Buttondown vs Postmark
Pricing
Buttondown: Free up to 100 subs, from $9/mo
Postmark: Free for 100 emails/mo, from $15/mo
Description
Buttondown: Minimal newsletter tool for people who just want to write in markdown and hit send
Postmark: Transactional email service built around one promise: your emails hit the inbox
Pros
- Markdown-based editor, no dragging boxes around
- $9/month for up to 1,000 subscribers is the cheapest paid newsletter tool
- No bloated features: it does newsletters and that is it
- Industry-leading deliverability: 99%+ inbox placement
- Emails typically arrive in under 10 seconds
- Detailed delivery analytics and debugging tools
Cons
- Very basic automation: no complex email sequences
- Only 100 subscribers on free tier; Substack and Beehiiv offer more
- Minimal templates: your emails look plain (which some people prefer)
- More expensive per email than Resend or SendGrid
- Transactional email only: no marketing campaigns, newsletters, or bulk sends
- 100 email free tier is barely enough to test with
Details
Buttondown is the newsletter tool for people who think Kit (formerly ConvertKit) has too many features. Write in markdown, send to your list, done. No drag-and-drop editors, no complex automation flows, no features you will never use.
Built and run solo by Justin Duke. The $9/month starting price is the cheapest in the newsletter space. The tradeoff is obvious: if you want referral programs, A/B testing, or complex automation, you need a different tool. If you just want to write and send a newsletter without the tooling getting in the way, Buttondown is refreshingly simple.
Postmark has been laser-focused on one thing for over a decade: making sure transactional emails hit inboxes, not spam folders. Password resets, order confirmations, shipping notifications: the emails your users actually need to receive. They keep their deliverability high by refusing to send marketing email on the same infrastructure.
You pay more per email than alternatives, but for transactional messages where delivery matters (think: password resets, payment receipts), that premium buys real reliability. If your app sends emails that users rely on, Postmark is the safest bet.
Verified
