How to Create a Paid Newsletter in WordPress (Substack Alternative)

Creating a paid newsletter in WordPress offers an affordable alternative to platforms like Substack.

Paid newsletters have become a popular way to monetize content, allowing you to earn directly from your email subscribers. We often recommend this strategy to bloggers that are looking for more ways to make money online.

However, using third-party platforms can become costly as your subscriber base grows. By setting up your own paid newsletter on WordPress, you can maintain full control over your content and pricing.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of creating a paid newsletter in WordPress, step by step.

Why Create a Paid Newsletter in WordPress?

Paid email newsletters like Substack are becoming a very trendy and profitable way to make money online. They are similar to standard email newsletters but with exclusive premium content sent to paying subscribers only.

A paid newsletter can be a standalone online business or another income source for your WordPress website. By creating your own paid email newsletter, you can directly profit from your writing while building a deep relationship with your readers.

However, using a service like Substack can get expensive. Substack takes 10% of all your profits, so you pay more and more over time.

Many users have asked us to recommend a better Substack alternative. In the past, we looked into similar solutions, like Gumroad and Patreon, but found that they have the same pricing issue.

We can confidently say that WordPress is the best way to send a paid newsletter while keeping all your profits.

By creating a paid newsletter on your WordPress site, you can avoid paying those high fees and keep more of your income for yourself.

The best thing about using WordPress is that it’s completely scalable and customizable, so you can choose to only invest in the features you need. For example, you could expand your offerings to include online courses, digital products, or whatever else you imagine.

Plus, using WordPress will give you more control over your newsletter design, subscriber experience, and more. To learn more, see our detailed comparison of Substack vs WordPress.

That being said, let’s show you how to create a paid newsletter in WordPress:

Step 1: Create a WordPress Site

If you don’t already have a WordPress site, you’ll need to set that up first.

To get started, you’ll need WordPress hosting, a domain name, and an SSL certificate.

Usually, a domain name costs around $14.99 per year, web hosting around $7.99 per month, and SSL certificates cost around $69.99 each year.

If you are starting, then these startup costs can add up quickly.

Thankfully, we have a better solution.

Bluehost, an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider, is offering our users a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting.

That means you can get all of the above for $1.99 per month.

You can also get started with Hostinger, which also offers WPBeginner exclusive discounts with free domain and SSL.

Note: At WPBeginner, we believe in full transparency. If you sign up with Bluehost or Hostinger using our referral link, then we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain + SSL certificate). We would get this commission for recommending just about any WordPress hosting service, but we only recommend products that we use personally and believe will add value to our readers.

Once you have signed up for hosting, the next step is to install WordPress. Luckily, Bluehost already comes with WordPress pre-installed, so you can simply move on to the next step.

Step 2: Sign Up for an Email Service Provider

Next, the most important thing you’ll need to start your paid email newsletter is an email marketing service provider so you can collect email addresses and send emails to your subscribers.

These services specialize in sending mass emails using proper mailing techniques. This ensures that your newsletter emails don’t end up in spam.

We recommend using Kit (formerly ConvertKit) to create a paid newsletter. It’s a robust email marketing platform for bloggers, authors, and marketers. It’s easy to use and has all the features you need to create a paid email newsletter.

You can use our Kit coupon for WPBeginner readers to get a 14-day free trial with no credit card needed.

First, you need to go to the Kit website and click the ‘Start free trial’ button to sign up for a plan.

This will bring you to a screen where you’ll answer a few questions about your business to get started.

This will bring you to a screen where you’ll need to enter your name, an email address, and a password. Then, click the ‘Get started’ button.

Keep this screen open since you’ll need your account information in the next step below.

Note: This tutorial would work with other email marketing platforms as well, including Constant Contact, Drip, MailChimp, etc. But we will be using Kit for our example.

Step 3: Add Membership Functionality to Your Email Newsletter

After you’ve signed up for an email marketing provider, you need a way to process payments and add premium membership functionality to your email newsletter.

While Kit has a built-in way to create a premium newsletter and accept payments, it’s only available on the Creator Pro plan, which costs 3x more than the regular plan. While the price does get less expensive the more you grow, you always pay a higher transaction fee.

This is why we recommend using a separate WordPress membership plugin because it removes the extra transaction fees and gives you the flexibility to sell other digital goods like courses, eBooks, and more.

For setting up memberships in WordPress, we recommend using MemberPress. It’s the best WordPress membership plugin on the market that lets you easily sell newsletter subscriptions on your website.

To learn more, see our detailed MemberPress review.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the MemberPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve activated the plugin, go to MemberPress » Settings and click on the ‘License’ menu option to enter your license key. You can find this information in your account on the MemberPress website.

Simply copy and paste your license key, and then click on the ‘Activate License Key’ button.

Once you’ve done that, you need to set up a way to receive payments.

Unlike Substack, MemberPress does not require you to use a particular payment gateway. it supports several popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, and more.

To add a payment method, go to MemberPress » Settings, click on the ‘Payments’ tab, and then click the ‘Plus’ button.

You must enter a name for the payment method and then select your payment gateway from the drop-down menu.

MemberPress will now ask you to fill in the details for that payment method.

For example, for standard PayPal payments, you need to enter your PayPal email address.

If you want to add multiple payment methods for your subscribers, then simply click the ‘Plus’ icon and follow the same process as above.

Once you’re finished adding payment options, click the ‘Update Options’ button to save your settings.

Step 4: Create a Paid Email Subscription Plan and Sign Up Page

Now that you’ve set up the plugin, it’s time to create a paid subscription plan that your users can join. To do this, you’ll need to create a membership level in MemberPress.

Simply navigate to MemberPress » Memberships and click the ‘Add New’ button.

This brings you to a screen where you need to give your membership plan a name and set the price in the ‘Membership Terms’ meta box.

A sign-up page will automatically be created when you create a membership level. So, the text you add to this page will appear when your users are about to sign up.

For this tutorial, we’ve named the plan ‘Premium Subscription’ and set the price to $5 per month.

With MemberPress, you have complete control over the membership details. You can set the price, duration, payment terms, and more.

Most premium email newsletters will charge monthly, but you can decide to use ‘Recurring’ or ‘One-time’ billing. You can choose from weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or a custom time interval for recurring payments.

You can also set a free trial period so your subscribers can try your newsletter before they decide to buy.

The ‘Membership Options’ box below the post editor offers even more options to customize your membership plan.

The default settings will work in most cases, but you can still review them to see if you’d like to change them.

We recommend checking the ‘Enable custom thank you page message’ box.

Then, select the ‘Enable custom thank you message’ radio button.

This brings up a drop-down where you can enter a custom thank you message for your visitors. You can also choose to redirect subscribers to a custom thank you page as well.

Once you are done, click on the ‘Publish’ button to save your membership plan.

Some users might also want to create a completely custom registration page for their email subscribers. This lets you create an attractive design that will convert more visitors into customers.

To create a custom signup page, you can use a drag-and-drop page builder.

We recommend using SeedProd because it’s really easy to use, and there is a free version available.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a landing page with WordPress.

Note: To add your registration form to a custom SeedProd landing page, you need to use the following shortcode to display your sign-up form.

[mepr-membership-registration-form id="6492"]

You need to replace the ID with the ID for your membership page. You can find this in the URL for your page.

Another option you may want to consider is making your signup page the homepage of your WordPress site. This is a great option if your website’s only purpose is to get signups for your paid newsletter.

To do this, simply go to Settings » Reading. Then, click the ‘A static page’ radio button.

After that, choose your page from the ‘Homepage:’ drop-down list.

Once you’ve done that, click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.

Now, your visitors will see your premium newsletter sign-up form the moment they land on your website.

Alternatively, you can add your registration page to your navigation menu. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress.

Step 5: Connect Kit with MemberPress in WordPress

Now that you’ve created a membership plan and registration page, it’s time to connect Kit (ConvertKit) to MemberPress so that your new members will automatically be added to your email list.

To do this, you’ll need the ConvertKit addon. You can download this from your account on the MemberPress website by logging in to your account and clicking the ‘Downloads’ tab.

From here, you can find the available downloads for your MemberPress account.

Simply scroll down to find ‘ConvertKit’, and click on it to download the addon.

After that, you can install and activate the addon the same way you installed the MemberPress plugin above.

Once that’s installed, simply go to the MemberPress » Settings page and click on the ‘Marketing’ tab, and then check the box that says ‘Enable ConvertKit’.

This brings up a drop-down where you need to enter your API key. You can find this under your account settings on the Kit website.

You can also select a tag from the ‘ConvertKit Tag’ drop-down. This will automatically tag new subscribers who sign up for your premium newsletter.

Then click the ‘Update Options’ button.

Now, your visitors can sign up for your premium email newsletter.

Once they sign up and complete their subscription, they’ll automatically be added to your list in Kit, where you can send your premium newsletter.

Final Thoughts: Creating a Profitable Premium Newsletter in WordPress

The best part about using WordPress and MemberPress to create your premium newsletter is that you’re not reliant on a single email marketing platform.

We recommended Kit because it has powerful automation features and good email deliverability.

However, this tutorial will work with any email marketing platform that integrates with MemberPress, including Constant Contact, AWeber, Drip, GetResponse, Keap, MailChimp, Active Campaign, and more.

This method’s flexibility allows you to enjoy WordPress’s true freedom without being locked into a single email marketing platform.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a paid newsletter in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert picks of the best web push notification software and our guide on how to get a free email domain.

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