit on top of it.
• Email Color: the color behind your blocks. With a background picture it shows in an inbox that has pictures switched off, so pick a color close to the picture.
• Text: Dark text or Light text. Light text is for a dark color or picture.
• Side Margins: Standard or Wide. Wide keeps text in a narrower column. Phones always use Standard.
• Page Color: the color around the email.

Fonts are the same in every email you send. Set them in Email, Config, Fonts: a Heading Font for Heading blocks, a Body Font for text and buttons, a Text Size and a Line Spacing. The fonts are the ones the website builder offers, so an email can match your site. Apple Mail and the iPhone Mail app show them as chosen. Gmail and Outlook cannot load a font, so they show a similar standard one.

A Heading block has a Size from Small to Extra Large, an Icon (a small picture to its left) and Line Under Heading (a line in your button color that starts at the icon). A Divider's Line is Thin or Bold. Button Size, Standard or Large, is in Config, Buttons. Inside a Text block, Heading 1, 2 and 3 in the style menu make a larger bold line in the body font.

Yes. In Email → Config → Header & Footer, upload a Header Image. It shows at the top of every email you send: campaigns, the welcome email, confirmations and drop alerts. Leave it empty and an email opens with your website's logo, when it has one.

The name a subscriber sees as the sender is your From Name, set in Config → Sending DNS Setup. Until you set one, emails about a website are sent under that website's name.

Yes. In Email → Config → Footer, choose whether the footer's social links come from one of your websites or from a list you add by hand. When you point it at a website, every email reads the site's current links (the ones you manage in that site's Menu Layouts → Social section) at send time, so updating them on the site updates your emails too.

The links show as icons, each platform's own mark, and a link to anything else gets a globe. To show the platform names in text, set Show Social Links As to Names in text on the same screen.

When the footer follows a website, the website itself is the last icon, and its domain is the last line of the email. A website that has no domain of its own yet is left out.

Standard plans include your first 100 subscribed contacts, then $9.00/month up to 500, stepping up as your list grows. Artspun Professional and Managed include 1,000 subscribed contacts. Above that allowance, the standard email tier is priced for your total subscribed contact count.

The tier picks itself from your live contact count, and only Subscribed contacts count: pending, unsubscribed, and bounced addresses do not. Turn Email off anytime and its separate charge stops.

Open Contacts and choose Import contacts. Export your list from your old email service as a CSV file and choose it. Every column is read: the address, name, company, phone, postal address, tags, notes, the signup date, and who is subscribed or unsubscribed. A column that matches none of those is kept on the contact as an extra detail under its own heading.

Before anything is saved you see a review: how many people are new subscribers, how many are already in your contacts, and any rows that were skipped and why. People the file marks as not subscribed are added as contacts who are never emailed, or you can leave them out. If they did sign up and the file has it wrong, tick Everyone in this file is subscribed and they come in as subscribers. Someone who unsubscribed or bounced stays that way with or without the tick, and an import sends no email.

To add one person by hand, open Contacts in Email Campaigns and choose Add contact. Each contact carries a status (Subscribed, Pending, Unsubscribed, Bounced, Complaint, or Wrote in only) and list memberships, and only Subscribed contacts count toward your monthly tier.

Add the Email signup block to any page of your website, or turn on the signup on one of your podspun.com Cross Links. On a website the block is a heading, a line of text and one button; the button opens the website's Join pop-up, which is the one place visitors sign up. Signups flow into your Podspun contacts (recommended) or straight into your Mailchimp account, whichever you pick under Signups in Email's Config.

In your website editor, open Site Settings, then Email Popup. The Automatic Opening card at the bottom holds the timing: with Open Automatically set to Yes, the pop-up opens by itself seven seconds after a visitor arrives. Wait Before Opening also offers 15 or 30 seconds. Moving between pages does not restart that wait. It never opens by itself for a visitor who is already signed in as a member of your website. Signup links open the popup immediately, and closing it respects the quiet period set under If They Close It.

Every website also has a signup page at /signup, for example https://yourdomain.com/signup. It shows the same Join card in the page, and the pop-up does not open by itself there. Use that address to send people to sign up from somewhere else, such as an email, a store on another service or a link in a bio. To open the pop-up over one particular page instead, add ?join=1 to the end of that page's address, for example https://yourdomain.com/?join=1.

Confirm email before subscribing (double opt-in) is on by default, and you can send an automatic welcome email with your own subject. Design the email itself with Design welcome email, which opens the same email builder campaigns use (headings, text, pictures, buttons, boxes and columns); the screen shows a preview of what subscribers get, and an older plain message keeps sending as it is until you open the builder and save. To see it in a real inbox, type an address under Send a test, at the bottom of that card, and click Send test: a copy of the saved welcome email goes to that address only, with [Test] in front of the subject. The welcome email is off until you turn it on under Signups in Email's Config, and until then a new subscriber gets nothing from you. While it is off, your website editor shows a note above each signup block to remind you. Visitors never see that note.

Yes, by sending people to your website's signup page. It is at /signup on your website, for example https://yourdomain.com/signup, and it shows the same Join card your pop-up does. Use that address as the link behind the signup button on the other site. The person signs up there and is added the same way as any other signup on your website, with the email topics they chose. Adding ?join=1 to the end of any page address, for example https://yourdomain.com/?join=1, opens the Join pop-up over that page, which works too.

This works from a store on another service such as Shopify, a link in a bio, an email or a QR code. Make it a button that links to your website. A signup box that sits on the other website keeps the addresses in that service, because a form on another website cannot write into your Podspun list.

To bring across addresses another service has already collected, export them from that service as a CSV file and import the file under Contacts in Email Campaigns.

Yes. In your website's editor, open Site Settings, then Email Popup and its Config tab. Under Signups Go To, choose Substack and paste your Substack address (for example https://yourname.substack.com, or the custom domain your Substack is on). The website's Join pop-up, which every signup block's button opens, then shows Substack's own subscribe box, and the addresses people enter go to your Substack list. It is one or the other: with Substack chosen, no Podspun list is used for that website. Fill the Substack Address and Save the settings. A blank address falls back to the Podspun form. This routes new sign-ups; it does not migrate existing contacts. Choose Podspun to go back to your own list.

When you build a site from a link and your old website linked to a Substack, the address is filled in for you.

If you have no Substack, leave this on Podspun. Your sign-ups go to your own list in Email Campaigns, and newsletters and members posts are sent from Podspun, so you do not need a second platform.

Yes. In Email Campaigns, open Config and then Sending DNS Setup. Pick one of your website domains and choose the sender: the domain itself, a ready-made subdomain (ps.yourdomain.com), or a subdomain you name. It shows the exact DNS records to add and flips to Verified once they are in place. A campaign can be sent once the domain shows Verified. Your automatic emails (signup confirmations, welcome emails, member sign-in links and new post emails) need no setup and go out from a Podspun address with your From name on them.

Only three records are needed, all pointing at Podspun: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This sets up sending, not receiving. Podspun does not run an inbox for you, so replies go to the Reply-to address you set in Sending DNS Setup, which should be a real email you already check (like your Gmail). Set that and every reply reaches you.

Open Email Campaigns. It opens on the Dashboard, which lists the steps and marks each one Done from what your account really has:

• Verify your sending domain: campaigns go out from your own domain, set up once under Config, Sending DNS Setup.
• Set your From name and From email: the address has to be at your sending domain, for example [email protected]. A Gmail address does not count.
• Add your mailing address: every campaign shows a postal address in its footer, per the CAN-SPAM Act. It is under Config, Header & Footer.
• Add your contacts: import a list from another email service, or collect signups on your website.
• Send your first campaign.

Each open step has a button that goes to the screen where it is done. These are the same checks the Send button runs, so when the Dashboard says you are all set, a campaign will send. Under the steps are your counts: subscribed contacts, lists and campaigns sent.

Signup confirmations, welcome emails and member sign-in links need none of this. They already go out from a Podspun address with your From name on them.

Open the campaign in Email Campaigns and press Continue to reach the Send screen. Under Send a test to, type one address, or several separated by commas (up to 10), and press Send test. Each person gets their own copy. A test never goes to your list, and it is not counted in the campaign's numbers. It arrives from your own From name and address when your sending domain is verified, the way the campaign will.

Two boxes under it are for a test that other people will review. Test Subject gives the test its own subject line; leave it empty and the test uses your subject with [Test] in front. Note at the Top shows a few sentences in a bar above the email, after the words "NOTE: this is a test only.", for example a link that is not final yet. The note is in the test only and is never sent to your list.

In Email Campaigns, open Config and then Sending DNS Setup. Under Send a test email, the box starts with your own login email; change it if you want the test somewhere else, then press Send test. One email goes out using the From name, From email and Reply-to on that screen, whether or not you have saved them, so you can try a change before keeping it.

The card then says how the test was sent. If your From email is at a sending domain that shows Verified, it went out from your own address through that domain, the way a campaign does, and the card names the address replies go to. If not, it went out from a Podspun address with your From name on it, the way your automatic emails do, and the card says what a campaign still needs: a sending domain, its DNS records, or a From email at the verified domain (for example [email protected] in place of a Gmail address).

To see how one campaign looks in an inbox, use Send a test to on that campaign in Email Campaigns.

To the Reply-to address you set in Sending DNS Setup. Podspun sends your email but does not receive mail for you, so pick a real inbox you already check, like your Gmail or an address on a mail service you run, and every reply goes straight there. If you leave Reply-to blank, replies go to your From email, so that one also needs to be a real inbox you can open. Your website domain needs no receiving setup for this: it only sends.

At the company that manages your domain’s DNS, which is usually where you bought the domain (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, Cloudflare, and so on). In Sending DNS Setup, if your domain is not on Cloudflare, Podspun reads your domain’s settings and names the company for you, with a link to open its control panel. Sign in there, find your domain, open its DNS settings, and add the rows shown. If your domain is on Cloudflare, use the “Add everything to Cloudflare for me” button and it writes them for you. If it is at Dynadot, the page lists Dynadot’s own steps, including the ANAME it uses for the domain itself.

Each Host is shown the way most DNS companies ask for it: the part before your domain (www), and @ for the domain itself. Click a Host or Value to copy it. If your DNS company wants the full name, add your domain to the end.

Yes. The Campaigns list in Email Campaigns shows each campaign's sent, open, and click counts. Unsubscribes are handled automatically through the footer link and the contact's status updates on its own.

Email is on for every account and free for your first 100 contacts, then $9.00/month. To turn it off, open Email Campaigns → Config → Sending Setup and flip Email On to No. Signup collection and sending stop, and so does the monthly charge. Your contacts stay saved, so turning it back on later picks up where you left off.

It is sending newsletters to the people who follow your show, so you reach them directly instead of hoping an algorithm does. Podspun sends from your own domain, pulls in your latest episodes, and tracks opens and clicks.

It is billed by active contacts and starts at $9 a month for up to 500, stepping up as your list grows. The band is picked automatically from your live contact count, so you never choose a plan by hand.

Yes. Set up your sending domain once and newsletters go out from your name. Podspun handles the authentication that keeps mail in the inbox.

Yes. Import a CSV of contacts, organize them into lists, and send to the right group. One-click unsubscribes are handled for you.

No. Email runs inside Podspun next to your site, clips, and search, and the composer pulls your episodes in directly, so there is no second login and no second bill.

Sending from an authenticated domain is the single biggest factor, and Podspun sets that up. Every email also carries a working unsubscribe, which keeps your sender reputation healthy.

It is a set of posts your listeners pay to read, usually companion writing to your episodes: the full story behind a case, extended show notes, or subscriber-only commentary. Free posts and members grow the list; paid posts give your biggest fans a way to support you.

Yes, the model is the same: free and paid subscribers, posts on the web and by email, you set the price. The differences: it lives on your own domain instead of a Substack address, it sits next to your episodes and search, and Podspun drafts posts from your transcripts and your audience's activity instead of leaving you with a blank page. If you already publish on Substack, you can also connect it to Podspun as a channel. If you are starting fresh, this is the newsletter, so you do not need a second platform.

Nothing monthly. Podspun takes 1.5% of each paid subscription, the same cut model as the store. Stripe's own card processing applies as with any payment platform.

Through Stripe checkout, at the monthly or annual price you set. The subscription is billed on your own Stripe account, payouts go straight to you, and readers manage or cancel their plan through Stripe's billing portal.

Three ways: a one-time email link with no password, an email and password, or Google. Accounts live on your site under /members, and lost passwords reset through the same email link.

It drafts them. Each new episode with a transcript can arrive as a companion article, grounded in what was actually said, with links that jump readers to the exact moments in the episode. You read it, edit it, and decide if it publishes. Nothing goes out on its own.

No. Sending a post to your members is built in, and the join form can feed your Podspun email contacts too. If you run bigger campaigns, the Email add-on is there, but Off Mic (Posts) sends on its own.