Start a newsletter

With the newsletter features in your WordPress.com account, readers can subscribe to your website or blog and receive email notifications about new posts you publish. This guide will show you how to send email updates to your readers.

In this video, you’ll learn how to set up and manage a newsletter. It covers adding a subscription section, using built-in subscription options, and sending new posts to subscribers by email. You’ll also learn how to customize newsletter settings and track performance through open and click statistics.

Every WordPress.com site includes Newsletter — the ability to send new posts via email to subscribers. With Newsletter, you can:

• Have an unlimited number of email subscribers.
• Import subscribers from other platforms.
• Publish new posts, which are automatically emailed to your subscribers.
• Send test emails to preview emails before sending to your subscribers.
• Monitor open and click rates of emails sent to subscribers.
• Optionally require a subscription to view your content.
• Schedule your posts (and their email notifications) for a future date and time.
• Monetize your newsletter for paid subscribers.
• Make it easy for subscribers to sign up (using a double opt-in process) and unsubscribe from your list as needed.

Readers who subscribe by adding their email addresses will be notified whenever you publish new posts, allowing you to reach and grow your audience with your content.

Every WordPress.com site can send a newsletter already. Starting yours means checking the email settings, giving visitors a way to subscribe, and publishing a post.

To start your newsletter, follow these steps:

1. Open your Newsletter settings and confirm that “Email new posts to subscribers by default” is on in the Email defaults section.
2. Set your sender name and email byline so subscribers recognize who the email is from.
3. Add a way for visitors to subscribe, using one of the tools in Encourage visitors to subscribe below.
4. Import your subscribers if you already have an email list on another platform. If you don’t have a list yet, find your first readers in the Reader instead.
5. Preview an email to check how your posts will look in an inbox.
6. Publish a post. WordPress.com emails it to your subscribers automatically.

Your newsletter is running once that first post reaches subscribers. From there you can manage your subscribers or charge for access with a paid newsletter.

On WordPress.com, any reader can subscribe to your site to receive an email whenever you publish a new post.

There are several tools you can use to encourage readers to subscribe to your site:

• Add the Subscribe block to your homepage, sidebar, footer area, or any post or page.
• Use the Homepage and posts options in Newsletter settings to add a subscription overlay, an in-post pop-up, a Subscribe block after each post, or a floating subscribe button.
• Use the Navigation options in Newsletter settings to add a Subscribe block or Subscriber Login block to your site’s menu.
• Use the Comments options in Newsletter settings to offer subscription checkboxes on your comment form.
• Use a block pattern to add beautifully designed layouts for subscriptions, like this example:

Visitors can also subscribe to your site from the Subscribe button in the Action Bar at the bottom right of your site. Visitors logged in to WordPress.com subscribe with their account, and other visitors enter their email address. The Action Bar is not shown on sites with plugins enabled or hosting features activated.

Find your first readers and newsletter subscribers by reading, liking, and commenting on other writers’ posts in the WordPress.com Reader. When you like a post, comment on it, or subscribe to a site, the writer gets a notification, and will often subscribe to your site or blog.

To find your first readers in the Reader, follow these steps:

1. Add your site’s address to the Web address field in your WordPress.com profile so it’s linked to your name when you comment on other sites.
2. Click Reader in the admin bar at the top right of the screen.
3. Click the magnifying-glass icon at the top of the Reader sidebar to open the Search tab.
4. Type a topic you write about in the “Search Reader” field and press Enter.
5. Read posts that interest you, and click the Like button (the star icon) on the ones you enjoy.
6. Write a comment in the “Add a comment…” field about something specific in the post, and click the Send button. A thoughtful sentence about what they wrote works better than “Great post!”
7. Click the three dots at the top right of a post and select the Subscribe option to subscribe to writers you like.

Keep reading and commenting for the first few weeks after you start publishing to find your first readers. When someone subscribes to your site, you get a notification, and they appear in your subscriber list.

Our dedicated guides will help you learn how to send emails to your WordPress.com subscribers: