Pricing
Affordable newsletter software without paying for every subscriber
- Free to start2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month at Free, with no card.
- Priced by emails sentEach paid plan has a monthly email allowance. A list you email less often costs less than one you email daily.
- Dormant readers don't countOnly active subscribers count toward the cap. Readers who stop opening are set aside, never deleted.
- A written price promise90 days' notice before a price increase, and the current price until it takes effect.
How FlockStack's pricing works
FlockStack Cloud has a Free plan, and paid plans (Starter, Growth, Pro, Scale and Max) priced by the emails you send in a month. Every plan comes with an allowance of emails and a cap on active subscribers. Yearly billing costs 10 months instead of 12. There is no fee per subscriber on top of the plan.
Past a paid plan's emails, sending goes on: extra emails cost $0.15 per 1,000, billed with your plan at the end of the period, up to a monthly limit you set. On Free, a send that wouldn't fit in the month's emails is refused up front, and nothing is billed.
Why newsletter software costs vary
Platforms price in a few different ways, and the cheapest one for you depends on two numbers: how many people are on your list and how often you email them.
- By subscribers. The price steps up with the size of the list, usually whether or not the people on it still read you. It's easy to predict, and it costs the same whether you send once a month or every day.
- By emails sent. The price follows what you send. A list you email rarely is cheap to keep, and a list you email daily costs more than one you email weekly.
- By features. Some platforms hold automations, a custom domain, an API or the removal of their branding for higher tiers, so the plan you need may not be the one advertised.
- By a share of what you earn. Some take a percentage of paid subscriptions, on top of the payment processor's fee.
Compare platforms at your own list size, your own sending frequency and the features you need, not at the headline price. The comparison with beehiiv and Substack does that with worked months, each fact sourced and dated.
Subscriber-based and volume-based pricing
Pricing by subscribers charges for the list. Pricing by volume, as FlockStack does, charges for use. A newsletter to a long list that few of them read, or one that is sent rarely, is where volume pricing saves money. Once the list cleanup, which is on by default, has set the readers who stopped opening aside as dormant, they are no longer emailed, so they stop using the allowance, and they stop counting toward the subscriber cap.
The reverse also holds. Pricing by volume gets expensive for a list you email often, and FlockStack's plans are built around that: each plan's email allowance reaches its full subscriber list 5 times a month on every paid plan and 4 on Free.
FlockStack's plans
These are FlockStack Cloud's current plans. Prices are in US dollars.
| Plan | Per month | Per year | Emails a month | Active subscribers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 10,000 | 2,500 |
| Starter | $9 | $90 | 25,000 | 5,000 |
| Growth | $29 | $290 | 125,000 | 25,000 |
| Pro | $59 | $590 | 250,000 | 50,000 |
| Scale | $109 | $1,090 | 500,000 | 100,000 |
| Max | $299 | $2,990 | 2,000,000 | 400,000 |
| Custom | Let's talk | Let's talk | Over 2,000,000 | Over 400,000 |
The pricing page has the same plans on a slider, with the price of each billing period.
Welcome emails and automation emails use the same allowance as issues, so leave some room. A dedicated IP is an add-on from the Pro plan: $35 a month on Pro, $69 on Scale and $269 on Max. Custom, for lists past 400,000 active subscribers or 2,000,000 emails a month, has no price list: you tell us what you send and we reply personally within 2 business days, with a dedicated IP included.
What it costs at different sizes
The table shows the smallest plan that has room for the list and for the month's emails, counting each issue as one email to every active subscriber:
| Publication | Active subscribers | Issues a month | Emails a month | Smallest plan that fits | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A new newsletter | 1,000 | 4 | 4,000 | Free | $0 |
| A growing weekly | 5,000 | 4 | 20,000 | Starter | $9 |
| An established weekly | 10,000 | 4 | 40,000 | Growth | $29 |
| Twice a week | 25,000 | 8 | 200,000 | Pro | $59 |
| A large weekly | 100,000 | 4 | 400,000 | Scale | $109 |
A list that only slightly outgrows its plan's emails can stay on the plan and pay $0.15 per 1,000 for the difference, instead of moving up.
What changes between plans
The API, the MCP server, forms, polls and surveys, and selling with no cut for FlockStack are on every plan, the Free plan included. Between Free and the paid plans:
- Free has 1 newsletter, 2 automations besides the welcome email, no audio versions, and a small Sent with FlockStack link on emails and the website. Your first 3 campaigns go to 500 people at most while FlockStack gets to know your sending.
- A paid plan removes the link and raises the two limits that set its price, emails a month and active subscribers. Extra emails past the allowance cost $0.15 per 1,000.
- A dedicated IP is an add-on from Pro, and comes with Custom.
FlockStack Cloud and running it yourself
FlockStack is open source under the AGPL-3.0 at github.com/ankurmans/flockstack. The same code can run on your own server, where it has no plans and no limits from FlockStack, and you pay your own Cloudflare, Upstash and email provider bills instead. Self-hosted newsletter software covers what that takes.
When another platform may cost less
- A list that fits a bigger free tier. FlockStack's Free plan holds 2,500 subscribers. A provider whose free tier holds more costs nothing for a list that fits in it.
- A list you email every day. Volume pricing charges for each send. If you email a large list daily, a plan priced by subscribers can come out lower.
- A list or a volume beyond the largest plan. Above Max you talk to us about Custom instead of choosing from a table.
- You'd run your own server. Self-hosted, you pay infrastructure and no platform fee.
None of this needs a spreadsheet to check. Take your active subscribers and your issues a month, multiply them, and read the smallest plan that fits from the table above.
For pricing that comes with selling subscriptions, see the paid newsletter platform page: FlockStack takes no cut of sales, and Stripe's processing fees still apply.
Questions
- Does FlockStack charge per subscriber?
- No. Plans are priced by the emails you send in a month, with a cap on active subscribers. Past the cap you move up a plan; there's no per-subscriber fee on top.
- Is there a free plan?
- Yes. Free is $0 with no card: 2,500 subscribers, 10,000 emails a month, 1 newsletter and 2 automations besides the welcome email. In return, your emails and website carry a small Sent with FlockStack link, which any paid plan removes.
- What happens when I use up my emails?
- On Free, nothing is billed: a campaign that wouldn't fit in the month's emails is refused up front, with the numbers. On a paid plan, sending goes on and extra emails cost $0.15 per 1,000, up to a monthly limit you set on the billing page.
- Do dormant subscribers count toward my plan?
- No. Only active subscribers count toward the cap. A reader who ignores several issues gets one last-chance email, and if they don't answer they are set aside as dormant: never unsubscribed, never deleted.
- Will the price go up?
- FlockStack gives 90 days' notice by email before a price increase, and the current price applies until it takes effect.
- Does yearly billing save money?
- Yes: a yearly plan costs 10 months' price instead of 12.
Work out your plan
Multiply your active subscribers by your issues a month, find that row in the table, and create your account.
Create your account