The unequivocal answer to "which email platform" for authors

My ability to procrastinate writing knows no bounds, which is how I found myself subscribing to 1,126 email newsletters of best-selling trad and indie authors and analyzing their sender data.

I did it to answer the question: which email platforms are authors using?

Well, here are the top 10 (out of 962 total emails):

1. Mailchimp - 221 (22.97%)

2. MailerLite - 175 (18.19%)

3. Substack - 110 (11.43%)

4. WordPress - 91 (9.46%)

5. Flodesk - 90 (9.36%)

6. Klaviyo - 58 (6.03%)

7. ConvertKit - 42 (4.37%)

8. ActiveCampaign - 20 (2.08%)

9. Wix - 18 (1.87%)

10. AWeber - 14 (1.46%)

I’m continually surprised by how low on the list ConvertKit (now Kit) is. I’m showing my age a little bit, but I always felt Kit was the gold standard for digital creators of all sorts—coaches, solopreneurs, authors (both fiction and non-fiction)—but clearly they haven’t penetrated deeply into the fiction author community.

I’m also, maybe not surprised, but annoyed at how prevalent Mailchimp is. In my personal opinion, that tool has only gotten worse and more expensive over the years (especially since the Intuit acquisition).

And lastly, it’s interesting to me how Substack has risen (it was really low in the early days of my data) and how prevalent WordPress is, which is really just blog post → direct to email, so not really a true email platform.

Personally, I will be using Kit, mostly of stubbornness and personal preference for powerful automation.

All right, time to go write.